Historic Beer Birthday: F.D. Radeke

October 3, 2025 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Frederick D. Radeke (October 3, 1843-September 24, 1901). He was born in Oyle, Hanover, Germany, but came to America when he was 24, in 1867, settling in Kankakee, Illinois. He initially became a grocer, but when it burned down, he joined his brother-in-law in the brewery business he’d bought, and by 1873 it had been reorganized as the F. D. Radeke Brewing Co. It was closed by prohibition, reopened under a series of names after repeal, but closed for good in 1937.

This obituary is from “The Kankakee Daily-Journal,” dated November 29, 2016.

Frederick Radeke moved to Kankakee in 1867. The previous year his sister, Margaret Radeke Beckman and her husband, Fredrick, bought the Riverside Brewery. Radeke quickly became involved in the local business community.
Within a year, he had purchased a grocery store on Court Street, opened a billiards parlor and set up a bottling works to produce ginger ale and carbonated water. Shortly after fire destroyed both his store and billiards parlor in 1870, Radeke joined Beckman in the brewery operation. In 1873, the Riverside Brewery was reorganized and renamed as the F.D. Radeke Brewing Company.
During the first two decades of the 20th century, the brewery was highly successful. In the year 1913, for example, a workforce of 125 people produced 40,000 barrels of beer, and the bottling department filled and capped 30,000 bottles per day. Radeke brewed bottles of beer with names such as Wiener Export and Royal Pale. F.D. Radeke Brewing Company advertised itself as “Brewers and Bottlers of High Grades of Beer.”
On Jan. 1, 1920, brewing of Radeke beer came to a halt because of the Volstead Act. After Prohibition the brewery reverted from root beer back to regular beer, but never recovered from the years of Prohibition and eventually closed in 1936.

And here’s another obituary, this one from the American Brewers’ Review:

Radeke-brewery-workers — F.D. Radeke Brewing Co. workers.

This history of the brewery is from “100 Years of Brewing.”

Historic Beer Birthday: John Gorrie

October 3, 2025 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of John Gorrie (October 3, 1803-June 29, 1855). He “was a physician, scientist, inventor, and humanitarian,” and most importantly, is credited with creating one of the very first refrigerators, an important development for the brewing industry.

Here’s one brief account, from a history of refrigeration on The Sun:

The man credited with developing the first actual “fridge” was an American doctor, John Gorrie, who built an ice-maker in 1844 based on Evans’ work of decades earlier. He also pioneered air conditioning at the same time, since his idea was to blow air across the ice-making machine to cool hospital patients suffering from malaria in Florida.
Gorrie did not make the fortune he deserved. His business partner died and his leaky machines were mocked by the Press and the ice-producing firms to whom he could have been a threat. He died sick and broke aged 51.

Here’s his story from his Wikipedia page:

Since it was necessary to transport ice by boat from the northern lakes, Gorrie experimented with making artificial ice.
After 1845, he gave up his medical practice to pursue refrigeration products. On May 6, 1851, Gorrie was granted Patent No. 8080 for a machine to make ice. The original model of this machine and the scientific articles he wrote are at the Smithsonian Institution. In 1835, patents for “Apparatus and means for producing ice and in cooling fluids” had been granted in England and Scotland to American-born inventor Jacob Perkins, who became known as “the father of the refrigerator.” Impoverished, Gorrie sought to raise money to manufacture his machine, but the venture failed when his partner died. Humiliated by criticism, financially ruined, and his health broken, Gorrie died in seclusion on June 29, 1855. He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery.
Another version of Gorrie’s “cooling system” was used when President James A. Garfield was dying in 1881. Naval engineers built a box filled with cloths that had been soaked in melted ice water. Then by allowing hot air to blow on the cloths it decreased the room temperature by 20 degrees Fahrenheit. The problem with this method was essentially the same problem Gorrie had. It required an enormous amount of ice to keep the room cooled continuously. Yet it was an important event in the history of air conditioning. It proved that Dr. Gorrie had the right idea, but was unable to capitalize on it. The first practical refrigeration system in 1854, patented in 1855, was built by James Harrison in Geelong, Australia.

And this account, entitled “Dr. John Gorrie, Refrigeration Pioneer,” is by George L. Chapel of the Apalachicola Area Historical Society in Apalachicola, Florida, which is the location of the John Gorrie State Museum:

Dr. John Gorrie (1803 – 1855), an early pioneer in the invention of the artificial manufacture of ice, refrigeration, and air conditioning, was granted the first U.S. Patent for mechanical refrigeration in 1851. Dr. Gorrie’s basic principle is the one most often used in refrigeration today; namely, cooling caused by the rapid expansion of gases. Using two double acting force pumps he first condensed and then rarified air. His apparatus, initially designed to treat yellow fever patients, reduced the temperature of compressed air by interjecting a small amount of water into it. The compressed air was submerged in coils surrounded by a circulating bath of cooling water. He then allowed the interjected water to condense out in a holding tank, and released or rarified, the compressed air into a tank of lower pressure containing brine; This lowered the temperature of the brine to 26 degrees F. or below, and immersing drip-fed, brick-sized, oil coated metal containers of non-saline water, or rain water, into the brine, manufactured ice bricks. The cold air was released in an open system into the atmosphere.
The first known artificial refrigeration was scientifically demonstrated by William Cullen in a laboratory performance at the University of Glasgow in 1748, when he let ethyl ether boil into a vacuum. In 1805, Oliver Evans in the United States designed but never attempted to build, a refrigeration machine that used vapor instead of liquid. Using Evans’ refrigeration concept, Jacob Perkins of the U.S. and England, developed an experimental volatile liquid, closed-cycle compressor in 1834.
Commercial refrigeration is believed to have been initiated by an American businessman, Alexander C. Twinning using sulphuric ether in 1856. Shortly afterward, an Australian, James Harrison, examined the refrigerators used by Gorrie and Twinning, and introduced vapor (ether) compression refrigeration to the brewing and meat packing industries.
The granting of a U.S. Patent in 1860 to Ferdinand P.E. Carre of France, for his development of a closed, ammonia-absorption system, laid the foundation for widespread modern refrigeration. Unlike vapor-compression machines which used air, Carre used rapidly expanding ammonia which liquifies at a much lower temperature than water, and is thus able to absorb more heat. Carre’s refrigeration became, and still is, the most widely used method of cooling. The development of a number of synthetic refrigerants in the 1920’s, removed the need to be concerned about the toxic danger and odor of ammonia leaks.
The remaining problem for the development of modern air conditioning would not be that of lowering temperature by mechanical means, but that of controlling humidity. Although David Reid brought air into contact with a cold water spray in his modification of the heating and ventilating system of the British Parliament in 1836, and Charles Smyth experimented with air cycle cooling (1846 – 56), the problem was resolved by Willis Haviland Carrier’s U.S. Patent in 1906, in which he passed hot soggy air through a fine spray of water, condensing moisture on the droplets, leaving drier air behind. These inventions have had global implications.
Dr. Gorrie was honored by Florida, when his statue was placed in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol. In 1899, a monument to Dr. Gorrie was erected by the Southern Ice Exchange in the small coastal town of Apalachicola, where he had served as mayor in 1837, and had developed his machine.
Reportedly born October 3, 1803 in Charleston, South Carolina, of Scots – Irish descent, he was raised in Columbia, S.C. He attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Western District of New York, in Fairfield, New York, from 1825 to 1827. Although the school lasted only a few decades, it had a profound influence, second only to the Philadelphia Medical School, upon the scientific and medical community of the United States in the 19th century. Young Asa Gray, from Oneida County, New York, who by 1848 would be ranked as the leading botanist in the United States, and who in time would become a close friend of Dr. Alvin Wentworth Chapman of Apalachicola, the leading botanist in the South, served as an assistant in the school’s chemical department. In later years, Dr. Gray had distinct recollections of Gorrie as a “promising student.”
Dr. Gorrie initially practiced in Abbeville, South Carolina, in 1828, coming to the burgeoning cotton port of Apalachicola in 1833. He supplemented his income by becoming Assistant (1834), then Postmaster in Apalachicola. He became a Notary Public in 1835. The Apalachicola Land Company obtained clear title to the area by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1835, and in 1836 laid out the city’s grid-iron plat along the lines of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Gorrie, who served as Vice-Intendant in 1836, and Intendant (Mayor), in 1837, would be an effective advocate for the rest of his life for draining the swamps, clearing the weeds and maintaining clean food markets in the city. He first served as Secretary of the Masonic Lodge in 1835, was a partner in the Mansion House Hotel (1836), President of the Apalachicola Branch Bank of Pensacola (1836), a charter member of the Marine Insurance Bank of Apalachicola (1837), a physician for the Marine Hospital Service of the U.S. Treasury Department (1837 – 1844), and a charter incorporator and founding vestryman of Trinity Episcopal Church, Apalachicola (1837).
Dr. Gorrie married Caroline Frances Myrick Beman, of a Columbia, South Carolina family, the widowed proprietress of the Florida Hotel in Apalachicola, on May 8, 1838. Shortly thereafter, he resigned his various positions in Apalachicola, and the family left the city not to return until 1840. He was named Justice of the Peace in 1841, the same year that yellow fever struck the area.
Mal-aria, Italian, “bad air”, and yellow fever, prevailed in the hot, low-lying, tropical and sub-tropical areas where there was high humidity and rapid decomposition of vegetation. Noxious effluvium, or poisonous marsh gas was thought to be the cause. The “putrid” winds from marshy lowlands were regarded as deadly, especially at night. The specific causes were unknown, and although one had quinine for malaria, the gin and tonic of India, there was no cure nor preventive vaccine, for yellow fever. The legendary Flying Dutchman was founded on the story of a ship with yellow fever onboard.
Malaria would start with shaking and violent chills, followed by high fever, and a drenching sweat. Insidious, it could recur in the victim as well as kill. Yellow fever did not recur; one either died or survived. It came in mysterious, vicious waves, killing anywhere from 12 to 70 percent of its victims. It started with shivering, high fever, insatiable thirst, savage headaches, and severe back and leg pains. In a day or so, the restless patient would become jaundiced and turn yellow. In the terminal stages, the patient would spit up mouthfuls of dark blood, the terrifying “black vomit” (vomito negro), the body temperature would drop, the pulse fade, and the comatose patient, cold to the touch, would die in about 8 to 10 hours. So great was the terror, that the victims would be buried as quickly as possible. Areas would be quarantined, and yellow flags flown. Gauze would be hung over beds to filter air; handkerchiefs would be soaked in vinegar; garlic would be worn in shoes. Bed linens and compresses would be soaked in camphor; sulfur would be burned in outdoor smudge pots. Gunpowder would be burned, and cannons would be fired. And, later, when it was over, the cleaning and fumigating would occur.
It would not be until 1901 in Havana, Cuba, that Drs. Walter Reed, Carlos Finlay and William Crawford Gorgas, with others, would demonstrate conclusively that the Aedes Aegypti, or Stegomyia Fasciata mosquito was the carrier of the yellow fever virus. It would be about the same time that the English physician, Sir Ronald Ross in India, would correctly identify the Anopheles mosquito as the carrier of the malaria protozoa. As early as 1848, in Mobile, Alabama, however, Dr. Josiah Nott first suggested that mosquitos might be involved. The yellow fever epidemic of 1841, and the hurricane and tidal wave, known locally as the “Great Tide” of 1842, destroyed Apalachicola’s rival cotton port of St. Joseph some thirty miles to the west on the deep water sound of St. Joseph’s Bay. Using Florida’s first railway (1837) to transport cotton from the Apalachicola River, St. Joseph had hosted Florida’s Constitutional Convention in 1838.
Dr. Gorrie became convinced that cold was the healer. He noted that “Nature would terminate the fevers by changing the seasons.” Ice, cut in the winter in northern lakes, stored in underground ice houses, and shipped, packed in sawdust, around the Florida Keys by sailing vessel, in mid-summer could be purchased dockside on the Gulf Coast. In 1844, he began to write a series of articles in Apalachicola’s “Commercial Advertiser” newspaper, entitled, “On the prevention of Malarial Diseases”.
He used the Nom De Plume, “Jenner”, a tribute to Edward Jenner, (1749 – 1823), the discoverer of smallpox vaccine. According to these articles, he had constructed an imperfect refrigeration machine by May, 1844, carrying out a proposal he had advanced in 1842. All of Gorrie’s personal records were accidentally destroyed sometime around 1860.
“If the air were highly compressed, it would heat up by the energy of compression. If this compressed air were run through metal pipes cooled with water, and if this air cooled to the water temperature was expanded down to atmospheric pressure again, very low temperatures could be obtained, even low enough to freeze water in pans in a refrigerator box.” The compressor could be powered by horse, water, wind driven sails, or steampower.
Dr. Gorrie submitted his patent petition on February 27, 1848, three years after Florida became a state. In April of 1848, he was having one of his ice machines built in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the Cincinnati Iron Works, and in Octobcr, he demonstrated its operation. It was described in the Scientific American in September of 1849. On August 22, 1850, he received London Patent #13,124, and on May 6, 1851, U. S. Patent #8080. Although the mechanism produced ice in quantities, leakage and irregular performance sometimes impaired its operation. Gorrie went to New Orleans in search of venture capital to market the device, but either problems in product demand and operation, or the opposition of the ice lobby, discouraged backers. He never realized any return from his invention. Upon his death on June 29, 1855, he was survived by his wife Caroline (1805 – 1864), his son John Myrick (1838 – 1866), and his daughter, Sarah (1844 – 1908). Dr. Gorrie is buried in Gorrie Square in Apalachicola, his wife and son are buried-St. Luke’s-Episcopal Cemetery, Marianna, Florida, and his daughter, in Milton, Florida.

