Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Historic Beer Birthday: John F. Betz Jr.

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Today is the birthday of John F. Betz Jr. (September 1, 1856-April 8, 1910). He was born in Pennsylvania, the son of John F. Betz, who in 1867 bought what was the Robert Hare & J. Warren Porter Brewery when it opened in 1775, but was the William Gaul Brewery when Betz acquited it, but Betz changed it to the John F. Betz Brewery. When John Jr. joined his father in the business in 1880, they changed the name to the John F. Betz & Son Brewery. The brewery survived prohibition, but closed for good in 1939.

Here’s his obituary from the American Brewers’ Review:

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The Betz brewery in Philadelphia.

This much longer account is from “Philadelphia and Popular Philadelphians,” published in 1891. It’s mostly about Junior’s father, but he is mentioned in the course of the article:

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The Philadelphia brewery.

I’m not sure if this was a newspaper advertisement or some very favorable coverage, but this was a page from The Times—Philadelphia on May 28, 1893. But in the right-hand corner is where I discovered the only image of John F. Betz Jr. that I could find.

Beer Birthday: Ben Edmunds

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Today is the 44th birthday of Ben Edmunds. Ben is the co-founder and head brewer at Breakside Brewery in Portland, Oregon. Originally from Michigan, he attended Siebel Institute after college and settled in Portland. In 2010, Scott Lawrence opened Breakside with Ben doing the brewing. I don’t remember exactly when I met Ben but I’m pretty sure it was shortly after they opened, and I’ve been seeing him around ever since at various beer events. Ben’s a great advocate for craft beer and fun to hang out with, too. Join me in wishing Ben a very happy birthday.

Ben and me at CBC in Nashville earlier this year.
At FredFest a few years back. [photo by Don Scheid.]
Luc and Ben in Nashville.

Beer Birthday: Theo Flissebaalje

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Today would have been the 76th birthday of Theo Flissebaalje, but sadly he passed away earlier this year, in May. Theo’s from the Netherlands, and co-founded StiBON, and he’s also active in the beer consumer organization PINT. He’s also on the international judging circuit. I first met him judging in Tokyo, Japan, but have also judged with him in Europe and America, as well. Join me in wishing Theo a very happy birthday.

Theo in Japan.
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Through a window in Antwerp during lunch for the Brussels Beer Challenge in 2015, that’s Theo on the far right.
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Agostino Arioli, from Birrificio Italiano, with Theo, also in Japan in 2013.

Beer Birthday: Michael Ferguson

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Today is the 72nd birthday of Michael J. Ferguson, although I’m guessing at his age. I first met Michael when he was brewing in Las Vegas, but for over a decade brewed for the BJ’s brewpub chain as their Director of Brewery Operations. More recently he’s the Director International Marketing and Business Development for Aalberts Dispense Technologies and is also doing brewery consulting for his own firm, BrewerFX. Michael has one of the best laughs in all of brewing (only Lew Bryson gives him any competition) and is a great person, to boot. Join me in wishing Michael a very happy birthday.

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At GABF in 2008.
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Michael, when he was with BJ’s, with Justin Crossley at Oakland’s Linden Street Brewery during the AHA convention a few years ago.
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At CBC in Austin, Texas, in 2007, Michael with Lee Chase, formerly with Stone Brewing.
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Michael, and JoAnne Carilli in the foreground when she was with White Labs, at CBC in 2008.
Michael at GABF in 2006.

Historic Beer Birthday: Johanna Heileman

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Today is the birthday of Johanna Heileman (August 31, 1831-January 5, 1917). She was born in Württemberg, Germany, and married Gottlieb Heileman, who founded the G. Heileman Brewing Company in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 1858. When her husband passed away in 1878, she became president of their brewery and she continued to run it successfully for the next 34 years, when she retired in 1912, although even then she remained on the corporate board.

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

First female Chief Executive of a brewery in the United States. She was the wife of Gottlieb Heileman, founder of G. Heileman Brewing Co. of LaCrosse, Wisconsin. When he died in 1878 she became the chief executive of the company making her the first woman CEO of a brewery in the US. She also became one of the first female presidents of a United States corporation in 1890 when G. Heileman Brewing Co. was incorporated. She remained active in the company until her death.

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This portrait of Johanna Heileman is from a Discover the Silent City cemetery tour by the La Crosse Historical Society:

At the age of 21, Johanna Bantle came to the United States from her home in Germany. While working as a maid in the Pabst family mansion in Milwaukee she met and married another German immigrant, Gottlieb Heileman. They eventually opened their own brewery in La Crosse, Heileman’s, and raised a family.

Gottlieb died in 1878 and Johanna was named president of the brewery. She remained the company’s president until 1912, and stayed active as a board member until her death in 1917, at the age of 85. She was one of the first female CEOs in Wisconsin history, and an upstanding figure in the La Crosse German community. Under the leadership of Johanna Heileman, the G. Heileman Brewing Company continued to grow, and more than tripled their production from the time of their opening up to 1912, becoming a leader in the industry and providing La Crosse with a successful business that brought recognition, jobs and revenue to the city.

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The G, Heileman Brewery in 1889.

Here’s a much more thorough account of all of the Heilemans, including Johanna, from Immigrant Entrepreneurship, entitled The Best of Partners – The Best of Rivals: Gottlieb Heileman, John Gund, and the Rise of the La Crosse Brewing Industry:

The G. Heileman Brewing Company achieved national recognition in the 1960s and 1970s when it aggressively acquired a number of well-known breweries and brands including the Blatz Brewing Company, the Rainier Brewery in Seattle, and the Grain Belt brand (now owned by August Schell Brewing Company). For much of its existence, however, the La Crosse, Wisconsin, firm operated in a conservative manner by brewing for local and regional markets only. This business strategy reflected the vision of one of the firm’s German founders, Gottlieb Heileman (born January 6, 1824, in Kirchheim unter Teck, Kingdom of Württemberg; died February 19, 1878, in La Crosse, Wisconsin), who was content to grow the firm slowly and focus on quality over quantity. 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.

Gund’s and Heileman’s different approaches to brewing in the post-Civil War era illustrate the diversity of business strategies employed by brewers during this period. Not all ambitious German immigrant brewers sought to create national – or even large regional – shipping breweries as did the Schlitz-Uihlein family, Adolphus Busch, and a number of other German immigrant brewers. Instead, some focused on serving local and regional markets and utilized technological advances such as artificial refrigeration and pasteurization to refine their products rather than expand their markets and market share. Furthermore, following Heileman’s death in 1878, his wife, Johanna (born August 31, 1831, in the Kingdom of Württemberg; died January 5, 1917, in La Crosse, Wisconsin), served as one of the firm’s main officers until her death in 1917. As the first known female head of a brewery in the United States and as one of the first female corporate executives in any business sector, Johanna Heileman (née Bandel) put her own unique stamp on the firm founded by her husband and his business partner.

John Gund’s vision of La Crosse emerging as the brewing center of the Midwest did not come to pass, but the city’s breweries did briefly outproduce their rivals in Milwaukee during the mid-1880s. This demonstrates that Milwaukee’s emergence as the preeminent brewing center of the Midwest was far from inevitable, and, instead, was contingent on a variety of historical factors that set it apart from other Midwestern brewery cities such as La Crosse, Minneapolis, and Duluth.

Gottlieb Heileman, Johanna Heileman, and John Gund each contributed to the development of the brewing industry in La Crosse, and any study of the G. Heileman Brewing Company’s early history must take into account the commercial, social, and cultural milieu that influenced these three immigrant entrepreneurs’ decision-making after they settled in the United States in the 1850s. Their success partially reflected the growing strength of the American brewing industry after the Civil War – made possible by the waves of German settlers who arrived in the U.S. during the mid- to late nineteenth century and who served as both producers and consumers of lager beer and other malt beverages. Nevertheless, the Heilemans and Gund were ultimately responsible for their individual successes and failures during this era as this study will demonstrate.

