Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

  • Home
  • About
  • Editorial
  • Birthdays
  • Art & Beer

Socialize

  • Dribbble
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • GitHub
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
Powered by Head Quarters Built on WordPress
You are here: Home / Birthdays / Historic Beer Birthday: Nicholas Bastendorff

Historic Beer Birthday: Nicholas Bastendorff

October 8, 2022 By Jay Brooks

lion-pa
Today is the birthday of Nicholas Bastendorff (October 8, 1842-December 22, 1915). Bastendorff was born in Luxembourg, though it was considered part of Prussia then (today Germany), and may have been part of the area of Luxembourg partitioned to Prussia in 1815, and before they gained their independence in 1867. He came to Pennsylvania when he was 30, and settled in Lancaster. While I can’t find very much information about Bastendorff, he was apparently one of the early owners of the Lion Brewery, and later was involved in some fashion with the Rickers Brewery, although I can’t find anything out about that brewery, not even where it was located.

lion-brewery-tray

The only mention I found was his obituary in the American Brewers Review from 1915:

nicholas-nasterndorff-obit

The brewery was also known for a time as the Lion-Gibbons brewery and they had a line of beers under the Gibbons name.

Gibbons-Premium--Quality-Beer-Labels-The-Lion-Inc

Though nowadays Lionshead Deluxe Pilsner Beer is their flagship beer.

lionshead

The Lion Brewery’s early history, from their Wikipedia page:

Lion Brewery, Inc. started as the Luzerne County Brewing Company with the acquisition of land from Delaware and Hudson Company in 1905. The land was purchased for one dollar on the terms that the company would build a brewery capable of producing 100,000 barrels per year in just the first year and sell each barrel for no less than a dollar a piece. If the terms were not met, the land would return to the Delaware and Hudson Company. The Luzerne County Brewery survived the terms of sale and was able to remain strong through the Prohibition years, 1920-1933, by brewing cereal beer. Cereal beer is more commonly known as “near-beer,” as it has an alcohol content of about 0.5%, which is about a tenth of most beers. Ted Smulowitz purchased the Luzerne County Brewery after Prohibition in 1933 and renamed it The Lion Brewing Company.

Lion Brewing Co. poster

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



Comments

  1. Carole says

    June 29, 2018 at 8:26 pm

    Hi! Nicolas is my 3x Great Grandfather! I know some things about him. As far as I know about Reiker brewery it became Star brewery and the building still stands as a cousin took me there several years back. I have never seen the labels before that you have on here so thank you! This is awesome!

Find Something

Northern California Breweries

Please consider purchasing my latest book, California Breweries North, available from Amazon, or ask for it at your local bookstore.

Beer Bulletin Email

Enter your email address to receive daily digests:

Recent Comments

  • Susan Appel on Historic Beer Birthday: John Roehm
  • S. Pavelka on Beer Birthday: Rich Norgrove
  • Celebrating Texas History With Alamo Beer: An Iconic Taste Of The Lone Star State – SanctuaryBrewCo on Fictional Beer Brands
  • Neal Carey on Historic Beer Birthday: Anton Zahm
  • Experience The Taste Of Duff Beer: Limited-Edition Cans And Home Brewing Kits – SanctuaryBrewCo on Fictional Beer Brands

Recent Posts

  • Historic Beer Birthday: W.C. Fields January 29, 2023
  • Beer In Ads #4335: Miss Rheingold 1955 Decorates For Halloween January 28, 2023
  • Historic Cider Birthday: H.P. Bulmer January 28, 2023
  • Historic Beer Birthday: John Goetz January 28, 2023
  • Beer Birthday: Jean-Marie Rock January 28, 2023

Tag Cloud

Advertising Anheuser-Busch Announcements Bay Area Belgium Brewers Association Brewing Equipment Budweiser Business California Christmas Europe France Germany Guinness Health & Beer History Holidays Hops Humor Infographics Kegs Law Mainstream Coverage Miller Brewing Northern California Pabst Packaging Patent Pennsylvania Press Release Prohibitionists Rheingold San Francisco Schlitz Science Science of Brewing Sports Statistics The Netherlands UK Uncategorized United States Video Washington

The Sessions

session_logo_all_text_1500

Next Session: Dec. 7, 2018
#142: One More for the Road
Previous Sessions
  • #141: Future of Beer Blogging
  • #140: Pivo
  • #139: Beer & the Good Life
  • #138: The Good in Wood
  • #137: German Wheat
Archive, History & Hosting

Typology Tuesday

Typology-png
Next Typology:
On or Before March 29, 2016
#3: Irish-Style Dry Stout
Previous Typologies
  • #2: Bock Feb. 2016
  • #1: Barley Wine Jan. 2016
Archive & History

This month’s posts

January 2023
S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Dec    

BBB Archives