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Archives for February 11, 2020

Beer In Ads #3256: Wissembourg Beer Jester

February 11, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

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Tuesday’s ad is for a Wissembourg Beer Jester, or King, from 1880. From the late 1800s until the 1980s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. I’ve been posting vintage European posters all last year, and will continue to do so in 2020. This poster was part of a series in which “[t]he joyful King celebrates the German way — with beer, of course!” One auction site describes the series as follows. “This poster was created by the C. Burckardt printing firm, and is part of a larger series of posters that were produced during the 1880s and 1890s. The company was based in the Alsatian town of Wissembourg, along the French border with Germany, and was also known for their cutout puppets, puzzles for children, educational charts, and religious depictions. These posters were created during a time that the Alsace region belonged to Germany, when the town was still called Weissenburg. All posters in this series have been printed via stone lithography, in multiple panels.” They claim he’s a king, but his grin says jester, to me.

Wissembourg-beer-jester-1880

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, France, Germany, History

Historic Beer Birthday: John Weidenfeller

February 11, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

grand-rapids centennial olympia
Today is the birthday of John Weidenfeller (February 11, 1867-1929). He was born in Germany, but came to America with his family, who settled in Michigan and owned a farm. Weidenfeller though, defying his father’s wishes, became a brewer, working first with “Frey Bros. and Kusterer Brewing Companies. In 1892, these two breweries joined three others to form the Grand Rapids Brewing Co.” He later worked in Montana for the Centennial Brewery, before accepting a position as brewmaster of Olympia Brewing in Washington.

There’s also a photograph of Weidenfeller that can be seen at Brewery Gems’ biography of John Weidenfeller shared with him by the brewer’s family.

There’s less about brewmasters, as opposed to brewers who were also brewery founders or owners, when you go back this far, but there’s a pretty thorough biography of Weidenfeller by Gary Flynn at his website Brewery Gems.

John-Weidenfeller-and-guys
Weidenfeller around 1901, with his workers in Montana.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: Germany, History, Michigan, Montana, Washington

Historic Beer Birthday: Joseph Bosch

February 11, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

bosch
Today is the birthday of Joseph Bosch (February 11, 1850-January 9, 1937). He was born in Achim, Lower Saxony, Germany, the son of a brewer, but came to America in 1854. They started in New York, but moved to Lake Linden, Michigan in 1862, and a few years later began training as a brewer. In 1874, he came back to Michigan, and started his own brewery, the Torch Lake Brewery, which eventually became known as the Bosch Brewing Co. It survived prohibition, but Bosch died in 1937. His two grandsons took over management of the company, and it stayed in business until 1973, when their labels were sold to the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company.

Joseph_bosch

Here’s some biographical information from Wikipedia:

Joseph Bosch was born in Baden, Germany in 1850. He emigrated to New York with his family when he was four, then moved to Wisconsin at the age of twelve, where his father was a brewer. In 1867, the family moved to Lake Linden; there, Bosch worked as a miner of the Calumet & Hecla company. However, he harbored the desire to become a brewmaster, and travelled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to work at the Schlitz Brewery, then on to Cleveland, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky before returning to Lake Linden in 1874 to found the Torch Lake Brewery. Two years later he admitted business partners and changed the name to Joseph Bosch & Company. In 1894 he again changed the name, this time to Bosch Brewing Company, and in 1899 the brewery was the largest in the Upper Peninsula, with a capacity of 60,000 barrels annually.

Bosch was also the president of Lake Linden’s First National Bank, organized in 1888, and participated in various mercantile enterprises, including those carried on in the Joseph Bosch Building.

Bosch-brewing-co

And there was this at the Van Pelt and Opie Library at Michigan Tech:

Joseph Bosch, founder of the Bosch Brewing Company, had always yearned to enter the brewing industry. He had learned much from his father, a brewer in his native country of Germany, who had brought the family to Lake Linden, Michigan in 1867. A desire for more knowledge and experience led the young Bosch to Cleveland, Fort Wayne and finally Milwaukee, where he worked for the Schlitz brewery. He returned to Lake Linden in 1874, erected a small wooden building and began brewing operations as the Torch Lake Brewery, Joseph Bosch & Company. Bosch operated the brewery on his own for the first two years, but in 1876 admitted several men on a partnership basis. The company continued as a partnership until around 1894, when the reorganized firm issued stock under its new name, the Bosch Brewing Company. The company continued in operation for nearly a century, closing the last of its facilities in 1973.

In the early years of brewing in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, little if any beer was sold in bottles. Bosch saw the potential of this packaging, however, and the company began bottling on a small scale before 1880. By 1883, the original wooden building in Lake Linden had been enlarged and the company was producing 4,000 barrels of beer annually, one quarter of which was bottled. The brewery was completely destroyed in a great fire that swept through Lake Linden in 1887, but the demand for its product fired quick construction of new facilities. By the turn of the century the Bosch Brewing Company had brewing facilities in Lake Linden and Houghton, as well as branches and storehouses in Calumet/Laurium, Hancock, Eagle Harbor and Ishpeming. Having survived the difficult years of prohibition, the company finally closed the Lake Linden facility in favor of the better-situated facilities in Houghton.