Family and Ethnic Background

Gottlieb Heileman (originally Gottlieb Heilemann), Johanna Bandel, and John Gund (originally Johann Gund) all hailed from the southwestern German lands. Gottlieb Heileman was one of eight children born to Caspar and Frederika Heilemann (née Meyer). He was born on January 6, 1824, in Kirchheim unter Teck, a small upland community southeast of Stuttgart in the Kingdom of Württemberg. Johanna Bandel, who also hailed from Württemberg, was born to Johann Ludwig and Kathrina Bandel (née Sigel) on August 31, 1831. She had a number of brothers who later immigrated to the United States. 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).

Both Heileman and Gund came from established families within their respective communities. Heileman’s father and maternal grandfather were bakers and Gottlieb Heileman received training as a baker and brewer during his youth. Gund’s father was a farmer who grew hops and tobacco, but John Gund served a two-year apprenticeship as a cooper and brewer following the end of his common school education at age fifteen. He worked an additional year as a journeyman brewer after his apprenticeship ended. The two men immigrated to the United States within four years of each other. Gund arrived in New York City in May 1848 at the age of eighteen, having traveled from Schwetzingen down the Rhine River to Rotterdam and then on to Le Havre and New York. Heileman reached Philadelphia in 1852 at the age of twenty-eight. Johanna Bandel settled in New York City in either 1852 or 1855 at the age of either twenty-one or twenty-four, respectively, and lived with her brothers for a number of years.

All three Germans followed a similar migration trajectory and made their way westward to Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin during the 1850s along with tens of thousands of other German immigrants, primarily from Baden, Württemberg, and the Palatinate. Gund’s parents settled in Freeport, Illinois, in the northwestern part of the state. 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.

Gottlieb Heileman reached La Crosse via Milwaukee the same year that the Nicolai brothers arrived in the city. He had worked for a year in Philadelphia after arriving in 1852. He then moved west to Milwaukee around 1854 and established a bakery with Gottlieb Maier in March 1856. The two men took out a $2,550 (approximately $70,000 in 2011$), three-year mortgage on the property, but paid off the balance within a year. Heileman was apparently less interested in baking than brewing, because he sold his share in the bakery for $1,525 (approximately $40,500 in 2011$) and moved west to La Crosse in October 1857. He found employment briefly as a foreman in the Nicolai Brewery but lost his job when Nicolai and Franz ended their partnership shortly thereafter. Heileman found a new position in the Michel brother’s La Crosse Brewery. In June 1858, he married Johanna Bandel, whom he had met during his three-year stay in Milwaukee. She had worked as a domestic servant in the midwestern city after leaving New York. Gottlieb Helieman returned to La Crosse with his bride and soon entered a new phase in his professional brewing career.

Business Development

Gottlieb Heileman and John Gund formed a partnership in November 1858 to operate the City Brewery in La Crosse. Their timing was propitious since the city of La Crosse continued to experience significant population growth, particularly among Northern European settlers, and the first outside railway connection had been completed to Milwaukee the previous month. The structures comprising the City Brewery were constructed at 1018 South Third Street. The location was south of the city’s commercial center near the Mississippi River waterfront. Early production figures for the brewery were modest. During the first decade of operation, production averaged around 500 barrels of lager beer per year (approximately 15,750 gallons). Originally, lager beer production had been limited to the winter months, but during the 1860s local brewers began using ice harvested from the Mississippi River to chill the beer during the critical lagering stage, which could last between six to eight weeks and produced a translucent and highly-carbonated final product. Heileman and Gund produced beer primarily for the local market and sold casks to hotels, taverns, and occasionally individuals. The partners constructed a hotel in downtown La Crosse in 1867 and named it the International Hotel. The facility likely offered an additional source of income for the partners and also provided a venue in which to sell their beer.

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. 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.

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The G. Heileman Brewing Company

Gottlieb Heileman continued operating the City Brewery, now renamed the G. Heileman Brewing Company, following John Gund’s departure in 1872. The firm continued to produce a moderate volume of beer for local and regional consumption through the decade. Heileman died young in February 1878 at the age of fifty-four. Since his son, Henry, was only ten years old at the time, control of the enterprise passed to his forty-six-year-old widow, Johanna. She was assisted by Reinhard Wäcker (sometimes spelled Reinhart Wicker), who served as brewery foreman and dealt with technical matters. As president of the enterprise, Johanna Heileman became the first female head of a brewery in the United States, and after the business was incorporated in 1890, possibly the first female corporate executive in the nation. Of note, on the 1880 federal census, she listed her occupation as “keeping house,” whereas on the 1900 census she listed it as “owner of brewery.”

Other members of the Heileman family also participated in managing the business during the 1880s and 1890s. Emil Traugott Mueller, the husband of Johanna Heileman’s eldest daughter, Louisa, was hired in 1884 as a bookkeeper and assistant manager. As an adult, Henry Heileman served as vice president and assistant manager of the firm until his death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1895 at the age of twenty-six.

Under Johanna Heileman’s oversight, the G. Heileman Brewing Company gradually expanded its production and market reach. In 1880, the brewery produced 7,170 barrels of beer, which put it in a distant third place compared to the Gund Brewing Company and the Michel brother’s La Crosse Brewery. Five years later, the brewery produced 12,000 barrels and employed roughly thirty-five men. The firm produced a number of different beers during this period including a Vienna lager and a dark lager named Hofbrau. They also began bottling beer for regional distribution. They opened their first distribution agency in Glencoe, Minnesota, a city approximately fifty miles west of Minneapolis in 1885 and gradually expanded their reach to the Dakotas and Illinois over the next two decades. The firm also established tied houses, taverns that sold Heileman beer exclusively (i.e. they were tied to a particular producer), in various cities. One was located in downtown La Crosse and another was situated approximately thirty miles east in Cashton, Wisconsin.

The firm sought to maintain good relations with the other breweries in the community and avoid ruinous price wars. In May 1898, the major breweries of La Crosse, including Heileman, Gund, Michel, and a number of smaller facilities agreed to establish uniform prices for kegged and bottled beer. They set the rate for kegged beer at eight dollars per barrel (approximately $224 per barrel in 2011$). For bottled beer, the rate was $2.20 for two dozen quarts of export-strength lager and $1.90 for two dozen quarts of regular-strength lager. At the same time, Heileman and three other La Crosse breweries began quietly investigating the possibility of forming a trust in order to compete against Gund locally and the major Milwaukee shipping breweries regionally. The impetus for the proposed trust was Chicago accountant Otto W. Heibig. After overseeing the installation of brewing equipment at the Gund Brewery following the destructive 1897 fire, Heibig grew interested in pooling the financial resources and physical plants of the other La Crosse breweries. Heibig estimated a combined value for the Heileman, Michel, Franz Bartl, and Zeisler breweries at $930,000 (approximately $26 million dollars in 2011$). In September 1900, the brewers and Heibig filed incorporation papers for the La Crosse Brewing Company and prepared to offer $700,000 in capital stock and $500,000 in bonds. They proposed constructing a new brewery with the capacity to produce 400,000 barrels annually, which was twice Gund’s output of approximately 200,000 barrels per year. Industrial architect Otto C. Wolf of Philadelphia designed the new brewery at a proposed cost of $300,000 (approximately $8.4 million dollars in 2011$). The existing breweries of the members of the trust would be adapted to other purposes with the Heileman facility being converted into a malting plant and the other breweries becoming storehouses and a dedicated ale brewery. Despite the great potential of the project, it never progressed beyond the planning stages. Shortly after the trust was incorporated in September 1900, a brewer in Cincinnati purchased the equipment intended for the proposed facility in La Crosse. The following January, the trust announced its new slate of corporate officers, which included Emil T. Mueller of the G. Heileman Brewing Company as treasurer. Little further action occurred over the next two years and eventually the trust collapsed in 1902, apparently due to resistance from officials at the Heileman Brewery.

