Today is the 52nd birthday of Jeff Cioletti, president of Drinkable Media and Editor-at-Large for Beverage World magazine. He’s been covering the business of beer for quite a long while. I run into Jeff at numerous industry events, and we’ve taken a press trip to Belgium. Join me in wishing Jeff a very happy birthday.
Historic Beer Birthday: Robert Portner
Today is the birthday of Robert Portner (March 20, 1837-May 28, 1906). He was born in Rahden, Westphalia, in what today is Germany. He emigrated to America when he was 16, in 1853. He worked at several professions before becoming a successful grocer in Washington, D.C. area, and then bought a brewery in Alexandria, naming it the Robert Portner Brewing Co., though it later traded under the name “Tivoli Brewery.” By the 1890s, it was the largest brewery in the
Here’s a short biography from Find-a-Grave:
Beer brewer, inventor, and businessman in Alexandria, Virginia and Washington, D.C. His brewery was considered to be one of the largest in the south prior to Prohibition. He also invented two machines for his brewery, and later combined them to form an early form of air conditioning for his summer estate, Annaburg, in Manassas. He was survived by his wife Anna and ten of his thirteen children.
And this is his obituary, from an unknown source:
MR. PORTNER DEAD
He Passes Away at Annaburg, his Beloved Country Home.
Mr. Robert Portner, a retired merchant and capitalist of Washington and Manassas died Monday after noon at 4:45 o’clock at “Annaburg,” his country home here. Mr. Portner had been in ill health for more than a year, and death came as the result of bronchial trouble.
He left his city home, 1410 Sixteenth street, Northwest, Sunday, May 20, for Manassas and was taken ill here the following Tuesday and died on the 28th inst.
Robert Portner was born March 20, 1837, at Rahden, Westphalia, Prussia. His military education was received in the Prussian school of Annaburg, Saxony. He came to this country in 1853 and held various clerical positions and was also engaged in the manufacture of tobacco, inventing a new cigarette paper. At the beginning of the war he moved to Washington to establish a wholesale grocery business but not finding the field a likely one he moved to Alexandria, Va., where he established a grocery business. Later he became the owner of a small brewery, and sold supplies to the sutlers of both armies. The brewery industry [?] until, in 1883, he incorporated the Robert Portner Brewing Company of Alexandria. The National Capital Brewing Company of Washington was later organized, and Mr. Portner became vice president.
Mr. Portner always took an active interest in the growth and development of Manassas and was a liberal contributor in all beneficent undertakings. The magnificent hotel here, The Prince William, is an illustration of his kind interest in the town and the people of this section.
The first successful machine for artificial refrigeration with direct ammonia expansion was invented by him in 1873. He was the founder of three building and loan associations in Alexandria, of the Alexandria ship yard, and of the German Banking Company of which he was president.
Among the other institutions in which he was interested are the National Bank of Washington, the American Security and Trust Company, the Riggs Fire Insurance Company, the Virginia Midland Railway, the National Bank of Manassas, Va., and the Capital Construction Company of Washington. In 1880-1881 he was president of the United States Brewers’ Association. He removed to Washington in 1881, and among his large holdings of real estate are the Portner flats, the first apartment house to be erected in that city.
Mr. Portner’s summer home, “Annaburg,” a part of which is in the corporation of Manassas, consists of an estate of 2,500 acres, formerly a celebrated battle ground for both armies. On this tract he had erected a castle similar to those found along the Rhine of his native country. He is survived by a wife and ten children , all of whom were at his bed side during his last hours. The children are as follows: Edward, Alvin, Paul, Oscar, Hermann, Etta, Anna, Elsa, Hildegard and Mrs. Alma Koehler.
The funeral was held privately at his home here at 3:30 o’clock, Wednesday and was conducted by the chaplain of Manasseh lodge, A. F. & A. M. Julius Koehler, a son in law of Mr. Portner, and five sons, Edward, Alvin, Paul, Oscar and Hermann, acted as pallbearers. His remains were laid to rest with masonic ceremonies in the cemetery, near town, where rest two of his children.
In 1890, Portner, along with the combined efforts of some brewing partners, established the National Capital Brewery Company in D.C.:
The National Capital Brewery Company is a combination of the firms of Albert Carry, Robert Portner and the Robert Portner Brewing Company, the latter selling out the Washington branch of the business. The capital stock of the company is $500,000, all paid up. The company has been in operation since last November [1890], but has been supplying from its new brewery only since June. The officers of the company are as follows: Albert Carry, president; C. A. Strangmann, secretary and treasurer. Directors: Albert Carry, Robert Portner, John L. Vogt, John D. Bartlett, Charles Carry, C. A. Strangmann, Frank P.Madigan.