Stressing the relationship of its product and the community, the Bosch Brewing Company featured many local themes in its advertising. Promotional phrases such as the “Refreshing as the Sportman’s Paradise” kept the small brewery close to the hearts of Copper Country natives and visitors from farther afield. The company found itself increasingly unable to compete locally with the larger breweries of Milwaukee and St. Louis, however, and the last keg of beer was ceremoniously loaded onto a wagon for delivery to a local tavern on Friday, September 28, 1973.

Bosch-wagon

This is from the “History of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan,” published in 1883:

JOSEPH BOSCH & CO., proprietors of Torch Lake Brewery. This business was organized in 1874, and is owned one-half by Joseph Bosch, the other by Joseph Wertin & Sons, of Hancock; 4,000 barrels of beer. are manufactured annually, 1,000 of which is bottled. Joseph Bosch was born in Baden, Germany, February 13, 1850, and came to America with his parents in 1854; he spent nine years in New York City, and then removed to Port Washington, Wis., where he learned the brewing business with his father. In 1867, in company with his father, he came to Torch Lake, and erected the first house in what is Lake Linden; he worked four years at the Hecla Stamp Mill. In 1874, he built the brewery; he was married at Hancock in January, 1875, to Miss Mary, daughter of Joseph Wertin. Mrs. Bosch was born in Austria. They have a daughter — Mary.

Ulmer-Style-Beer--Labels-Bosch-Brewing-Company

And finally, here’s a longer biography of Bosch from “Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens of Houghton, Baraga and Marquette Counties, Michigan,” published in 1903:

Bosch-bio-1
bosch-brewery-early
Bosch-bio-2
Bosch-bio-3
Bosch-bio-4

Bosch-pity-pilgrims

Bock-Edge-Labels-Bosch-Brewing-Company

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: Germany, History, Michelob

Beer Birthday: Dylan Schatz

February 11, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

mad-river
Today is the 48th birthday of Dylan Schatz, who until recently was the brewmaster at Mad River Brewing in Blue Lake, which is where he’s originally from. Dylan started in 1999 in the brewery’s packaging department, on the bottling line, and immediately fell in love with the beer industry. He took classes at UC Davis and became a brewer, and in 2005 was named head brewer. He’s a terrific person, one who often doesn’t get all the credit he deserves, especially since he was been making some amazing beers. I heard recently he’d left under circumstances that were less than ideal, but I have not had a chance to ask him directly, or find out what he’s doing now. Please join me in wishing Dylan a very happy birthday.

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Dylan with some of the crew from Mad River after winning Small Brewery and Brewer of the Year at GABF in 2010.

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Behind the bar at Mad River’s tasting room during a visit there last summer, when I was in the research phase for my latest book, California Breweries North.

Vic-and-Dylan-2016
Dylan and Vic at the Double IPA Fest

Filed Under: Birthdays Tagged With: California, Northern California

Historic Beer Birthday: Daniel Jung

February 11, 2020 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

jung-red-heart
Today is the birthday of Daniel Jung (February 11, 1822-December 2, 1877). A member of one of several Jung families in brewing, Daniel was born in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, but settled in the Cincinnati area of Ohio, where he founded a brewery that eventually would bear his name.

Daniel-Jung-portrait

When it was first opened in 1857, along with partner Peter Weyand, it was called the Western Brewery (some sources say 1854). In 1879, they added a third investor, and it became the Weyand, Jung & Heilman Brewery. It 1885, with Jung apparently sole owner, it is renamed the Jung Brewing Co., which it remained until 1908, when it went back to being the Western Brewery, before closing due to prohibition in 1919.

Jung-letterhead

But I’ve been unable to find much about Jung personally, about his life. The only obituary I uncovered was in German, and was a scan, meaning I couldn’t just copy it into Google Translate. I know he came to New York from Germany in his early 20s, but returned home for a number of years, before returning via New Orleans and making his way to Cincinnati, where he stayed for the rest of his life.

I do really love their branding, though. They marketed their beers under the name “Red Brand Beer,” with a bright red heart. So many labels of this time period are dull and similar, while this one really seems to stand out. I’d love to see more of their labels and artwork, but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much out there lurking on the interwebs. Even their slogan is pretty awesome. “Creates & Sustains Life.”

Jung-tray

Here’s yet another account of his brewery history.

In 1857, Peter Weyand and Daniel Jung established the Western Brewery on Freeman and Bank Streets in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1879, Weyand and Jung partnered with Max Hellman and operated the brewery until 1885. In 1885, following the deaths of Peter Weyand and Daniel Jung, the brewery was renamed the Jung Brewing Company. The Jung Brewing Company operated from 1885 to 1890. In 1890, the brewery was sold and merged with Cincinnati Breweries Company.

Red-Heart-Brand-Beer-Etched-Glasses-Jung-Brewing-Co-Western-Brewery_1895
A Jung Brewery glass from 1895.

Jungs-Old-Lager-Beer-Labels-Jung-Brewing-Co-Western-Brewery
A label from their Old Lager.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: History, Ohio

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