Historic Beer Birthday: Alois Alexander Assman

October 3, 2025 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Alois Alexander Assman (October 3, 1856-August 4, 1900). He was born in Moravia, Austria-Hungary, in what today is the Czech Republic. At 18, he began working in breweries and attended the American Brewing Academy. When he died suddenly after being struck by a train, he was the brewmaster of the Crescent Brewing Co., of Washington, Pennsylvania, which had been founded in 1896, but closed due to Prohibition in 1920, and never reopened after repeal.

This is Assman’s obituary from the American Brewers’ Review:

Historic Beer Birthday: John Gund

October 3, 2025 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of John Gund (October 3, 1830-May 7, 1910). Gund co-founded what would become the The G. Heileman Brewing Company with Gottlieb Heileman. They formed a partnership in November 1858 to operate the City Brewery in La Crosse, but “after nearly fifteen years in business together, Heileman and Gund dissolved their partnership in 1872.” After leaving City Brewing, Gund immediately “established a new brewery on the southern edge of La Crosse that he named the Empire Brewery, and which was incorporated in 1880 as the John Gund Brewing Company.” Gund employed all three of his sons in his new venture, and eventually his son Henry became president of the brewery after his father’s death in 1910.

Here’s a short biography from Find-a-Grave:

Came to America in 1848 and settled in LaCrosse in 1854. He began his own brewery until in 1858 he and Gottlieb Heileman formed the City Brewery. John later left and founded the Empire Brewery in 1872 but — due to the fact there were 14 breweries in LaCrosse at the time — his business failed.

And here’s a lengthy history of the brewery from The Peerless Beer Legacy:

The John Gund Brewery (1854-1920)
The story of the John Gund Brewery is a story of the American Dream. Many immigrants came to the US in search of a new and better life. John Gund accomplished this goal and became one of the forefathers of the modern beer industry.
John Gund was born in Schwetzingen, Germany in 1830. He was the second of eight children. After finishing this education at the common schools he began an apprenticeship working at a brewery in the winter.
John Gund arrived in New York on May 16, 1848. Shortly after arriving in New York the family moved to Freeport, Illinois. After his fathers and mothers death in 1850 of cholera, Gund married Louise Hottman and in1852 moved to Dubuque, Iowa. Gund added to his earlier knowledge by working at the brewery of Anton Heeb.
In 1854 Gund pack up and left the brewery and Iowa to move to LaCrosse, WI. John Gund’s first Brewery was a far cry from what was to come of this legend. His first brewery was in a log cabin he built at the corner of Front and Division Street. In just 4 years Gund sold the cabin and entered into a partnership with Gottlieb Heileman. These two men built and opened the City Brewery in 1854.
In 1872, Gund sold his share of City Brewery to Heileman and began building the Empire Brewery on South Ave. When opened the brewery had 9 buildings: Main Building, Storage Cellars, Brew house, Icehouse, office, Malt House, Dry Kiln, Engine House, and across the street the Bottle House. Later, a second Bottle house was built. The total cost of the brewery was $250,000. Empire Brewery had a staff of 25 people and was able to produce 30 thousand barrels per year. Much of the beer was exported, but much was used to supply the city’s bars.
The John Gund Brewing Company opened May 1, 1880 with only $100,000 capital. John appointed his family member to officer positions. These included: John Gund- President, Henry – Traveling Agent, George Gund – Manager, and John Gund Jr.- Bookkeeper. (Wife Died 1880 of severe cold.)