A brewery that turns out 100,000 barrels of first-class pure beer every year for local consumption solely is a big institution for any city, and yet Washington has recently had just such an addition made to its business enterprises in the National Capital Brewery. Organized by Washington men, officered by Washington men, and with every share of its stock owned here at home, it would seem to be a local enterprise first last and all the time.
This business is the result of the combination of two of the oldest and most successful breweries in this part of the country, and that the new firm will be even more successful is a foregone conclusion. People who have had occasion recently to traverse D street southeast have noticed a splendid new building on the south side of the street between 13th and 14th streets. This is the new home of the National Capital Brewing Company, and it is by long odds one of the most substantial and imposing buildings of the sort to be found anywhere. Although it has been completed hardly more than a month, it has about it already that well-kept appearance and air of bustling activity that always denote prosperity following upon enterprise.
This fine new building, standing as it does in a very desirable location for such a business, with almost an entire block of ground about it, is a five-story structure of brick with handsome stone trimmings and surrounded by a graceful cupola. It covers a plot of ground 94 by 136 feet, and owing to the unusual height of the several stories the building itself is quite as high as an ordinary seven or eight-story building. Attached to the main building are several roomy and substantial outbuildings, including an engine house, stable and cooperage shop, all pleasing in appearance and forming a handsome group.
To make a good pure quality of beer for local use so that it can be drawn from wood and not adulterated with any chemical whatsoever in order to make of it a “beer that keeps well,” this is the purpose of the National Capital Brewing Company. They do not make beer for shipment, and hence their beer is not treated with any salicylic acid or deleterious substances that are sometimes used with bottled beer to keep it clear and lively.
Pure beer is generally considered a healthful drink. The president of the National Capital Brewing Company told a STAR reporter that any person with a proper interest in the matter might take the keys of the entire establishment at any time, go through it thoroughly, and if he found anything at all used in the making of their beer that was not pure and wholesome the company would give him $1,000.
Beer drawn from the wood is almost certain to be a purer and better quality of beer than the bottled. The National Capital Brewing Company does not bottle. It serves its customers fresh every day with beer that has reached its prime in the immense cooling rooms of the brewery. F. H. Finley & Son, the bottlers, however, have a contract with the company for 20,000 barrels a year of their pale extra beer, and this they bottle and serve to customers in Washington. They get their beer early every morning, as
needed, so that people who buy the bottled variety of the National Capital Company’s beer are usingbeer that left the huge casks at the brewery that very day. J. F. Hermann & Son, Wm. H Brinkleyand Jas. A Bailey also acts asagent for the company.A STAR reporter, accompanied by Mr. Albert Carry, president of the brewing company, recently made a complete inspection of the buildings of the brewery, spending several hours seeing how beer is manufactured from the time it comes in in the form of malt and the raw materials until it leaves the building a clear, cool, foaming beverage inclosed in stout kegs and casks. How much beer there is that leaves the building may be judged when the statement is made that the company uses 10,000 kegs and barrels of all sizes simply in supplying the Washington trade. Nine huge wagons and thirty big horses are used steadily in carrying beer from the brewery to the consumers
.
I n truth this is no small business. But what strikes the visitor, be he a casual or an interested one, first and most forcibly of all is the absolute cleanliness and neatness that prevails everywhere. The walls and stairways, for the most part of stone and iron – for the building is fireproof throughout – and the floors are all of iron or concrete and immaculate. On all sides there is hot and cold running water, and indeed the wards of a hospital could scarcely be cleaner or more orderly than the various departments of this brewery. There are no secret chambers into which one may not go. Everything is open and above board, and the fact that the company has no objections to the beer consumer examining every branch of its manufacture is a pretty good sign that they know that everything is honest and fair.As a proof of this the company intends giving a public tour Tuesday, July 28, from 8 to 8 p.m., when everything will be in running order and everybody is invited to visit the brewery and inspect it thoroughly from cellar to roof. A handsome luncheon, consisting of all the delicacies of the season, will be spread. Everything will be free, and the National Capital Brewing Company intend to prove that they are as liberal in their hospitality as they are enterprising in their business. It is needless to say that beer will be plentiful and none need to go to bed thirsty Tuesday night.