During the first decade of the twentieth century, G. Heileman Brewing introduced their best-known beer brand and went through a reorganization. The firm had acquired the trademark for a light lager, Golden Leaf, from a Milwaukee brewery in 1899 and a year later introduced a new heavier lager, Old Times Lager. In 1902, they renamed the beer Old Style Lager following a complaint from another brewery producing a similarly named beer. They also ended production of Golden Leaf to free up capacity for Old Style, which the firm produced exclusively in bottled format, as it was intended for distribution to regional markets. Emil T. Mueller played a key role in promoting the beer brand extensively over the following decade. Johanna Heilemann and the other brewery executives also expanded the firm’s capitalization to $350,000 from the original capitalization of $75,000 and used the funds to increase production to approximately 175,000 barrels per year. The firm’s brewery workers organized themselves around the same time and the firm signed a contract with Local 81 of the International Brotherhood of Brewery Workers, thus avoiding labor conflict.

By the 1910s, Heileman was shipping cases of bottled Old Style Lager to thirty-four states and had entered the lucrative Chicago market with more than fifty saloons and a number of distribution agents. Firm president Johanna Heileman passed away in January 1917, setting in motion a gradual transition from family to professional management at the firm. Johanna Heileman’s son-in-law, Emil T. Mueller, assumed the presidency of the firm, a position he held until his death in 1929. After Mueller died, another son-in-law, George Zeisler Jr., took over as president of G. Heileman Brewing until 1933, when the firm was reincorporated and non-family members assumed the presidency and key positions on the board of directors.

Unlike Gund Brewing, Heileman weathered the storm of Prohibition. Rather than risk producing low alcohol beer in 1919 and 1920, the firm began brewing a new, non-alcoholic beer called New Style Lager in May 1919 when the Wartime Prohibition Act went into effect. Like other breweries around the nation, the firm also produced a variety of hopped malt syrups and extracts that could be used by home brewers to produce beer and a line of soft drinks. Such measures helped the firm eke out an existence during the 1920s and early 1930s. In 1931, a major fire destroyed a number of warehouses and nearly bankrupted the firm, since the brewery had not insured the structures. Brewery officials warned that the firm was unlikely to survive much longer given the prohibition on alcohol sales and the general business disruption caused by the Great Depression. Fortunately, the gradual repeal of Prohibition beginning on April 7, 1933, gave G. Heileman Brewing a second lease on life. In the weeks leading up to April 7, the firm began brewing 3.2 percent beer permitted under the repeal act around the clock and released truck- and trainloads of the beer shortly after midnight on the seventh. Demand was so great that the firm could not fill all its orders and was forced to return numerous checks uncashed. Following the firm’s reincorporation, professional managers sought to update the brewery’s physical plant, improve quality control, which had slipped during the 1930s and 1940s, and expand production and distribution. This process continued into the 1950s and 1960s.

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Personality and Social Standing

Both the Gund and Heileman families participated in the German institutions of La Crosse, Wisconsin, as well as in the local and regional brewing community. Little information survives about their specific involvement in the secular and religious institutions of La Crosse, but records show that John Gund’s eldest son, George, was a member of the local Turnverein in the 1870s. The physical education society had its origins in the post-Napoleonic German lands and was first introduced unsuccessfully to the United States in the 1820s. German 48rs reintroduced the Turner movement at the end of the 1840s and within a few years, Turner societies had emerged in major American cities with German populations. The La Crosse Turnverein was organized in October 1855 and John Gund granted the group permission to practice in the yard of his small brewery in 1856. They may have continued using the space through 1858, when Gund sold the property following his partnership with Heileman.

Gund and Heileman were members of the Lutheran Church and Heileman’s 1878 funeral at the local Lutheran church in La Crosse was considered to be one of the largest funerals in the history of the city to that date. More than 160 carriages belonging to mourners participated in the funeral procession from the church to the nearby Oak Grove Cemetery. Six prominent brewers in the community served as Heileman’s pallbearers, however, John Gund was not among them. This may have reflected lingering animosity between the former partners. When Gund died in 1910, members of the local Liederkranz Society, which was affiliated with the Turnverein as part of the local Deutscher Verein von La Crosse, attended his funeral along with members of the Brewer’s Union.

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. No information exists on Gottlieb Heileman’s political views.

Networks

Members of both families were active in professional and personal networks of largely German-American composition both at the local and national levels. These networks often overlapped, particularly in the case of marriage. John Gund’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Louisa, married La Crosse brewer Charles Michel in 1872. This cemented a bond between the two families who operated the largest and second largest breweries in La Crosse, respectively, throughout the closing decades of the nineteenth century. Similarly, Gottlieb and Johanna Heileman’s daughters married men who would later play key roles in the management of their family firm in the twentieth century.

Family members also participated in professional associations related to the brewing industry. The Heileman family joined the United States Brewers’ Association in 1886 and members of the Gund family participated in the association’s lobbying efforts on behalf of the American brewing industry. The Heileman’s son-in-law, Emil T. Mueller, served as secretary of the Personal Liberty League’s La Crosse chapter. Supported by the U.S. Brewer’s Association, the League lobbied against prohibitionist policies at the local and state levels and worked to protect the business interests of breweries in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

Lastly, family members were active in local civic associations and enterprises in La Crosse. John Gund’s eldest son, George, served on the city’s Board of Trade as its first treasurer. Later, he was selected as president of the La Crosse Baseball Association in the late 1880s. He was also among the original investors in the city’s Street Railway Company in 1879, a position that gave him influence over the city’s economic development.

Immigrant Entrepreneurship

John Gund and Gottlieb and Johanna Heileman participated in the introduction of European lager beer and German beer culture to the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century. They initially served kegged beer to a largely German local clientele. Advertisements for their products appeared in German in local periodicals such as the Nord Stern. Labels for their early bottled products also contained German phrases and in the Heileman’s case listed the producer as “Heilemann City Brauerei.” Over time, though, John Gund and later Johanna Heileman expanded the scope of their respective breweries’ operations in order to provide bottled beer to a broader, regional consumer market that was less directly tied to German ethnicity. Their success in the lucrative Chicago market through tied houses helped to make both Peerless and Old Style well known among regional beer brands, and their advertising and bottle art embraced European iconography but typically avoided explicitly German references.

John Gund and Gottlieb Heileman acquired knowledge and experience in German brewing practices through apprenticeships, and they brought this knowledge with them to the United States. Both men entered the brewing trade on a limited scale after they immigrated and settled in the Midwest. No evidence exists that either man received remittances from family members in the German lands, so they likely had to accumulate slowly the necessary capital in order to open their brewery in 1858. Gund worked in a number of breweries in Iowa and Illinois before moving to La Crosse. Similarly, Heileman worked as a baker in Milwaukee before gaining experience as a foreman at two breweries in La Crosse. Once the partners founded the City Brewery, they pursued a conservative business strategy and likely reinvested their profits in the operation. Rather than trying to grow the business quickly and expand into distant markets, they found plenty of consumers in La Crosse and its hinterlands during the 1860s and 1870s.

Gund returned to Germany in 1873, shortly after he ended his partnership with Heileman. The purpose of the visit was social, but it is likely that he also surveyed the brewing landscape in Germany and brought back knowledge with him that he employed in founding the John Gund Brewery. It is unknown if Heileman returned to German at any point before his death in 1878.

Conclusion

The firms founded by German immigrants John Gund and Gottlieb Heileman reflected the broader fate of the American brewing industry in the twentieth century. Like hundreds of other breweries, the John Gund Brewing Company did not survive Prohibition. The family shut down the operation and eventually sold off the firm’s assets piecemeal over the next two decades. G. Heileman Brewing survived the turmoil of Prohibition and its professional managers eventually determined that the firm had to expand or fall victim to industry consolidation in the 1960s. Consequently, the corporation purchased breweries across the nation during the 1970s, while also fending off challenges from the other major brewing firms of the era, including Pabst, Miller, and Anheuser-Busch. At the same time, publicly-traded Heileman stock became a target for speculators. The firm fended off hostile takeover attempts successfully in the 1980s, but eventually sunk into bankruptcy and was acquired by Stroh in 1996.