The John Gund Brewing Company was booming. The brewery covered 5 acres and produced 60 thousand barrels of beer in 1897. Many of the neighboring states benefited from this fine brew. Gund Beer was shipped all over Wisconsin, Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and Nebraska. Everything John Gund has built almost came crashing down the night of September 25, 1897. This night the city of LaCrosse witnessed a “one of the most destructive fires in the history of LaCrosse”(Baier, 1976). The fire was reported at 1:00am and was finally put out by noon the next day. The fire destroyed much of the Gund Brewery. The estimated damage of the fire totaled $200,000. Only the Engine house and cold storage could be saved. Insurance only covered $125,000. Fortunately enough beer was saved to allow for the brewery to fill orders and continue operation until the brewery was rebuilt. Clean up and rebuilding began the next day.
The new brewery was finished on April 16, 1898. The new brewery was larger, consisting of 8 buildings: Brew house, bottling house (now next to Brew house), mill house, dry house, hop storage, and malt house. It was also improved. New modern machinery and equipment was added. The new brewery even contained an elevator. Gund even prepared for another catastrophe by making the new brewery fireproof.
Business was again booming for the Gund Brewery. Capital stock for the company climbed to two million dollars. Unfortunately tragedy again strikes the Gund Brewery. This time the tragedy goes to the top. After fighting apoplexy for many months John Gund dies of the disease on May 7, 1901. In honor of a great man the brewery shut down for the day. Leadership of the John Gund Brewery now rests in the hands of Henry Gund and rumors spread like wildfire that the brewery would be moved to Omaha, Nebraska.
The John Gund Brewery survived and thrived after, yet another devastating disaster. By 1900 Gund Brewery became the “largest brewery in the old Northwest, outside of Milwaukee” (Baier, 1976). The World was beginning to take notice of Gund’s Peerless Beer. This became evident when in 1900 it won a metal at the Paris Exposition and in 1904 won the Gold metal at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (World Fair in 1904). The explosion in popularity caused for an increase in production. This need caused the increase of works to 450 in 1910. This year the brewery produced over 600,000 barrels of beer.
Soon the final blow would come to the brewery. In 1919 the 18th amendment was enacted. So began the years of Prohibition. The Brewery closed its doors. Luckily, on May 27th a law was passed making it legal to produce “war time” beer. Wartime beer was beer that was limited to 2.3%-4% alcohol content. The doors to the John Gund Brewery opened again to produce this beer. Still struggling, the brewery was it with another problem. The Brewery Workers Union in Lacrosse went on strike. The brewery was hit hard, offering jobs to men, woman, and children to help fill the void created by the strike.
The straw that finally breaks the John Gund Brewery’s back was the complete Prohibition. The Gund Brewery closed its doors for good later that year just as many other breweries throughout the US were doing.

Immigrant Entrepreneurship, under German-American Business Biographies, has a lengthy tale of both John Gund and Gottlieb Heileman I pulled out the passages about Gund:

John Gund (born October 3, 1830, in Schwetzingen, Grand Duchy of Baden; died May 7, 1910, in La Crosse, Wisconsin), the firm’s co-founder, eventually decided that Heileman’s business practices were too restrictive and ended the partnership in 1872 in order to build a new brewery in La Crosse that could compete with cross-state rivals such as Pabst, Schlitz, and Miller. The G. Heileman Brewing Company and the John Gund Brewing Company continued to pursue separate business strategies until national Prohibition was implemented fully in 1920. Gund’s large brewery collapsed, whereas Heileman’s smaller firm subsisted by producing non-alcoholic beer and malt products until the Twenty-First Amendment was passed in 1933.
John Gund, on the other hand, was born approximately seventy-five miles northwest of Kirchheim in the community of Schwetzingen in the Grand Duchy of Baden on October 3, 1830. Schwetzingen lay in the rich, alluvial farmland between the Rhine and Neckar Rivers approximately six miles southwest of Heidelberg. Gund was the second of eight children born to Georg Michael and Sophia Elizabeth Gund (née Eder or Edes).
John Gund found employment sixty miles to the west in Dubuque, Iowa, a commercial center situated on the west bank of the Mississippi River. He worked in a brewery operated by a German named Anton Heeb for two years. In June 1850, he relocated to nearby Galena, Illinois, to operate a brewery with a German named Witzel, possibly twenty-year-old Sebastian Witzel, who may have been an old friend. John Gund’s parents died of cholera the following month. After less than a year, he sold his share in the Galena brewery operation and rented another brewery in the community, known as the Cedar Brewery. About this time, he married fellow German immigrant Louise Hottman, a resident of Galena, with whom he eventually had five children. Two years after renting the Cedar Brewery, Gund decided to relocate to a larger and more prosperous community that would provide a better market for his beer. He and his wife moved approximately 180 miles northwest to the Mississippi River settlement of La Crosse, Wisconsin.
La Crosse had a population of approximately 2,000 residents in the mid-1850s. Situated on the east bank of the Mississippi River, the community had experienced rapid growth during the 1850s as settlers arrived to take advantage of the surrounding farmland and forests. The lumber industry flourished, facilitated by the community’s access to steamboats that plied the Mississippi River from St. Paul down to St. Louis and New Orleans. The city was incorporated in 1856 and benefitted further when a cross-state railroad connection was completed between La Crosse and Milwaukee in 1858.
John Gund founded a brewery in La Crosse in August 1854. The small operation was located in a log cabin near the community’s waterfront. A number of other German immigrants founded breweries in the city in the months and years that followed. Gustavus Nicolai and Jacob Franz founded the Nicolai Brewery shortly after Gund founded his brewery. Due to production problems with Gund’s initial batch of beer, Nicolai and Franz were first to bring their beer to market. Charles and John Michel founded the La Crosse Brewery in 1857 after a failed attempt to strike it rich in the California gold fields in the early 1850s. After returning from the West Coast, they attempted to settle in Chicago but soon grew to dislike the community and made their way north to St. Paul. Ice on the Mississippi delayed their river journey and they eventually settled in La Crosse instead. After noting that existing breweries in the community could not meet local demand, they founded their own brewery.
After nearly fifteen years in business together, Heileman and Gund dissolved their partnership in 1872. Heileman seems to have been content brewing beer primarily for the local market and this was reflected in the brewery’s modest output of approximately 3,000 barrels per year by the 1870s. By comparison, Eberhardt Anheuser and Adolphus Busch’s Bavarian Brewery in St. Louis produced approximately 100,000 barrels of beer per year during the same decade and the Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee produced 121,000 barrels annually.[10] John Gund was far more ambitious than his partner and wished to establish La Crosse as a major center of brewing that would rival Milwaukee and St. Louis. Supposedly, the partners flipped a coin to determine which partner would receive the brewery and which would receive the International Hotel. Heileman won the City Brewery and Gund gained control of the hotel.
Gund immediately established a new brewery on the southern edge of La Crosse that he named the Empire Brewery, and which was incorporated in 1880 as the John Gund Brewing Company. A bottling house was included in the new brewery, which indicated that Gund intended to distribute the beer regionally. At the time, federal law required that excise taxes be paid on kegged beer. Only after the tax stamp had been applied to the keg could brewers then bottle the beer for sale. Bottling beer was also labor intensive since employees had to fill and cork individual bottles by hand during this era and then pasteurize each lot. Consequently, bottling beer was more time consuming and expensive than distributing it in kegs. Bottled beer’s key advantage lay in the fact that it could be shipped more easily and thus could reach more distant markets than kegged beer.
Gund’s decision to end his partnership with Heileman in 1872 may had been attributable, at least in small part, to the 1871 conflagration in Chicago. The Great Chicago Fire destroyed the city’s nascent brewing industry and opened the door to brewers in nearby cities with railroad connections to Chicago. Gund along with brewers from Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Cincinnati began shipping beer to Chicago and established a presence in the taverns and other drinking establishments of the city.
Gund and his three sons, George, Henry, and John Jr., continued to expand their brewery’s operations during the 1870s and 1880s. After John Gund incorporated the brewery in May 1880, he assumed the title of brewery president and his sons took other positions in the firm. The firm was capitalized at $100,000 (approximately $2.3 million dollars in 2011$) with the stock remaining in family hands. By 1887, the facility covered five acres and produced 45,000 barrels of beer annually. While this output still lagged behind the volume produced by major shipping breweries of the era such as Pabst, Schlitz, and Anheuser-Busch, when combined with the other breweries of La Crosse, the city’s beer production briefly surpassed the quantity produced by any other city in Wisconsin, including Milwaukee, in 1884. Given that La Crosse’s population was ten percent of Milwaukee’s population during this decade, such an output is impressive to say the least. Gund took advantage of La Crosse’s rail and river connection to the Upper Midwest and the Chicagoland area to distribute beer to the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois. Henry Gund served as a traveling agent for the firm and established a distribution center in Minneapolis in 1882.
A major fire at the Gund brewery in 1897 destroyed the original 1872 structure but also enabled Gund to reconstruct the brewery with expanded capacity the following year. The new facility was designed by prominent Chicago architect Louis William Lehle, a German immigrant University of Stuttgart graduate who was responsible for designing breweries throughout the United States for a number of major firms including Blatz, Grain Belt, and Dixie. Gund’s focus on bottled beer was reflected in the new design of the brewery. The bottling plant was relocated from a building across the street from the brewing complex to a new building next to the brew house. This arrangement allowed beer to be pumped directly from holding tanks to the bottling line. Improvements in bottling technology, such as the development of crown caps in 1892, made the production process less labor intensive. Gund’s bottling line was capable of producing twenty-five million bottles per year.[ By 1900, production at the new brewery grew to 200,000 barrels per year and tripled to 600,000 a decade later. Nevertheless, the Gund Brewing Company was still a middle-tier producer in comparison to other major regional breweries such as Pabst or Schlitz, whose output exceeded one million and one-and-a-half million barrels, respectively, during the same period.
In conjunction with its focus on bottled beer production, the firm began to develop a specific branded beer, which it called Peerless. The brewery invested great effort into promoting the brand and entered Peerless into a variety of international competitions including the 1900 Paris Exposition and the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Peerless won a medal at both expositions and the Gund Brewery used the publicity generated by the beer’s performance in its advertising.
Generational transition in brewery management took place gradually from the 1880s through the first decade of the twentieth century. Gund’s three sons served in various roles at the brewery. George Gund worked as brewery manager. Henry served as a traveling agent for the firm and later as bookkeeper after his younger brother, John Jr., left the firm in 1887 to pursue other interests. His elder brother also left the firm in the 1890s and established a brewery in Seattle and later purchased an existing brewery in Cleveland. With the departure of his brothers, Henry gradually assumed greater responsibilities at the brewery despite health problems. By the early 1900s, he was in his forties and was well respected within the local and regional brewing communities. He was elected vice president of Wisconsin’s Brewer’s Association in 1901 and by 1904 had assumed the position of vice president and treasurer of the John Gund Brewing Company. In May 1910, John Gund passed away a few months shy of his eightieth birthday.
Politically, John Gund’s party affiliation reflected broader shifts in German immigrant political participation during the second half of the nineteenth century. He supported the Whig ticket shortly after his arrival in the United States and voted Republican in the 1860s and 1870s, but his allegiance shifted to the Democratic Party in his later years. This may have been linked to the Democrats’ opposition to the growing prohibitionist movement in the United States and the support they enjoyed from populist, agrarian elements in Midwestern states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa.