Connecting the main building with the engine house is a handsome arched gateway leading into the big
court yard , where the wagons stand while they are being loaded. The entrance to the offices is through this gateway. The offices consist of a number of connecting rooms on the main floor in the northwest corner of the building. They are handsomely finished inoak, and are fitted with the most improved office furniture for the convenience of the officers of the company and the corps of bookkeepers and clerks required to transact such an immense volume of business. Opening from the main office and adjoining it is the ice machine room, containing an ice machine with a refrigerating capacity of fifty tons and an eighty-horse-power steam engine, used for grinding and mashing malt and for general hoisting purposes. The ice machine on that hot summer day was almost covered in with ice and snow, and infact the temperature of the larger part of the brewery is kept down in the neighborhood of freezing point all the time. On the second floor is an immense refrigerating room, and separated from it by an iron door is a room for cleaning and automatically weighing malt, and arranged on the principle of a grain elevator is astore room for malt with a capacity of 20,000 tons. On the third floor is a great copper kettle holding 300 barrels of new boiling beer. The fourth floor is used for hot and cold water tanks and above is a tank for fire purposes. After boiling in the kettle for seven hours the beer is pumped up, strained and left to cool in a big tank under the roof, where a cool current of air blows constantly. To the rear and on the fourth floor is a big store room and a patent cooler. The beer from the tanks above runs down over coils and is cooled to 40 degrees. This and the rooms below are all 76×94 feet and feel like a cold day in midwinter. On the floor below is the fermenting room, and here the beer stays for two weeks in sixty-five tubs, each holding seventy barrels.After the beer is through fermenting it is piped down below into huge vats, each of a 240-barrel capacity, and here it stays in the rest casks for three or four months, beer four months old being about the best. On the floor below a little new beer is added to give the necessary foam, and after being given about three weeks to clarify it is sent by air pressure into the filling room, where it is run into barrels and kegs ready to be loaded onto the wagons. In neighboring rooms a dozen men are busy all the time cleaning, washing and scouring the kegs so there is no chance for any impurities to mar the flavor of the Golden Eagle and the Capuciner beers.
A few years later, in 1893, he opened a branch of the Robert Portner Brewery in Roanoke, Virginia.
And this thorough history is from Boundary Stones, WETA’s Local History Blog:
The history of brewing beer in the United States is a rich and storied one. Cities like St. Louis, Missouri and Milwaukee, Wisconsin resonate with most beer drinkers across the country as centers for American brewing. For Virginia residents, you might not realize how close Alexandria, Virginia came to being one of those brewing capitals. From the closing years of the Civil War until prohibition turned Virginia into a dry state, the Robert Portner Brewing Company was the leading brewery and distributor in the southeastern United States. Led by its visionary namesake, the Portner Brewing Company became the largest business in Alexandria and remains a fascinating tale of innovation.
In 1853, Robert Portner immigrated to America from Westphalia, Prussia. A natural businessman from the start, Portner spent eight years in business ventures before opening a small grocery store in 1861 with his friend and fellow immigrant Frederick Recker. Within a year, Portner & Recker’s Grocery Store earned over $10,000 and became the largest grocery in Alexandria. At the time, Portner showed no signs of interest in starting a brewing company. Unfortunately, it would take the violence of the Civil War to bring him into his famous business.
With the quartering of Union troops in Alexandria during the course of the war, demands for alcohol grew. Portner recognized this trend, gathering three other investors to design plans around their own small brewery. This business venture came at an advantageous time for Portner. In 1862, sales of alcohol were banned in Alexandria by the military governor of the city, mainly due to the public drunkenness and general sloppiness of the Union troops stationed there. Portner mentions some of the conditions in his memoirs:
“Soldiers who had consumed their quota of drink tumbled onto the streets and into the hands of guards, who marched them to the slave pen. On February 3, more than 125 men were arrested. The following night, 100 other rowdies sobered behind bars. Authorities policed the city as best they could by putting prostrated men in wheelbarrows and pushing them over rutted streets…”
Though businesses who sold hard liquors suffered under these new regulations, the beer industry thrived, as
beer was thought to be less intoxicating and generally harmless to consume.Another factor that contributed to the rise of beer consumption was the growing popularity of lager beer. Lagers were native to Germany and Austria before being brought to the United States with the wave of German immigrants in the
nineteenth-century . Lagers were lighter and more refreshing than American ales, making them a natural fit for the hot and humid summer months. Unfortunately, the yeast used to make lagers requires cooler temperatures, limiting the brewing of lagers to the cooler months of the year.As sales continued to grow, Portner sold his share in his grocery business and bought out the shares of his three brewing investors, becoming the sole owner of the newly named Robert Portner Brewing Company in 1865—it could not have been a worse time.