La Crosse, Wisconsin, failed to emerge as a major center of brewing comparable to Milwaukee. It simply lacked the population and financial resources of its cross-state rival. By the beginning of the 1960s, Heileman was the only brewery left in the city, whereas Milwaukee was home to major national shipping breweries including Miller, Pabst, and Schlitz. These firms had the financial resources that Heileman lacked and were better able to weather the storm of industry consolidation in the 1970s.

Over multiple generations, the Gund and Heileman families left their mark on the economic and physical landscape of La Crosse. Both Heileman and Gund’s names remain part of the city fabric. One of the old Gund Brewery buildings now houses loft apartments and the former G. Heileman Brewery is currently operated as a contract brewery for a number of brands. Surrounded by busy brewery buildings, Gottlieb and Johanna Heileman’s large brick home still reflects the conservative values of the company’s German immigrant founder.

John Gund and Gottlieb Heileman found success by selling beer to their fellow immigrants. Over time, this success translated into greater business opportunities. Though neither firm exists today, both left a legacy that is felt within the local La Crosse community and the national brewing industry.

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Historic Beer Birthday: Samuel Whitbread

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Today is the birthday of Samuel Whitbread (August 30, 1720-June 11, 1796). He founded a brewery with a few partners in 1742, but was the largest investor and retained control of the venture. In 1799 his brewery was renamed Whitbread & Co. Ltd. He was also “appointed High Sheriff of Hertfordshire for 1767–68 and elected Member of Parliament for Bedford in 1768, and held the seat until 1790.” The portrait of Samuel Whitbread below was painted by Joshua Reynolds.

Here is Peter Mathias’ biography from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

Whitbread, Samuel (1720–1796), brewer and landowner, was born on 30 August 1720 at Cardington, near Bedford, the seventh of eight children and the youngest of five sons of Henry Whitbread (d. 1727) and his second wife, Elizabeth Read. The Whitbread family were of prosperous nonconformist yeoman stock, farming their own land and closely associated with leading Bedfordshire puritans. Whitbread’s father was receiver of the land tax for Bedfordshire, and his first wife was the daughter of John Ive, a London merchant. This gave Whitbread the advantage, through a half-brother, of a connection in the City when his widowed mother apprenticed him at the age of sixteen to John Wightman of Gilport Street, a leading London brewer, for the large fee of £300. He set up in business himself in December 1742 with two partners, Godfrey and Thomas Shewell, buying a small brewery at the junction of Old Street and Upper Whitecross Street and another brewhouse for pale and amber beers in Brick Lane, Spitalfields. Whitbread brought an inheritance of £2000 to the firm, plus the proceeds of a small family holding in Gloucestershire, and loans from friends and kinsmen in Bedfordshire. He became free of the Brewers’ Company on 8 July 1743. The partnership was valued at £14,016, owning the leases of 14 public houses, with further loans to publicans, and deployed 18 horses and almost 18,000 casks. However, this was the prelude to a dramatic new venture.

Godfrey Shewell withdrew from the partnership as Thomas Shewell and Samuel Whitbread borrowed more to buy the large site of the derelict King’s Head brewery in Chiswell Street in 1750. The new brewery was specifically for the single product porter, the basis for the vast brewing enterprises then being developed in London by Henry Thrale and Sir Benjamin Truman. It was named the Hind’s Head brewery after the Whitbread family coat of arms. From the outset Whitbread was the leading partner financially, solely responsible for management, and Shewell withdrew completely in 1761, Whitbread buying out his share for £30,000. Great expansion ensued, with such notable innovations as vast underground cisterns containing 12,000 barrels of porter, designed by John Smeaton, and benefiting from installation of only the second Boulton and Watt steam engine in London (Henry Goodwyn, also a brewer, had beaten him by a matter of months). Public renown came on 27 May 1787 with a royal visit to Chiswell Street—by the king and queen, three princesses, and an assembly of aristocrats in train—with James Watt on hand to explain the mysteries of his engine. In the year of Whitbread’s death, 1796, the brewery produced an unprecedented total of 202,000 barrels (that is, almost 30 million quart pots of porter).

Great investment in the brewery did not preclude Whitbread’s amassing a personal fortune and large estates. On his marriage in July 1757 to Harriet, daughter of William Hayton of Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire, a leading London attorney, Whitbread began buying land in Cardington, the locality of his birth. His wife died in 1764, leaving him with an only son, Samuel Whitbread (the couple also had two daughters). Whitbread went on to buy the Bedwell Park estate in Hertfordshire in 1765, and he also owned London houses, first at St Alban’s Street, Westminster, and then at Portman Square (from 1778), together with a large house in Chiswell Street by the brewery. In 1795 shortly before his death he bought Lord Torrington’s Southill Park estate in Bedfordshire and immediately engaged the architect Henry Holland to rebuild the existing house. Whitbread had by this time accumulated a landed estate worth some £400,000.

Affluence brought higher social status and also Whitbread’s second marriage on 18 August 1769 to Lady Mary Cornwallis, younger daughter of Earl Cornwallis; but she died in 1770, giving birth to a daughter, Mary Grey (1770–1858). Whitbread became MP for Bedford in 1768, mainly, but certainly not always, supporting the tory interest until his son took over the seat in 1790. He was regarded as completely independent of the administration and spoke mainly on matters pertaining to the brewing industry, save that he was a firm advocate of the abolition of the slave trade.

Whitbread died on 11 June 1796 at Bedwell Park. He appointed his three senior clerks as his executors because his son was ‘a perfect stranger to the whole’ (Mathias, 309). Whitbread not only had his own portrait painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, but he also commissioned Thomas Gainsborough, Gainsborough Dupont, and George Romney to paint portraits to hang in the library at Southill of all nine of his senior clerks and brewers, in recognition of their importance in managing the business. Unfortunately, in their very rich gilt frames the pictures had to observe the dissipation of the great fortune by the younger Samuel Whitbread as he pursued a costly social and parliamentary career, neglecting the brewery which had been the source of the family’s wealth and prestige.

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A miniature portrait of Samuel Whitbread, by Henry Bone.

An early history of the company from Encyclopedia.com:

Samuel Whitbread, at the age of 14, was sent to London by his mother in 1734 to become an apprentice to a brewer. Whitbread, raised as a Puritan, proved to be an extremely hard worker. In 1742, eight years after coming to London, he established his own brewery with a £2,000 inheritance and additional underwriting from John Howard, the renowned prison reformer. As the brewery became successful, Howard’s investment became more lucrative—it even led to a reciprocation of financial support by Whitbread for Howard’s reform movement.

By 1750 Whitbread had acquired an additional brewery located on Chiswell Street. At this time there were more than 50 breweries in London, but, despite intense competition, the Whitbread brewery expanded rapidly. By 1760 its annual output had reached 64,000 barrels, second only to Calvert and Company.

Whitbread was enthusiastic about new brewing methods. He employed several well-known engineers who helped to improve the quality and increase the production volume of the company’s stout and porter (a sweeter, weaker stout).

The Whitbread family had a long history of involvement in English politics. Samuel Whitbread’s forefathers fought with Oliver Cromwell’s Roundheads during the English Civil War and later developed a connection with the Bedfordshire preacher and author John Bunyan. Samuel Whitbread himself was elected to Parliament in 1768 as a representative of Bedford. His son, Samuel II, succeeded him in Parliament in 1790, and Whitbread descendants served in Parliament almost continuously until 1910.

Samuel Whitbread died in 1796.

The Whitbread Brewery in Chiswell Street, 1792, painted by George Garrard.

Beer Birthday: Johan Van Dyck

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Today is the 50th birthday — the Big 5-O — of Johan Van Dyck, who founded Seef Beer in Antwerp, based on an old style that he worked hard to resurrect after it had died out, despite having been the most popular local beer for many years before two world wars. I first met Johan in San Francisco when he was here with his importer to launch the brand and I wrote about the beer for my newspaper column. The company is now called Antwerpse Brouwcompagnie. It was originally a contract brew, but Johan has opened a production facility in the Noorderpershuis, which was originally a power plant. I’ve since run into him a few times in Belgium, and I’m very glad to see his beer succeed. Join me in wishing Johan a very happy birthday.