Beer In Ads #5094: Christiania Bryggeri’s Bok-Øl

October 2, 2025 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Last year I decided to concentrate on Bock ads. Bock, of course, may have originated in Germany, in the town of Einbeck. Because many 19th century American breweries were founded by German immigrants, they offered a bock at certain times of the year, be it Spring, Easter, Lent, Christmas, or what have you. In a sense they were some of the first seasonal beers. “The style was later adopted in Bavaria by Munich brewers in the 17th century. Due to their Bavarian accent, citizens of Munich pronounced ‘Einbeck’ as ‘ein Bock’ (a billy goat), and thus the beer became known as ‘Bock.’ A goat often appears on bottle labels.” And presumably because they were special releases, many breweries went all out promoting them with beautiful artwork on posters and other advertising.

Thursday’s work is for Christiania Bryggeri’s Bok-Øl, which was created in 1910. This one was for the Christiania Bryggeri, of Christiania (Oslo), Norway, which was originally founded in 1855. The artist who created this poster was Othar Holmboe, who was also from Norway.

Beer Birthday: Don Gortemiller

October 2, 2025 By Jay Brooks 2 Comments

Today is the 73rd birthday of Don Gortemiller, former brewmaster for Pacific Coast Brewing in Oakland, California. Don was making beer there since the very beginning, back in 1988, helping to put Oakland and the Bay Area on the beer map, but left under an odd set of circumstances, and has subsequently retired; lucky him. And more recently, the brewery he worked at for decades has closed. Join me in wishing Don a very happy birthday.

Pacific Coast founder Steve Wolfe with Don at their 2009 annual Holiday Beer Tasting.

gortemiller-1 — Don toasting with his beer.

gortemiller-3 — Bruce Joseph with Don at Anchor Brewing.

gortemiller-2 — Don rockin’ out as a young man.

Note: the last three photos purloined from Facebook.

Beer In Ads #5093: Bock Bier Wädenswil

October 1, 2025 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Wednesday’s work is for Wädenswil Bock Bier, which was created in 1939. This one was for the Brauerei Wädenswil of Wädenswil, Switzerland, which was originally founded in 1833. Sadly, the artist who created it is unknown.

Historic Beer Birthday: Albert Fisher

October 1, 2025 By Jay Brooks 2 Comments

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Today is the birthday of Albert Fisher (October 1, 1852-June 28, 1917). Fisher was born in Germany, but moved to Salt Lake City, Utah in his twenties, around the 1870s.

Here’s Fisher’s obituary from the Deseret News, Thursday June 28, 1917:

Albert Fisher, president of the A. Fisher Brewing company, died this morning in a sanitarium at Hot Lakes, Or., where he went two weeks ago to undergo treatment for rheumatism. The telegram which conveyed the news of his death to members of the family, said Mr. Fisher died of inflammation of the kidneys and that he passed away at 7 o’clock.
Upon receipt Wednesday of a telegram that Mr. Fisher was near death, his wife and son, Frank A. Fisher, left last night at 11:45 o’clock for Portland. They are on the train today and they do not know yet of the death of the husband and father.
Albert Fisher was born in Germany in 1852. He came to Utah in the early ’70’s, and this had ever since been his home. In addition to his brewery interests Mr. Fisher was the owner of Salt Lake real estate and had numerous business connections.
He is survived by his wife and the following children: Mrs. Fred Davidson, Frank A., Albert B. and Carl A. Fisher.

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Inside the A. Fisher Brewery bottling department around 1940.

The Utah Beer Blog has a short history of the Fisher brewery:

In the early 1870s a man named Albert Fisher immigrated from Germany to the United States and eventually settled in Salt Lake City. Albert was a brewer by trade and he quick put his skill set to work shortly after arriving in Utah.
In 1884, Albert Fisher purchased 15 acres of land on 200 South on the east bank of the Jordan River (1206 West) where he established the A. Fisher Brewing Company. The Fisher Brewing Company quickly became the largest brewery in Utah.

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Here’s the brewery’s history from Utah Stories:

The first mention of Fisher Brewing Company by a print publication was August 27th, 1884 in the Salt Lake Tribune.
“The Albert Fisher Brewing Company is on one entire block of ground. On the south side of the building is a 92’ by 100’ malt room. The north part of the building will be divided up between a cellar and brewery office.”
The brewery was constructed using state-of-the-art German methods that Fisher likely learned growing up in the trade. The Eagle foundry was commissioned to construct many of the boilers. Steam powered the boiler engine and the rest of the facility; from malting barley, to milling, to properly drying hops to shipping out finished product on rail-lines and on coaches to hundreds of taverns. It’s clear that every part of the brewing process was conducted on their 10-acre site. The cost of construction was $35,000 another $15,000 would be needed for kegs, casks.
The Fisher Brewery in forefront the Fisher Mansion further South. The Fisher Mansion is located at 1206 W 200 S and is now owned by Salt Lake City. The city has plans to renovate the mansion.
While the brewery was built on the bank of the Jordan River, the fresh water provided to brew beer came from a nearby spring.
Fisher and Moritz were well known in Salt Lake among the pioneers as master brewers. Prior to opening his own brewery Fisher was employed by Fezer and Moritz, then Moritz and Culleo.
Moritz and Fisher would go on to start two of the largest breweries west of the Mississippi. Traditionally, the English-style ales had been the most popular beers in the US. But the German-style lagers began gaining popularity due to the longer shelf life and the pasteurization and bottling process which facilitated mass production and distribution. Germans also understood the value of offering a consistent product, carefully measuring ingredients and maintaining quality control standards.
Larger at the time then Coors, larger than any brewery in San Francisco, the Salt Lake Brewing Company and Fisher Brewing by 1905 were brewing 100,000 barrels of beer per year. Fisher was brewing 75,000 barrels, distributing throughout Idaho and Wyoming, employing 50 people. By comparison, Uinta Brewing, Utah’s largest, brews 45,000 barrels, employing 35 people.
Both had their own water works, malting houses, power plants and very effective distribution operations for offering their beer on draft throughout the Salt Lake Valley, to the dozens of taverns that they owned.
By the early 1900s Albert Fisher was an industry titan. Fisher also built one of the finest mansions in the Salt Lake Valley, a block away from his brewery, far away from other mansions. Today it still stands in its odd industrial location. Fisher also built a beautiful two story building on Main Street which had a dual purpose, serving both as a sales office and distribution outlet. The upstairs was a gathering place for the Salt Lake German community and immigrants, who likely enjoyed great parties and gatherings with Fisher beer freely flowing.
As a proud German father, Albert Fisher determined that his son Frank showed the most promise to one day take over his brewery and he raised young Frank to learn the business from the ground up.
However, despite Albert’s best efforts, success was never a consistent upward climb. His drive to grow his company far beyond the intermountain west was always met with ever-changing “morality laws,” new taxes and a barrage of legislation that worked against him and his brewery. Fisher started running ads with copy reading. “Beer drinking people are a home-loving, moral people.”
The pioneer brewer must have felt somewhat betrayed, as anti-monopoly laws were introduced forcing him to relinquish control of his taverns. In 1908 it was found that rather than selling or giving up control of his dozens of taverns Fisher had his bartenders sign bonds to read as if his taverns were owned by various minority immigrants. A Salt Lake Telegram investigation found through some digging that indeed Fisher did not comply with the law which stated breweries or beer or whiskey suppliers could not also operate as retailers.
The first calls for prohibition started in Utah far earlier than the rest of the country. The Salt Lake Telegraph reported in 1916 that “Breweries Are Waiting to See New Dry Order.” Four years prior to national prohibition Utah Breweries were forbidden by law from producing alcoholic beverages. By then Frank Fisher was operating the brewery and he said 60 men would be immediately out of employment. Fisher made no plans to manufacture any other product. At this time 130 saloons and taverns were operating in Salt Lake City. This would mean a loss of $195,000 in annual tax revenue. Not to mention the loss of thousands of dollars of rent property owners were receiving and all the supporting farmers in which the breweries purchased their barley and hops.
It must have been incredibly sad to see everything he worked his entire life to build end boarded up and abandoned, to lay off all his dedicated employees, brewers and shut down. Albert Fisher would die just one year after his brewery closed.
It would be sixteen years before Frank Fisher would again file articles of incorporation for the Fisher Brewing Company. In 1934 Fisher spent $250,000 renovating and modernizing his father’s brewery to make it his own. Upon completion it would produce 275 barrels of beer daily and eventually a capacity of 50,000 barrels. Frank Fisher, like his father, would continually upgrade his brewery and improve his beer. An advertisement from 1941 shows that Fisher was the top selling brand of beer in Utah. By this time competition was growing from San Francisco and Colorado. Lucky Lager out of San Francisco entered the Utah market and its distribution continued to increase due to their low price.
Fisher and Lucky were the two top names and dominated fifty five percent market share by 1957. Yet, Fisher’s sales were falling quickly due to Lucky’s low price.
In 1957 Fisher calculated that there was no way Fisher could be producing their beer for less than the price they were selling. Fisher learned that Lucky was indeed guilty of price fixing– in their attempt to squash Fisher and put him out of business. A federal court battle ensued, Fisher won this battle and was awarded close to $2 million. Counter suits ensued, but eventually Fisher won the case in Federal court.
In 1957, Fisher sold the brewery to his fierce competitor, Lucky Lager. Today, both names are known only to collectors of antique beer memorabilia. The country had changed. Sales to thirsty miners were not enough to compete against nationally marketed brands. The era of Salt Lake brewing greatness would take several decades to rise again to the prominence of these early German brewmeisters.

Historic Beer Birthday: John Courage

October 1, 2025 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of John Courage (October 1, 1761-October 1797). He founded the Courage Brewery in London in 1787, when he bought a brew house in Horselydown, Bermondsey, London.

This biography is from Courage & Co., a website dedicated to the Courage Brewery and the Courage family.

John Courage, the founder of Courage & Co., came to London in 1780 as a
younger son of a French Huguenot family who had been exiled and settled in Scotland a century before.
In a letter dated 7th February 1786, the Founder’s sister writes to him congratulating him on his marriage to Harriet Murdoch and that “the marriage is no surprise to us and be that she be a sober good woman and that we drank your health on your marriage night very hearty.”

The Anchor Brewhouse, the location of the original Courage Brewery.

