Today is the birthday of Adam Sander (March 1, 1832-July 8, 1901). He opened his first brewery with Andrew Schneider in 1857, located in Plymouth, Wisconsin. In 1864, he sold his portion of the brewery to his partner and moved to Fond du Lac, where he founded the Sander Brewery in 1873. In 1897, Sander brought his two sons, Albert and Edwin into the business, renaming it Sander Bros. Brewery, and retiring in 1898. The brewery was closed by prohibition, and briefly reopened in 1933 as the Pioneer Brewing Co. before closing for good the same year.

There was almost no information about Adam or his breweries other than a few bits and bobs, all fairly general. This is about all I could find:

Adam Sander began production of his beers from his plant on eleven acres of land one mile south of the city on the Fond du Lac and Milwaukee Road. Sander’s brewery, under different names, remained in business for almost fifty years. Sander was born in Germany in March 1832. As a young man, he married Gertrude Gaubenheimer and moved first to Baltimore, Maryland, and then to Wisconsin, living briefly in Milwaukee and Plymouth before finally settling in Fond du Lac in 1864. Late that year, he began a modest brewing enterprise.

During the following decades, Sander’s brewing company grew into a family business. When they were teenagers, his sons Edwin and Albert began working at the brewery. By 1880, the enterprise was producing 750 barrels per year. In 1898, at the age of sixty-six, Adam Sander decided to retire and handed over the brewing operations to his sons.

As new brewery owners, Edwin and Albert decided to institute major improvements to their facility. These changes included physical plant additions, state of the art bottling equipment, and a modern ice plant. The improvements paid off, and by 1912, Sander Brothers Brewing was selling six thousand barrels annually. At the top of their game, the brothers were finally forced out of business when alcohol prohibition came to America.