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Johan with the King of Belgium (though he was still the prince when we met him), and Bob Leggett from Artisanal Imports.
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Pete Slosberg and me with Johan at City Beer Store
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Johan winning an award at the Brussels Beer Challenge in 2015.

Beer Birthday: Jessica Jones

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Today is the 40th birthday — the Big 4-O — of Jessica Jones, who’s the former COO of Ninkasi Brewing. Several years ago, she left Ninkasi and became the Chief Marketing Officer and Director of Strategy for Enjoy Beer, the startup founded by Rich Doyle after he left Harpoon, but as far as I know it never really caught on as they’d hoped, and the site is no longer active. Anyway, I haven’t talked to her in quite a few years, and last I heard she and her husband had moved to Eugene, Oregon and they’ve started a honey business, Queen’s Bounty Honey. But since she’s one of the few people I know born on leap day, I wanted to still post about her birthday this year.

When I first met Jessica, she was blogging at beer as the Thirsty Hopster and helped do some of the behind-the-scenes setup when I founded the Bay Area Beer Bloggers. She then put her education to good use by getting a job with Firestone Walker, and found that she liked working for a brewery. So she went back to school and got her MBA, before moving to Portland. Since 2011, she’s been keeping Ninkasi Brewing humming, and keeping Jamie in line. It’s been fun to watch Jessica’s evolution in the beer world, and how amazing she’d made Ninkasi. Join me in wishing Jessica a very happy birthday.

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At the Hard Liver Barleywine Festival in Seattle, in 2009. Clockwise from left; Shitwig (a nickname, I believe), Jessica, her sister and her sister’s friend.
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At the end of the Celebrator Anniversary Party in 2009.
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With Nicole Erny and, The Beer Chef, Bruce Paton, at his Beer & Chocolate Beer Dinner several years back.
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Jessica at the Falling Rock, along with her sister (bottom left) and friends, during an SF Beer Week event at the Falling Rock during GABF in 2008.
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Jessica and Scott Perkins at GABF in 2009.

Charles Deulin’s Tales of King Cambrinus

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Today is the birthday of Charles Deulin (January 4, 1827–77). He was “a French writer, theatre critic, and folklorist who is most known for his contemporary adaptations of European folk tales.”

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This biography of Deulin is from “The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales,” published in 2008:

Charles Deulin was the son of a poor tailor who lived in the Escaut, a region in the north of France whose folklore inspired his major works. Deulin’s early career as the secretary of an enlightened notary and patron of the arts came to a sudden end after he eloped with the daughter of a notable local merchant. Deulin relocated to Paris, where he worked as a columnist for numerous French journals and reviews. However, Deulin found his real fame writing tales that drew on regional folklore and folktales. His first tale, “Le compere de la mort” (“Godfather Death”), was based on an oral tale that he had first adapted as a song. His tales achieved both popular and critical success, so Deulin mined the rare resources and folk literature in the Library of the Arsenal in Paris for material that he could reshape into tales of his own. Contes d’un buveur de biere (Tales of a Beer Drinker, 1868) and its sequels Contes du roi Cambrinus (Tales of King Cambrinus, 1874) and Histoires de petite ville (Village Stories, 1875) constitute his most important collections of fairy tales. Les contes de ma Mere l’Oye avant Perrault (The Tales of Mother Goose from before Perrault), a scholarly work that explores Charles Perrault’s likely sources, was published in 1879, after his death. Deulin and his beer drinker remind us of his contemporary Alphonse Daudet and his windmill of Provence. Despite obvious differences between these writers, they both provide sharp yet personal evocations of the lore of their native regions, thanks to their skill at giving French language a distinctive regional twist.

His second collection of stories was called “Contes d’un buveur de bière” (“Tales of a Beer Drinker”) and was published in 1868. “Deulin based one of the stories, “Cambrinus, Roi de la Bière” (“Cambrinus, King of Beer”), on folktales about the origin of a beer-brewing mythological king called Gambrinus. In the story, a lovelorn Gambrinus makes a deal with the Devil, and Beelzebub teaches him about brewing.”

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Here’s a summary of his first Cambrinus story:

In this, the seminal Cambrinus short story, Cambrinus is an apprentice glassblower in the Flemish village of Fresnes-sur-Escaut, but he believes that he lacks the skill and upward mobility to succeed in glassblowing. He becomes smitten with the master glassblower’s daughter, Flandrine. When he tells her, she rebuffs him and he leaves in disgrace. He apprentices himself to a viol master and becomes a great player. One day, he summons the courage to climb on a barrel and play publicly. He plays well, but just as he has whipped the crowd into a dance, the sight of Flandrine flusters him, and he bungles his playing. The villagers, believing Cambrinus tripped them up on purpose, pull him off the barrel to jeer and strike him. A contemptuous judge called Jocko sentences Cambrinus to a month in prison. When Cambrinus emerges a month later, he feels so ashamed that he prepares to hang himself. As he stands with the noose around his neck, a colourfully-dressed stranger appears. Cambrinus recognizes him by his horns: it is Beelzebub. As they chat, Beelzebub reveals that he has killed the judge, and now expects to collect Cambrinus’ soul, for, he says, such is his fate if he hangs himself. Not wanting to go to hell or to return to life as he knew it, Cambrinus tries to bargain. Beelzebub cannot make Flandrine love him, so Cambrinus settles for forgetting his affection for her; he also wants revenge on the villagers. Beelzebub tells him that the way to forget is if “one nail drives out another.”

Cambrinus wins a fortune in games of skill and chance. The consistent winning becomes tedious, so he returns to Flanders—but Flandrine still refuses him. Once again, he is about to hang himself when Beelzebub reappears, and tells him that drinking is the way to forget. Cambrinus drinks wine, gin, whisky, cider, and brandy, but his condition only worsens. Cambrinus is momentarily contented when Beelzebub introduces him to beer, but he seeks revenge on those who would not dance for him. Beelzebub tells him that playing the carillon will prove irresistible.

Cambrinus builds a large brewery with a carillon and a belfry, then invites the villagers for a drink after Mass. They come, but find the beer too bitter. To punish them, Cambrinus plays his carillon, and everyone in earshot is compelled to dance until they beg for a drink. This time, they find the beer delicious, and Cambrinus’ dances become an institution that transforms the village of Fresnes-sur-Escaut.

Fame of the drink and of Cambrinus’ carillon reaches the king of the Netherlands, who in return heaps titles of nobility on Cambrinus: Duke of Brabant, Count of Flanders, Lord of Fresnes. But even after founding the town of Cambrai, Cambrinus prefers the villagers’ honorary title for him: King of Beer. When Flandrine finally approaches him, he rejects her.

At the end of the 30 years, Beelzebub sends Jocko, the judge, to fetch Cambrinus; but Jocko drinks too much beer and sleeps for three days. Since he is too ashamed to return to hell, he hides in a purse. Cambrinus thrives for nearly a hundred years more. When Cambrinus finally dies, Beelzebub comes for his soul, only to find that Cambrinus’ body has become a beer barrel.

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For his third collection of stories, “Deulin made his Cambrinus character the focus,” in “Contes du roi Cambrinus” (“Tales of King Cambrinus”), which was published in 1874. This collection included at least “Cambrinus, The Devil’s Pot, Manneken-pis, Martin and Martine, The Muscades of Guerliche, The Poirier de Misère, and The Thirty-Six Encounters of Jean du Gogué.

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This is a Google translation from the French Wikisource library:

I

In the old days, there was in the village of Fresnes-sur-l’Escaut a glass boy named Cambrinus, according to other Gambrinus, who, with his pink and fresh face, his beard and his golden hair, was indeed the prettiest you could see.

More than one young lady of glass, bringing her father’s dinner, was annoying the handsome Cambrinus; but he had eyes only for Flandrine, the daughter of his blower.

Flandrine was, on her side, a beautiful girl with golden hair, cheeks reouvelèmes, – It was meant to be a vermeilles, and never would a better matched couple have been blessed by the cure, had there not been between them an insurmountable barrier.

Cambrinus was not a glass race and could not aspire to mastery. He had, throughout his life, to pass the bottle sketched to his blower, without ever claiming the honor of finishing it himself.