By the summer of 1865, the Civil War was over and federal troops began evacuating Alexandria. Suddenly,
demand for alcoholic beverages within the city plummeted. Portner’s factory was now filled with barrels of unsold beer and thousands of dollars of raw materials waiting to be used. To make matters worse, Portner’sbrew master left the company to pursue his own business ventures. While Portner was a successful businessman, he knew very little about the brewing process in these early years. Determined to never be beholden to abrew master again, Portner taught himself as much as he could about the brewing process. He gained insight into brewing theory from Carl Wolters, who Portner would soon hire as his newbrew master . The two men would spend ten to twelve hours a day for months testing and experimenting in order to produce the perfect lager beer.With the death of Robert Portner in 1906, the weight of external pressures began to mount on the company. To combat the negative campaigns against alcohol and alcohol distributors, Robert Portner Brewing, along with many other brewers, began extolling the good qualities of their beer. Portner beers were “the best of tonics” and
recommended “by physicians to all sufferers from nervous and weakening ailments.” It was claimed that the contents of one bottle of Tivoli Hofbrau would “frequently produce the most refreshing sleep, even in severe cases of insomnia.” Portner Brewing also began experimenting with non-alcoholic beverages or “near beers” and opening soda-only distribution lines in Virginia.
To aid in this process, Portner created what would become the first practical artificial cooling and ice-making machines in July of 1880. Prior to this, natural ice and cooling cellars were the only way to provide refrigeration on a large scale. Portner’s cooling device worked by direct ammonia expansion, where a solution of liquefied ammonia and water ran through pipes along walls and ceilings. As this solution rapidly changed into
gas it drew heat and moisture from the surrounding air, cooling it. Smaller-scale cooling and ice-making machines existed prior to Portner’s, but his contributions worked on a large scale and were heralded as the first practical designs by trade magazines. His designs would later contribute to modern day air-conditioning technology. With Portner’s innovation, the brewing and transport of lager beer no longer remained limited to the cooler months—it now became a year-long process. So while cooling off indoors during the hot and humid summers of the Washington area with a cool glass or bottle of lager, tip your hat to the memory of Robert Portner. Together, Portner and Wolters would test and reformulate different brews for taste and consistency.Their experiments with lager beers paid off with two of Portner’s most famous blends, the Tivoli Hofbrau and Tivoli Cabinet (Tivoli being “I Lov It” spelled backwards). Within ten years, Portner Brewing Company’s sales tripled. With a majority of demand coming from southern states, Portner opened branch offices and bottling plants throughout Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. Beers shipped in refrigerated train cars with ice created from the Alexandria plant’s thirty-ton capacity ice maker, reaching great distances without spoilage. Soon nearly every restaurant and hotel across the South and the Mid-Atlantic served Robert Portner beers in their establishments. In 1890, plans were underway to build a new brewery and distribution center in Washington, D.C., at the southeast corner of Thirteenth Street and Maryland Avenue southwest. The Robert Portner Brewing Company was on its way to becoming one of the nation’s leading beer distributors.
All good things eventually come to an end, and the Robert Portner Brewing Company faced two big challenges in the early twentieth-century that it couldn’t recover from the growing movement of prohibition in Virginia and the death of Robert Portner in 1906. Prohibition movements were strong in Virginia in the years following the Civil War, with local churches and numerous “temperance” conventions denouncing peddlers of alcohol. Early movements called for the enforcement of “Sunday laws” to prevent the sale of alcohol on the Sabbath. Statewide efforts to license and regulate saloons began springing up in the early twentieth century, causing high prices on alcohol and large licensing fees barring entry to prospective distributors and
saloon owners.
