Historic Beer Birthday: Gottlieb Muhlhauser

Today is the birthday of Gottlieb Muhlhauser (January 24, 1836-February 9, 1905), who co-founded the Windisch-Muhlhauser Brewing Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. He had two partners in the venture, his brother-in-law Conrad Windisch and his brother Heinrich Muhlhauser.

Here’s a short biography from Find a Grave:

Beer Baron. A native of Muggendorf, Bavaria in Germany, he came to America in 1840 with his father, Frederick Muhlhauser, and settled on a farm near Portsmouth, Ohio. They moved to Cincinnati in 1845. After his father’s death in 1849 when he was 13 years old, he assumed the responsibility of the family as the oldest child and left school to work at a pottery. He then entered the mineral water business and became the plant’s foreman in 1852 when he was 16 years old. Muhlhauser went into the same business for himself in 1854. Business was very successful and he branched out to Chillicothe in 1855 and to Hamilton, Ohio in 1857. He also was married in 1857, to Christina Windisch, the sister of his future business partner. In 1858, he erected a mill for crushing malt and another for steam flouring with the aid of his brother, Henry Muhlhauser. During the Civil War, he supplied flour to the Union Army and the Cincinnati Home Guard. Around this time he suffered from a gunshot wound, but it was not severe enough to keep him from operating his businesses. In 1866, he organized the Lion Brewery with his brother Henry and his brother-in-law, Conrad Windisch. The million dollar beer company became the Windisch-Muhlhauser Brewing Company in 1882 and Muhlhauser was the president and general manager. He died in 1905 in Cincinnati when he was 69 years old.

And this is him in another portrait, when he was a little older.

Their brewery became known as the “Lion Brewery” because of the two lions that rested atop the brewery’s gables and many of their beer names used a lion in the name and on the labels.

The History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio has a short history of the Windisch-Muhlhauser Brewing Company:

Paired Creation also has a history of the brewery.