Nobody is ignorant, indeed, that the glassmakers are all Gentiles-men by birth and only show their sons the noble profession of blower. But Flandrine was too proud to lower her eyes to a simple big boy, as they say in the language of glass.

This made the unhappy man, consumed by a fire ten times hotter than his oven, lost his fresh colors and became dry like a heron.

No longer able to hold out, one day he was alone with Flandrine, he took his courage in both hands and told him his feelings. The proud girl received him with such disdain that in despair he planted his work there and did not reappear at the glassworks.

As he loved music, he bought a viol to charm his troubles and tried to play it without ever learning.

The idea then came to him to become a musician. ” I will become a great artist, he said to himself, and perhaps Flandrin will want me. A good musician is well worth a glass gentleman. ”

He went to find an old canon of Conde’s collegiate, named Josquin, who had a wonderful genius for music. He told him of his troubles and asked him to teach him his art. Josquin felt sorry for his grief and showed him to play the viol according to the rules.

Cambrinus was soon in a position to make the girls dance on the meadow. He was ten times more skillful than the other minstrels; but unfortunately! No one is a prophet in his own country.

The people of Fresnes did not want to believe that a glass boy had become in such a short time a good musician, and it was under a rolling fire of jeers that, on a fine Sunday, armed with his viola, he mounted his platform I mean his barrel.

Although very moved, he gave a sure hand the first bows. Little by little he became animated and led the dance with a vigor and an enthusiasm that silenced the laughter. Everything was going well when Flandrine appeared.

At his sight, the unfortunate man lost his head, played against the weather and beat the campaign so well that the dancers, believing that he was making fun of them, dragged him out of his barrel, broke his rapes on the shoulders and sent him back booed, boozy and pooped eyes.

To make matters worse, there was at that time at Conde a judge who did justice like the grocers sell candles, by leaning the scales to his liking. He was a stammerer, spoke almost always in Latin, mumbled paternosters from morning till night, and looked so much like a monkey that he was nicknamed Jocko.

Jocko learned the case and called the disrupters to his court. The Fresnois went there, each bearing a couple of chickens which they offered to the judge. The latter found the chickens so fat and Cambrinus so guilty that, although the unfortunate man had been beaten in full sun, he condemned him to a month’s imprisonment for assault and night-time fury.

It was a big heartbreak for the poor boy. He was so ashamed and sorry that when he was released from prison he resolved to end life. He unfastened the rope from his well, which was brand new, and reached the wood of Odomez.

At the darkest intersection, he climbed an oak tree, sat down on the first branch, tied the rope tightly and wrapped it around his neck. That done, he raised his head, and he was going to take the plunge, when he suddenly stopped.

Before his eyes was a man of tall stature, dressed in a green coat with copper buttons, wearing a feathered hat, armed with a hunting knife, and carrying a silver horn over his carnivore. Cambrinus and he looked at each other for some time in silence.

“That I do not bother you! finally said the unknown.

“I am in no hurry,” replied the other, a little chilled by the presence of a stranger.

– But I am, my good Cambrinus.

– Here! you know my name?

– And I also know that you’re going to dance your last jig, because you’ve been thrown in prison and the kind Flandrine refuses to enlist you in the big brotherhood … ”

And so saying, the stranger took off his hat.

“What! it’s you, myn heer van Belzebuth. Well ! by your two horns, I thought you were uglier.

– Thank you!

– And what good wind brings you?

– Is it not today Saturday? My wife is washing the house, and, as I hate wassingues …

– You have decamped. I understand that. And … did you have a good hunt?

– Pooh! I only report the soul of the judge of Condé.

– How! Jocko is dead! And you take away his soul! Oh ! but do not waste time, myn heer. What are you waiting for?

– I’m waiting for yours.

– What if I do not hang myself?

– It will be hell in this world.

– Which is not much better. But that’s just right, that, godverdom! Come on, Monsieur the devil, be good devil and shoot me from there!

– But how?

Let Flandrine want to marry me.

– Impossible, good! What woman wants …

“God wills it, I know it; but what she does not want?

– What she does not want, the devil himself would lose his horns.

– So, make sure I do not love him anymore.

– I agree … on one condition. It is that you will give me your soul in exchange.

– Right now?

– No. In thirty years from here.

– My faith! start there. I am too unhappy … but you will help me, on the other hand, to avenge myself on the people of Fresnes.

Let’s first think of healing yourself, and remember this. One nail drives out another. It is not so strongsion that does not yield to a more passionate passion. Day and night plays, and replaces the game of love by the love of the game.

“I’ll try,” Cambrinus said. Thank you, myn heer. ”

He untied his rope and drew his bow.

II

There was precisely in Condé, the following Sunday, a great archery. Cambrinus went there, like all the Fresnois.

The brotherhood of the archers of San Sebastián had displayed, in price, five dishes and three tin pots, plus six teaspoons in silver for the last birdie shot. Cambrinus won four dishes, two coffee pots and six silver spoons. No one had ever heard of such an address.

As, eight days later, the ball was to be played on the Place Verte de Conde, he formed at Fresnes a platoon of players, and although until then the Fresnois had scarcely shone on the game of palm, he did not He feared not to fight against the parts of Valenciennes and Quaregnon, the two strongest in the country. The Valenciennes and the Quaregnonais were defeated by the Fresnois. They got angry, and they fisted in every street.

Cambrinus then bought a blind finch, which, in the fashion of the people of the Walloon country, he carried everywhere with him. Having heard that there must have been a great competition of finches in Saint-Amand, he took his fellow-traveler and set off.

On approaching the town, he met on the Croisette the guns that, three hundred in number, went to the place of the battle, two by two, and holding in their hands their little wooden cages, furnished with wire. The procession was preceded by a drum-major, adorned with his cane, two drums, and six hams, ornamented with flowers, worthy of the prize.

Cambrinus followed suit, and when the cages were ranged in battle, along the enclosure of the Abbey, a pretty concert was heard. Each bird shouted at the top of its cheerful chorus, while with a piece of chalk its master, under the surveillance of the commissaries, conscientiously inscribed the guns on a slate. The noise was such that the big bell of the tower had not been heard.

The Fresnois had bet three thousand florins that, without intermingling his song of p’tit-p’tit-petit-placapiau who escape the artifithese second-rate, his virtuoso would repeat nine hundred times in one hour ran-plan-plan-plan-biscouïtte-biscoriau, the true solo, the only one that can count.

The bird went up to nine hundred and fifty, and the master won the first prize and the three thousand florins, after which the Amandinois triumphantly walked the man and the beast, one carrying the other.

Cambrinus then set out to cross Flanders, beating with his tenor the most renowned gunslingers; and it is from this period that the Flemings are as passionate about finches as the English for cockfights.

From Flanders he went to Germany and traveled from town to town, playing all games of skill and chance. Everywhere he took his chance with him. He made general admiration, gained enormous sums, became immensely rich, but he did not cure of his love.

This infallible luck had at first delighted him. Later, she only amused him; then she left him cold and soon she bored him. In the end, he was so tired of this perpetual gain that he would have given everything to lose once; but his happiness pursued him with relentless obstinacy.

He was beginning to be very unhappy, when, one morning, he awoke with a luminous idea: “To something happiness is good,” he said to himself. Perhaps Flandrine will consent to marry me, now that I am all sewn with gold. ”

He returned to deposit his treasures at the feet of the cruel; but, unbelievable and well done to astonish the ladies of today, Flandrine refused.

“Are you a gentleman? she says.

– No.

– Well! win your treasures, I will marry only a gentleman.”

Cambrinus was so desperate that one fine day, between dog and wolf, he returned to the wood of Odomez, climbed the oak, sat down on the first branch, and fastened his rope securely. Already the noose around the neck was passing, when the green hunter appeared.

“Ah! fuck! cried Beelzebub, I had forgotten the proverb: Unhappy in love, happy in the game. Do you want me to tell you a way to lose? ”

Cambrinus listened.

“Yes, you will lose, and you will lose more than gold. You will lose your memory, and with it the torments of remembrance.