The movement towards prohibition couldn’t be stopped, and a petition drive called for a statewide referendum on the banning of alcoholic beverages. Held on September 22nd, 1914, the referendum passed by nearly 35,000 votes. With this, Virginia would become a dry state on November 1st, 1916. With nowhere left to turn, the Robert Portner Brewing Company ended their production of alcoholic beverages and converted their warehouse space over to a wholesale feed business, handling stock for dairy and poultry feed. Though there was talk of a Robert Portner Brewing revival when the prohibition of alcohol sales ended in 1933, nothing came of it. The two main brewing houses in Alexandria and Washington were demolished and the Robert Portner Corporation dissolved in 1936.
A century after its doors closed in 1916, the Portner beer legacy in Alexandria may yet return. Robert Portner’s great-great grandchildren Catherine and Margaret Portner look to revive their namesake’s vision when they open the Portner Brewhouse in the Van Dorn neighborhood of Alexandria in the summer of 2016. Not only serving as a brewery and restaurant, the Portner sisters look to create a testing kitchen for aspiring brewers, allowing them to “work on a recipe, see it sold and collect feedback and sales data on their own creation.” Much like how Robert Portner and Carl Wolters labored over their creations, the Portner sisters are offering that same opportunity to hopeful brewers. With this revival, Alexandria and the surrounding area will be able to relive the legacy of Robert Portner and Alexandria’s history as a pre-prohibition brewing capital.
More recently, Robert Portner’s great-granddaughter, Catherine Porter, along with two siblings, has opened a new brewery with the family name, the Portner Brewhouse, a modern brewpub in Alexandria, Virginia. Before opening, graduate business education website Poets & Quants featured her in My Story: From A Brewing Legacy to A Babson MBA:
Even though I never met my great-great grandfather, his legacy is alive in our family and his success well-documented. As a grocery store owner in Alexandria, Virginia, he provided provisions to the Union troops during the Civil War. Beer and other alcoholic beverages were profitable and in great demand by the soldiers and local citizens since lack of transport, restrictions, and guards at the Potomac River crossings made these commodities hard to come by.
Robert Portner paid close attention to what his customers wanted and seized the opportunity to open his first brewery. It was not long before he left the grocery business and focused all of his energy on expanding the brewery operations, creating outposts that stretched from Virginia to Florida.
Like a true entrepreneur, he was also an innovator. The beer needed to stay cold, so my great-great grandfather invented a way to keep it at the right temperature during shipping and transport. He devised a unique system of refrigerated rail cars which became an early prototype for air conditioning, something unheard-of at the time.
My great-great grandfather’s business was based entirely on the production and sale of beer. Together with two of my siblings, I hope to duplicate his success, but with a modern twist: a brewery restaurant set to open by early 2014. At Portner Brewhouse, we will brew original recipes from The Robert Portner Brewing Company with a few small adjustments for today’s palette. In addition to the old favorites, we will brew five other beers including house seasonal recipes and recipes from our Craft Beer Test Kitchen (CBTK).
The CBTK provides brewers at all stages the opportunity to rapid-prototype beer recipes in a live test market. The recipes will be brewed and served at Portner Brewhouse, then our staff will collect feedback and sales data from the brewpub patrons and provide the data back to the brewer. Just as Robert Portner was able to achieve the “American Dream,” we hope that we can assist others in the industry with similar aspirations.
The restaurant’s food and décor will contain a mix of American and German influences plus Robert Portner Brewing Company artifacts such as bottles, cork screws, and advertisements that ran in local newspapers.
And this is his obituary from the Brewers’ Journal:
Deschutes Announces New Brewery In Virginia
In the rumor mill for several months, today Deschutes Brewing of Bend, Oregon announced that they’ll be building a second brewery in Roanoke, Virginia. They’ve set up a separate page for information about the new facility in Roanoke. Here’s the press release:
Deschutes Brewery announced its much anticipated decision on an east coast location today at an event in downtown Roanoke, Virginia. The growing brewery, which was founded in Oregon in 1988 by Gary Fish, has explored hundreds of potential locations in the region over the last two years. The company selected Roanoke based on several criteria including a culture and community that fit well with Deschutes’ decades-deep roots.
“We started Deschutes Brewery when craft beer wasn’t burgeoning and led with a beer style that wasn’t popular at the time – Black Butte Porter,” said Gary Fish, CEO and founder of the brewery. “This pioneering approach was a key driver behind our decision to go with Roanoke, as that same spirit exists in this community and its fast-growing beer culture.”