By 1787 he had already been in business in London for eight years as an agent for the Glasgow shipping firm of Carron which traded from the Glasgow Wharf (the Carron and Continental Wharves) on the north side of the Thames, downstream from the Tower of London.
John Courage was the only surviving son of his late father, Alexander, when he left Aberdeen for London in about 1780 to become the Wapping agent for Carron Shipping, leaving behind in Aberdeen his mother Isabel and his unmarried sister Ann. John could see across the river to the foreshore of Southwark and decided to diversify his interests by going into the beer business. Thus it was that the name of Courage became associated with the brewing industry.
When John Courage, together with a number of friends, settled for the purchase of a brew house at Horselydown, on the south bank of the Thames, he was investing his acumen and money in a staple industry at an opportune time. He purchased the Anchor Brewery at Horselydown, Bermondsey, in 1787 from John and Hagger Ellis. An earlier owner of the Brewery was Vassal Webbing a Flemish émigré. What is interesting is that both Vassal Webbing and John were described in G.N. Hardinge’s book, Courages 1787-1932, as being Protestant émigrés. Frank Courage wrote to his daughter Milly in New Zealand in 1914, that he thought John (his Grandfather), could have come from Flanders, as brewing has always been more of an industry there than in France. The only known French Protestant Courages in the 1600s were Thomas and Nicholas Courage, and their names do not appear in Aberdeen, so the search has shifted to Flanders (Belgium), for our Protestant forebears.
On 17th December 1787, John Courage, aged 26, paid a cheque for £100 to the Morris Estate as part payment for the Private House and Old Brewhouse at Horselydown over the Thames and opposite Wapping. On Christmas Eve, John paid the balance on the purchase of £674 18s 9d. On 4th January 1788, he paid George Courage £26 6s for sundries and scroll book. On 15th January 1788 John purchased one silk waistcoat for 19 shillings 8d, and on 7th June paid John Ward £10 for a gelding. On 15th November 1788, the Founder’s sister Ann writes to her brother “this piece of news that our king is died” (Bonnie Prince Charlie in exile in Italy).
In March 1793, tragedy struck and John’s sister Ann died of a fever in Aberdeen and was buried beside her father in Old Machar; there is a long letter from the Founder’s mother, Isabel Courage, about this in the Courage Collection at the Greater London Record Office, EC1, together with the other original letters that survive from this period including the old brewery book.
In May 1793, Archibald Courage from Findhorn supplies his cousin “with 1000 American staves and 20 bundles hoops”. Courage Beer was being shipped all over the world, as its reputation grew. 2 hogsheads of Porter on 25th February 1793 were shipped back to Scotland to the Earl of Fife,
and throughout 1794 barrels of porter were dispatched to India, Dominica, Antigua, Amsterdam, Hambro, Gibraltar and Lisbon. Ann Murdoch, the Founder’s mother-in-law spent £6-10-6 on clothes for her grandson John in September 1796 and Mrs Courage’s house expenses for the month of October 1796 were £9-6-10d.
On 26th June 1788 a son, John, was born to John and his wife Harriet and on 8th June 1790 twins Ann and Elizabeth were born. On 23rd February 1795 another daughter, Harriet, was born.
John Courage died in October 1797 aged 36 and was buried at St John’s, Horselydown. His widow, Harriet died in May the following year aged 32, and was also buried at Horselydown. On Harriet’s death, the new John Courage was only 10, and John Donaldson, the managing clerk, took over the running of the Brewery, becoming a partner in the newly named firm of Courage and Donaldson, taking a third of the gross profits which was afterwards enlarged to half, as well as half of the capital.

This is a short history of the brewery from its Wikipedia page:

Courage & Co Ltd was started by John Courage at the Anchor Brewhouse in Horsleydown, Bermondsey in 1787. He was a Scottish shipping agent of French Huguenot descent. It became Courage & Donaldson in 1797. By 1888, it had been registered simply as Courage. In 1955, the company merged with Barclay, Perkins & Co Ltd (who were located at the nearby Anchor Brewery) to become Courage, Barclay & Co Ltd. Only five years later another merger with the Reading based Simonds Brewery led to the name changing to Courage, Barclay, Simonds & Co Ltd. In the late 1960s, the group had assets of approximately £100m, and operated five breweries in London, Reading, Bristol, Plymouth and Newark-on-Trent. It owned some 5,000 licensed premises spread over the whole of Southern England, a large part of South Wales and an extensive area of the East Midlands and South Yorkshire. It was employing some 15,000 people and producing something like 75 million imperial gallons (340,000,000 L) of beer annually. Its name was simplified to Courage Ltd in October 1970 and the company was taken over by the Imperial Tobacco Group Ltd two years later.
Its vast Worton Grange (later the Berkshire) brewery was opened on the Reading/Shinfield border in 1978. The Anchor Brewery closed in 1981 and all brewing was transferred to Reading. Imperial Tobacco was acquired by the Hanson Trust in 1986 and it sold off Courage to Elders IXL who were renamed the Foster’s Brewing Group in 1990. The following year the Courage section of Foster’s merged with the breweries of Grand Metropolitan. Its public houses were owned by a joint-company called Inntrepreneur Estates. Scottish & Newcastle purchased Courage from Foster’s in 1995, creating Scottish Courage as its brewing arm.

Historic Beer Birthday: Joseph Fallert Jr.

October 1, 2025 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Joseph Fallert Jr. (October 1, 1867-March 23, 1919). He was the son of Joseph Fallert, who founded the Joseph Fallert Brewery in 1878. Incorporating in 1884, he renamed it the Joseph Fallert Brewing Co. Ltd. in Brooklyn, New York. Junior over the brewery in 1893, when his father died, but it closed in 1920 for good when prohibition began, the year after he passed away.