– And how?

– Wood. Wine is the father of oblivion. Wormmake waves of joy. Nothing beats a bottle of piot to drown human sadness.

– You might be right, myn heer.”

And Cambrinus rolled his rope and went back to Fresnes.

III

Without wasting time, he had a large cellar of six hundred feet, forty feet wide, and tall, built in broad Tournay stones. He garnishes it with the most exquisite wines.

In the lightnings, arranged on two parallel lines, ripened the warm burgundy, the sweet burgundy, the sparkling champagne, the gay malvoisie, the marsala bulletin board, the ardent sherry, the generous tokai and the tender johannisberg, which opens to the square heads of Germany the golden gates of daydreaming.

Day and night Cambrinus drank the juice of the vine in Bohemian glasses. The unfortunate thought he drank oblivion, he drank only love. Where did this phenomenon come from? Alas! that the good Flemings are otherwise built that the people of elsewhere.

At home, when the fumes of wine invade the brain, when the divine juice ends under the skull, as the lava at the bottom of the crater, it is only then that the imagination catches fire.

At the sixth glass, the Flamand invariably saw in front of his eyes, at the arms of pretty dancers, myriads of Flandrines, who made him a nique by performing interminable carmagnoles.

Then he sought oblivion in Norman cider, manceau parsley, Gallic mead, French cognac, Dutch gin, English gin, Scottish whiskey, German kirsch. Alas! cider, perry, mead, cognac, juniper, gin, whiskey, and kirsch only fueled the furnace. The more he drank, the more excited he was, the more he raged.

One evening he could no longer resist; he ran all at once to the wood of Odomez, climbed the oak, fastened the rope, and, without raising his eyes, to be sure not to return, He rushed the rope around his neck. The rope broke and the hangman fell into the green hunter’s arms.

“Do you want to let me go, damn impostor? exclaimed Cambrinus in a strangled voice. How! you will not even be able to hang yourself at your ease! ”

Belzebuth burst out laughing.

“I wanted to see,” he said, “how far the confidence of a good Flemish would go. And now, for the trouble, I’ll heal you. Here, look!”

All at once the trees parted to the right and to the left, so as to leave a large empty square, and Cambrinus saw in line long rows of large poles made of chestnut wood, where were curled frail plants which bore green and fragrant bells.

Some of the stakes were lying on the ground and three to four hundred squatting women seemed to peel a huge salad. This strange forest was bounded by a vast brick building.

“What is this, myn God? exclaimed the Fresnois.

“This, my good man, is a hopshop, and the house you see there a brewery. The flower of this plant will heal you from love sickness. Follow me. ”

Beelzebub led him into the building. There were enormous vats, stoves, tons, and boilers full of blond liquor, from which an acrid perfume was exhaled. Men in blue aprons were doing a strange job.

“It is with barley and hops,” says Beelzebub, “that, by the example of these men, you will make Flemish wine, that is, beer. re. When the millstone has crushed the barley, you will brew it in this large vat, from which the barley wine will pass into these vast boilers to be married to the hops. The hops flower will give the flavor and scent to barley wine. Thanks to the sacred plant, the beer, like the juice of the vine, can age in barrels. She will come out blonde like topaz or brown like onyx, and make good Flemings as many gods on the earth. Here, wood! ”

And Beelzebub pulled from one of the casks a great jug of foaming beer. Cambrinus obeyed and made a face.

“Drink again, again!”

The other goal, discarded and felt a sort of calm down gradually in his senses.

“Are not you happy as a god?

“Yes, sir, except that I miss the supreme pleasure of the gods.

– And which one?

– Revenge! The people of Fresnes have not wanted to dance to the sound of my viol. Give me an instrument that will blow them to my will.

– Listen, then.”

At this moment, nine knocks sounded at the belfry of Vieux-Conde.

– Well? Cambrinus said.

– Shut up and listen again. ”

The bell tower of Fresnes repeated the ring, then that of Condé, then that of Bruille.

“After? said the Fresnois again.

– You ask me for an instrument that forces you to dance. Here he is all found. Have you noticed that these bells each have their own sound? Gather several, give them, put the ringtone in motion with two keyboards, one of keys and the other of pedals, you will have the most beautiful chime …

– Carillon! This is the name of which I will baptize this marvelous instrument, exclaimed Cambrinus. Thank you, my good Beelzebub, and … goodbye!

– No. Goodbye! … in thirty years … and, as I like business, you will give me the grace to sign this paper with a drop of your blood. ”

He presented him with a feather and a parchment covered with cabalistic characters. The Fresnois pricked his fingertip and signed. At once the hops, the brewery, and Beelzebub, all disappeared.

IV [ edit ]
Returning to Fresnes, Cambrinus advised a rich and deep land sheltered from the wind. He bought it and planted some hops. He also had an immense brewery built in the very spot of the village, in all likeness to that which Belzebub had shown him. He crowned it with a belfry in the shape of a gigantic can, surmounted by a pint and a barrel, which ended with a golden rooster.

If a stranger had come into the country to perform these strange works, we would have been very careful not to laugh at them, but the builder being born at Fresnes, he was thought to be mad, as it should, and we began to laugh at him again.

He paid no attention to it, asked mechanics and bell-founders, and made the establishment of the carillon and the brewery march in front.

When it was all over, he made two great brews, one of white beer, the other of dark beer, and one Sunday morning, after mass, he invited people to have a drink.

“Ugh! how bitter! said one.

– It’s horrible! another said.

– Despicable! added a third.

– Abominable! Concludes a fourth.

Cambrinus was smiling under his breath.

In the afternoon, he arranged long tables around the square. On these tables pots and glasses full of dark beer awaited the drinkers. When the Fresnois came out of vespers, the brewer urged them to cool off again. They refused.

“You do not want to drink, boys,” thought Cambrinus, “well! you will dance! And he went up to his belfry.

“Dig, din, don,” said the chime.

Suddenly, oh prodigy! at the first blows of the bells, men, women, children, all stopped short, as if they were preparing to dance.

“Dyke, dyke, din. ”

All raised their legs, and the mayor himself shook the ashes of his pipe and sat up.

“Dig, din, gift, dike, dyke, gift. ”

All jumped in rhythm, and the mayor and the country guard jumped higher than the others.

Cambrinus then paused, then he attacked the air:

Band of beggars, would you like to dance?

The young, the old, the fat, the skinny, the big and the small, the rights, the turtles, the wobbly, the lame began to dance again, until the dogs stood on their hind legs to dance as well. . A cart passed by: the horse and the cart entered the dance. They danced on the square, in the streets, in the alleys, as far as the carillon was heard; and on the road the people of Conde who came to Fresnes were dancing without knowing why or how. Everything was dancing in the houses: men, animals and furniture. The old men danced by the fire, the sick in their beds. the horses danced in the stable, the cows in the stable, the hens in the henhouse; and the tables danced, the chairs, the cupboards, and the dressers; and the houses danced themselves, and the brasserie danced and the church; and the tower in which Cambrinus was pealing was opposite the bell-tower, giving himself graces. Never, since the world is a world, had we seen such a jerky jerk!

After an hour of this exercise, the Fresnois were swimming. Panting, exhausted, they shouted to the carillonneur:

“Stop, stop! We can not take it anymore!

– No no. Dance, “replied the carillonneur, and the more he carilloned, the more the dancersleapt. Their heads clashed, and the crowd began to moan piteously.

” To drink ! to drink! They finally shouted.

The carillonneur stopped pealing, and men, women, children, animals, and houses stopped dancing. Dancers and dancers rushed over the peas, which, surprisingly, had jumped with the tables without spreading a single drop of beer.

Thus put in taste, the Fresnois no longer found the new detestable liquor, on the contrary.

After they had emptied three or four pints each, they asked Cambrinus to let his music go. and they danced all evening and part of the night.

The next day and the following days, the rumor spread, and people came from all parts to Fresnes to drink beer and to dance in the carillon.