The future Roanoke facility has been lovingly dubbed “Brew 4” as it takes its place in line after the original Bend, Oregon public house (Brew 1), the brewery’s production facility in Bend (Brew 2) and the Portland, Oregon public house (Brew 3). Brew 4 will be located at the eastern edge of Roanoke with construction on the site beginning in 2019. Eventually, a little over 100 new jobs will be created for the region, and the new brewery will produce approximately 150,000 barrels to start, with a design to increase capacity as needed. Deschutes expects to start shipping beer from the Roanoke location in about five years.
“Roanoke is honored to be chosen as Deschutes Brewery’s East Coast location after a very thorough review of several communities in the Southeast,” said Roanoke City Manager Chris Morrill. “It is a company with a strong culture of community engagement, recognized for its craftsmanship and will be a perfect fit for Roanoke’s vibrant outdoor lifestyle. We are thrilled to welcome Deschutes as we continue to build a diverse, resilient economy.”
Deschutes Brewery chose to add an east coast location after the company’s distribution footprint (which currently includes 28 states and the District of Columbia) reached the east coast. By having a production facility on the eastern seaboard, the brewery will be able to deliver beers – such as its flagship Black Butte Porter – to states east of the Mississippi quickly and more sustainably.
Michael LaLonde, president of Deschutes Brewery, who was an integral part of the east coast location selection team, said, “Although it was a tough decision – we loved so many of the communities that we visited over the past two years – we are very excited to be heading to Roanoke. We love the region and everyone we’ve had the opportunity to meet and work with during this process has been incredible. We have absolutely been blown away with how the community rallied around bringing us here and has given us such a warm welcome. #Deschutes2Rke we’re on our way and proud to be able to now call Roanoke our second home.”
Beer In Ads #1763: He’s Earned It
Friday’s holiday ad is for Work Beer, from 2010. Work appears to be a contract brewer in Richmond, Virginia that started in 1999. For this Christmas ad, Santa’s relaxing after his workday with a case of beer plus an additional six-pack. In the bottom right of the ad it gives a pretty good synopsis of why he’s earned his case of beer:
Each year Santa delivers toys to 378 million children. To get the job done before any little girl or boy wakes up, Santa must travel 3,000 times the speed of sound pulling a sleigh that weights 321,300 tons. In 31 hours he must visit 91.8 million homes, allowing him to spend 1/1000th of a second at each home.
It sure beats milk and cookies.
Paper or Plastic & Beer
Here’s an odd little story from Virginia, sent in by an alert reader (thanks Jeff). In many places, there’s a growing debate about plastic bags, paper bags or no bags at the grocery store. In Virginia, there currently is no law regarding them, but that hasn’t stopped stores all along the southeastern coast of Virginia — an area known as Hampton Roads — from insisting that customers get a plastic bag, if they’re buying beer, that is. It’s not the law, of course, as confirmed by Kathleen Shaw, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
According to a story in the local Daily Press, apparently “[c]ashiers are either erroneously told by their employer that Virginia requires them to bag alcohol or they mistakenly equate store policy to state law. Either way, beer is bagged at nearly every supermarket and convenience store in Hampton Roads.” As the article, entitled The ABCs of plastic bags and beer shopping in Virginia, points out, in many places outside the area, stores are actually prohibited from using plastic bags, while still others champion their use.
But whether you think plastic, paper or your own bag is the way to go at the grocery store, that’s not what caught my eye. It’s the notion that it’s “beer” that has to be covered before it leaves the store. As for why that might be the case, multiple 7-11 franchise owner Raj Gupta, had this to say: “it’s convenient for the customer [and] it deters customers from drinking alcohol in the store parking lot.” Uh-huh. Whether it’s more “convenient” is debatable, and a bit beside the point if it’s mandatory at all of his stores. And as for deterring customers from ripping open the thin plastic bag and starting to drink in the parking lot, I can’t believe placing the six-pack into a bag is really going to do much good. Gupta certainly doesn’t care about the environment, as he also states. “If they don’t want the bag, they can throw it out in the trash can when they leave the store.” And then start drinking it, one presumes, which is what he was claiming the bag prevented.
But since those reasons are as flimsy as the plastic the bags are made out of, it seems more likely it’s his third reason why “he requires cashiers to bag six-packs, bottles of wine, and single cans and bottles of alcohol.” And it’s a doozy. “[I]t prevents minors from seeing people carrying alcohol.” Holy crime wave, Batman, thank goodness Gupta’s on the scene. We wouldn’t want the little kiddies “seeing people carrying alcohol.” Goodness knows what untold harm that might cause. He doesn’t mind selling alcohol, but he doesn’t want children seeing it. If parents bring their children into his stores, do employees have to cover the kid’s eyes? Or is alcohol on a shelf safe; it’s only dangerous when an adult is carrying it? Or when it’s outside the sanctuary of the store.