A crowd of chimes; music clocks, breweries, taverns, cabarets and estaminets soon settled in Fresnes, Condé, Valenciennes, Lille, Dunkirk, Mons, Tournay, Bruges, Leuven and Brussels.

Like a godmother who throws dragees, the carillon shook her silver apron full of magical notes, and the barley wine flowed in the Netherlands, Holland, Germany, England and Scotland.

They drank the dark beer, the white beer, the double beer, the lambic, the faro, the pale-ale, the scotch-ale, the porter and the stout, without forgetting the beer; however, the carillon de Fresnes remained the only enchanted carillon, the beer of Fresnes, the best beer, and the Fresnois, the first drinkers in the world.

Competitions of Frankish drinkers took place, such as finches in all the Netherlands; but it was only at Fresnes that they found some good drinkers, capable of absorbing a hundred pints in one day of a fair and twelve steins while the twelve o’clock strokes were striking at the church clock.

To reward the inventor with dignity, the King of the Netherlands made him Duke of Brabant, Count of Flanders and Lord of Fresnes. It was then that the new Duke founded the city of Cambrai; but the title which he preferred to all others was that of “king of beer,” which the locals bestowed on him.

He did not delay, however, in experiencing the generous effects of the brown liquor. At first he emptied his two cans every evening. At the end of six months of this regime, his amorous delirium calmed down, the face of Flandrine appeared to him less clear and less mocking.

When he could hold his twelve pints, he felt in him only a vague and indefinable reverie.

The evening he went to twenty, he fell into a sort of drowsiness, which was not without charm, and quite forgot Flandrine. In a short time, his face again rivaled the full moon: he became very fat and was perfectly happy.

When Flandrine saw that the lord de Fresnes was not thinking of claiming his hand, it was she who came round about him; but, as he dreamed, his eyes half closed, he did not recognize her, and offered him a pint.

The king of beer was, besides, a good king’s man, who put his happiness in smoking his pipe and drinking his mug at the same table as his subjects. His subjects all imitated his example, and it is from then on that, melancholy smokers, besides stomachs and noses in bloom, the good Flemings spend their lives draining pints without speaking ill of anyone and without thinking of anything.

V

However, thirty years were over, and Belzebub thought of demanding the soul of Cambrinus. The devil will not always touch his debts in no one. Like the creditors from above, he sometimes sends a bailiff.

On the other hand, as the world gets older, becomes worse and gives more work to those below, Beelzebub, in order to suffice, is obliged, from time to time, to make recruits.

To reinforce his staff, he chooses, among the newcomers, the good people who on earth have particularly resembled him.

The judge who had formerly condemned Cambrinus had the honor of passing the devil, and, in memory of his former office, Belzebub resolved to elevate him to the rank of infernal usher.

“Come on, face of ape,” he said to him one morning. The moment has come to signal you with new feats. You will go to the village of Fresnes, and there you will claim in my name the soul of Cambrinus, king of beer. Here is the title.

– Su … Sufficiency, Do … Domine, “answered Jocko. And he took the road to Fresnes at once. He arrived there on the Sunday of the ducasse.

The king of beer had just risen in his turn. He saw the emissary of Beelzebub coming from afar, recognized him, and suspected what was bringing him.

VI

It was about six o’clock, and the people were leaving the table having drunk and eaten since midday. Some were spreading in cabarets to digest by smoking a pipe. Others played bowling or raven, or else bricotiau.

The envoy of Beelzebub addressed a circle of drinkers sitting at the door of the estaminet of the Grand St. Lawrence, patron of glassmakers.

At this moment, dig, din, don! a sheaf of notes burst into the air like a rocket, then the carillon began to play:

Hello, my friend Vincent,

Health, how is it?

The judge immediately jumped like a gigantic puppet.

“What … what do I have? He said, and nothing was a buffoon like the furious face with which he was fidgeting.

All the Fresnois gathered together, holding the ribs with laughter.

Ah! what a nose he has! ‘

then played the chime, and two hundred voices sang in chorus:

Ah! what a nose he has!

as long as the dancer fell to the ground, exhausted and out of breath. The chime was silent.

As Jocko complained of a horrible thirst, he was brought a mug of beer which he emptied at one stroke.

Having always liked to raise his elbow, he drank a second, then a third, then a crowd of others with his good friends the Fresnois.

By dint of drinking, he completely forgot his mission, and when, towards the fiftieth mug, the heads warmed up and the hops began, as they say at home, to pass the poles, he was suddenly seized with a gay access been crazy.

He got up, took the pots, the cans, and the glasses, threw everything on the pavement, threw the table and cover over it, then began to dance on his own, claiming the music loudly.

The Fresnois all ran behind him in single file: he made several rounds of the place on the air of the Codaqui, and took the band out of the village, a quarter of a league away.

He finally fell on the road, tired and completely out of action. He was laid down against a haystack, and slept there for three days and three nights without debriding.

When he awoke, he was so ashamed that he did not dare to go back to Fresnes or go back to hell. Not knowing where to go, he saw an empty purse that a poor man was tending to passers-by. He went in and hid there so well that he is still there.

And from that comes a common saying of a penniless man that he houses the devil in his purse.

VII

Lord de Fresnes continued to carillon and brew beer for nearly a hundred years, with no further news of hell. As he isthat the devil never lost anything, Belzebuth hoped to repel the soul of the duke of Brabant on the day of his death; but when the supreme moment came, in the place of his debtor, he found only a barrel of beer; he was well caught.

Was it because of the effect of the drink of forgetfulness, or did Belzébuth seek revenge for the trick Cambrinus had played him? The memory of the king of beer was soon lost in Fresnes and in all the Netherlands.

The Douaiiens still celebrate the feast of their old Gayant, but it is a long time ago that Cambrai no longer walks the wicker giant who represented Cambrinus, the royal founder of the city.

It is among the Prussians that the memory of Bacchus of hops has been preserved. There, in each tavern, you will see, in the place of honor, a magnificent image representing, sitting on a barrel, a brave knight dressed in a purple cloak lined with ermine. The left hand leans on a crown and a sword; the right raises triumphantly a mug of foaming beer.

It is Cambrinus, the king of beer, as he was in his lifetime, with his beautiful figure, his long golden hair, and his long golden beard.

Students annually appoint bierkœnig most outspoken drinker of them, and only they are entitled to this great honor of sitting under the portrait of the monarch sparkling.

The people of Fresnes will be very surprised when they read this truthful story. Just as they did not believe in the genius of Cambrinus before, they will not believe his glory today, and when he who has written these lines will go and drink a pint at the Ducasse de Fresnes, we will not hesitate to to call him an impostor, so true is it that no one is a prophet in his country!

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Unfortunately, from what I can tell, most of Deulin’s works have not been published in an English translation, which is a shame. I’d love to read more of his “Tales of a Beer Drinker” and its sequel “Tales of King Cambrinus.”

PortraitCharlesDeulin

Beer Birthday: Garrett Oliver

By

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Today is Garrett Oliver’s 59th birthday. Garrett is the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery and has done more for the craft beer industry to promote pairing food and beer than just about any other person alive. If you haven’t picked up a copy of his book, The Brewmaster’s Table, you should definitely do so. He was also tapped to be the editor of the Oxford Companion to Beer, which came out several years ago (and which I also contributed to). He’s the best-dressed brewer in the world and a great person. Join me in wishing Garrett a very happy birthday.

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Garrett and Bruce Joseph, from Anchor Brewery, at the Brewer’s Dinner before GABF a few years ago.

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Tom Dalldorf, published of the Celebrator, Garrett and me share a beer at d.b.a.

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Giving a cooking demonstration with beer chef Bruce Paton at GABF in 2005.

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A happy Garrett with Randy Mosher at the World Beer Cup dinner at CBC in Chicago a few years ago.

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A couple of years ago at Carlsberg in Copenhagen.

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During SF Beer Week 2018, starting the Brew Free! or Dine beer dinner at 21st Amendment Brewpub with Garrett Oliver, Shaun O’Sullivan and Gordon Schuck from Funkwerks.


Dancing with Jessica, formerly of the Brewers Association, late one night after GABF in 2004 at Falling Rock.