Yes, I’m making fun of him, but only because he deserves it. Yes, he’s free to run his stores any way he sees fit, just as anyone is free to not shop at any of his stores. But it points out a deeper issue, which is that he has some weird, unhealthy issues with alcohol. They’re obviously deep enough that he believes that children seeing adults carrying alcohol is such a problem that he’d make it his “company policy” to avoid it happening. As I pointed out, not enough of an issue that he’d voluntarily stop selling alcohol, but still. Why that might be, I can’t fathom, but I’m curious enough to want to know. It has to have something to with the way alcohol is demonized by certain factions of our society. It has to have something to do with our society only hearing one side of the story, with neo-prohibitionist groups spreading their biased propaganda, and doing everything in their power to prevent anyone else from having their say, telling the opposite side of that tale. How else to explain a businessman who sells alcohol believing it’s in his best interests to make sure that children don’t get the idea that people buy alcohol. What possible benefit could he derive from that “company policy?” Frankly, I’m stumped. I can’t think of one reason that’s not fanatical, based on erroneous information or just plain looney.
Virginia Beer
Today in 1788, Virginia became the 10th state.
Virginia
Virginia Breweries
- Anheuser-Busch InBev Williamsburg
- Beach Brewing
- Beaver Run Brewery
- Big Daddy’s Brewing
- Black Couch Brewery
- Blacksburg Brewing
- Blue & Gray Brewing
- Blue Mountain Brewery and Hops Farm
- Bull & Bones Brewhaus & Grill
- Cally’s Restaurant & Brewing
- Capitol City Brewing
- Coors Brewing/Shenandoah Brewery
- Creek Bottom Brewing
- Devils Backbone Brewing
- Extra Billy’s Steak & B-B-Q
- Gordon Biersch Brewing
- Griffin Tavern
- Holy Brew Brewing Company
- Hops Grillhouse & Brewery
- James River Brewing
- Jefferson Street Brewery
- Kegler’s of Charlottesville
- Knight’s Head Brewing
- Legend Brewing
- Lost Rhino Brewing
- Mad Fox Brewing
- O’Connor Brewing
- Piccadilly’s Brew Pub & Restaurant
- Port City Brewing
- Queen City Brewing (BOP)
- The River Company Restaurant and Brewery
- Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery
- Roanoke Railhouse Brewery
- Saint George Brewing
- Shenandoah Brewing
- Shooting Creek Farm Brewery
- South Street Brewery
- Starr Hill Brewing
- Sweetwater Tavern
- Vintage 50
- Virginia Brewing
- Williamsburg AleWerks
- Wild Wolf Brewing
- Wolf Hills Brewing
Virginia Brewery Guides
Guild: Virginia Craft Brewers Guild
State Agency: Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control
- Capital: Richmond
- Largest Cities: Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Richmond, Newport News
- Population: 7,078,515; 12th
- Area: 42769 sq.mi., 35th
- Nickname: Old Dominion State
- Statehood: 10th, June 25, 1788
- Alcohol Legalized: April 12, 1933
- Number of Breweries: 37
- Rank: 18th
- Beer Production: 5,251,800
- Production Rank: 11th
- Beer Per Capita: 21 Gallons
Package Mix:
- Bottles: 45.8%
- Cans: 45.8%
- Kegs: 8.2%
Beer Taxes:
- Per Gallon: $0.26
- Per Case: $0.64
- Tax Per Barrel (24/12 Case): $7.95
- Draught Tax Per Barrel (in Kegs): $7.95
- Per barrel rate for packaged beer is based upon the actual per barrel rate as defined by state statute, rather than the Virginia 24/12 equivalent rate, which is a higher rate.
Economic Impact (2010):
- From Brewing: $1,017,828,228
- Direct Impact: $2,374,629,810
- Supplier Impact: $1,390,245,260
- Induced Economic Impact: $1,504,607,057
- Total Impact: $5,269,482,127
Legal Restrictions:
- Control State: No
- Sale Hours: On Premises: 6 a.m.–2 a.m. No restrictions at any time for club licensees.
Off Premises: 6 a.m.–11:59 p.m. - Grocery Store Sales: Yes
- Notes: Licensed supermarkets, convenience stores, and gas stations may sell beer and wine. Off-premises sales no later than 12 a.m. Numerous dry counties exist.
Data complied, in part, from the Beer Institute’s Brewer’s Almanac 2010, Beer Serves America, the Brewers Association, Wikipedia and my World Factbook. If you see I’m missing a brewery link, please be so kind as to drop me a note or simply comment on this post. Thanks.
For the remaining states, see Brewing Links: United States.
Beer In Art #93: Matt Dembicki’s Brewmaster’s Castle
Today’s featured artwork is thoroughly modern, but on an old-time subject. It’s about the mansion built by Washington D.C. beer mogul Christian Heurich, who was born today in 1825. It’s a twenty-page independent comic book with a story by Matt Dembicki and art by Andew Cohen. Entitled The Brewmaster’s Castle, the story takes place March 7, 1945 as an 102-year old Heurich takes a bittersweet final stroll through the mansion he built between 1892-94. Here’s page 1:
The actual building still stands, known today as the Christian Heurich House Museum it’s billed as “Washington’s Most Intact Late-Victorian House” and described as follows:
One of Washington’s best-kept secrets, The Brewmaster’s Castle is the most intact late-Victorian home in the country, and a Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places.
Built in 1892-1894 of poured concrete and reinforced steel by German immigrant, local brewer and philanthropist, Christian Heurich (HI-rick), it is also the city’s first fireproof home.
Heurich was Washington’s second largest landowner, the largest private employer in the nation’s capital, and as the world’s oldest brewer, ran his brewery until his death at 102.
A visit to The Brewmaster’s Castle is a visit back in time to the late-19th Century, when the Heurich family was in residence in Washington’s premier residential neighborhood.
Here’s what the mansion looks like today.
But back to the comic book. Here, Christian Heurich strolls through his mansion.
And near the end of the story, Heurich begins turning out the lights.
The original Christian Heurich Brewery opened in 1873 but was closed in 1956 by Christian Heurich, Jr., who took over the brewery after his father died in 1945. Where the brewery stood is now the site of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In 1986, Christian Heurich, Jr.’s son Gary Heurich started Olde Heurich Brewing, an early D.C. microbrewery that lasted twenty years, closing in 2006.
You can buy your own copy of the comic book for only $5 (plus $1 shipping) directly from the author. You can pay him directly via PayPal using his e-mail address of mattdembicki (@) gmail (.) com. He’s “hoping [they] might get some funds soon to print a larger run and get greater distribution. You can help. Support the arts and brewing history (not to mention independent comics) — all worthy causes IMHO — by buying this unique hand-crafted comic directly from the artist. Below is the cover.
RustyCans.com has more on Heurich’s history.
Beer In Art #40: Emily Zasada’s Beer Paintings
This Sunday’s work of art is by a contemporary artist from Virginia who often paints wine, in fact so much so that her domain name is winepaintin.gs. Her name is Emily Zasada, and she’s also done a couple of paintings of beer, too. The painting below is a still life called Beer, Typewriter and Key
From her biography at her website:
Why realism?
I’m not sure. I’m not a patient person, so even I don’t always understand why I’ve chosen to focus on this type of art. But the details of objects fill our lives; they’re background players and constant companions, even though they’re largely unnoticed. Consider the faint curve of the keys of the computer keyboard under your fingers, for example, or the pale translucent light that lightly brushes the rim of your coffee cup. All of these tiny things give our life texture and beauty, if we stop just for a moment to examine them and pause in the middle of an enormously rushed day.
So I guess that transferring these details into a painted image pays homage to these details, carved out by light and scattered throughout our daily lives. Light is so important in my paintings that possibly it isn’t really realism that I’m after, but a glowing version in which the light that brushes over an object and carves shadows around and through it is itself an artist, changing the hues and shapes of objects as the hours pass in a day.
I’m self taught, and have been painting for nearly 5 years. An article about my work was featured in the spring 2005 edition of the Virginia Wine Gazette, and one of my paintings was also chosen for the cover art. One of my paintings was also featured on the cover of the Long Island Wine Gazette and another painting was featured as the cover of the program for the 2006 Virginia Wine Festival.
Despite her wine focus, I discovered at least one more beer painting she did, this one entitled Afternoon Pour.
You can see more Zasada’s artwork at a gallery at Art Wanted and, of course, at her main website.