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Historic Beer Birthday: Christian Hess

January 30, 2023 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

weisbrod-hess
Today is the birthday of Christian Hess (January 30, 1848-July 27, 1912). Hess was born in Germany, and that’s about all I could find out about the man who co-founded, along with George Weisbrod, the George Weisbrod & Christian Hess Brewery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, usually shortened to just the Weisbrod & Hess Brewery, and also known as the Oriental Brewery.

christian-hess-cartoon

Both Weisbrod and Hess were German immigrants, and originally their intention was simply to make enough beer to supply their Philadelphia saloon on Germantown Avenue. Some sources say they began as early as 1880, but most put the founding at 1882. The brewery was going strong until closed by prohibition. They managed to reopen in 1933, but closed for good in 1938.

weisbrod-hess-1905
A brewery poster from 1905.
In 1994, Yards Brewing renovated the old Weisbrod & Hess Brewery, but after the partners split, it became the Philadelphia Brewing Co., while Yards under the direction of Tom Kehoe moved to another location.

phillybeerwk08-47
In the Philadelphia Brewing Co. tasting room upstairs, an old photo of the employees of the original brewery on the premises, Weisbrod & Hess Oriental Brewing Company.
Both Philadelphia Weekly and Hidden City Philadelphia have stories about the brewery and efforts to re-open it.

weisbrod-hess-1892
The brewery two years closing, in 1940.

The brewery was designed by famed local architect Adam C. Wagner, and this is an illustration of his design for the brewery from 1892.

W&H-1892

OrientalBreweryPhila1899
An ad from 1899.

Factory-Scene-1912-calendar-Signs-Pre-Pro-Weisbrod-Hess-Brewing-Co
And a calendar from 1912.

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

Historic Beer Birthday: Martin Stelzer

January 30, 2023 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

pilsner-urquell
Today is the birthday of Martin Stelzer (January 30, 1815-August 3, 1894). Stelzer was an architect, probably from Germany, who built a number of homes in Plzeň, Czech Republic, such as “the old (small) Synagogue in Pilsen, the Little Theatre (formerly on Goethe Street) and a stone Saxon bridge in the suburbs of Roudná which has one rare feature, a sweep middle.” He was also hired by the local Burghers (or citizens) to build the town brewery, which today is known as the Pilsner Urquell brewery. He is also believed to have hired their first brewmaster, Josef Groll.

Martin_Stelzer_(1815-1894)

This biography is from the Pilsner Urquell website:

When it comes to the founding of Pilsner Urquell, Martin Stelzer remains one of the most important figures, though he is also one of the most misunderstood.

Often mischaracterized as a brewer, Martin Stelzer was the most famous builder in nineteenth-century Plzen — something like the unofficial town architect. Born in 1815, Stelzer had constructed more than two hundred buildings in Plzen by the time of his death in 1894, including such important sites as Old Synagogue of 1859 and the Small Theater of 1869.

When he was first hired to create the new town brewery in 1839, however, Stelzer was just 24 years old — and, most importantly, he had never built a brewery of any kind. (Later, he would be seen as something of an expert on the subject.) One special demand: the new brewery was supposed to be a cold-fermentation or lager brewery, something that did not exist in Plzen at the time. To familiarize himself with the requirements of the project, Stelzer traveled to Bavaria in December of 1839, visiting several breweries there.

A common rumor holds that Stelzer befriended Josef Groll, the first brewmaster of Pilsner Urquell, during this trip, or even that Stelzer brought Groll back to Plzen with him. However, no confirmation of this appears to have been published during Stelzer’s lifetime. It certainly seems possible that the two were friends, however, given the closeness of their age: the original brewmaster was less than a year and a half older than the architect.

In addition to directing the expansion of the Burghers’ Brewery in 1849 and 1852, as well as the construction of a new fermentation room in 1856, Stelzer designed and built the brewery’s enlarged cooperage in 1870. Stelzer’s other projects included the next-door Gambrinus brewery in 1869 and the Dobřany town brewery in 1873. He remains part of everyday lore in Plzen today, having given his first name to the street Martinská in central Plzen as early as 1857.

Pilsner-Urquell

Roger Protz wrote the entry for Pilsner Urquell in the Oxford Companion to Beer, and he mentions Stelzer in these two paragraphs.

Local businessmen and tavern owners in Pilsen committed to raise funds and build a new brewery, to be called Burghers’ (Citizens’) Brewery. A leading architect, Martin Stelzer, was hired to design the brewery and he toured Europe and Britain to study modern breweries that used the new technologies of the Industrial Revolution—pure yeast strains, steam power, and artificial refrigeration—to make beer.

He returned to Pilsen to design a brewery on a site in the Bubenc district with a plentiful supply of soft water and sandstone foundations where deep cellars could be dug to store or “lager” beer. He also brought with him from Bavaria a brewer called Josef Groll who had the skills to make the new cold-fermented style of beer. See groll, josef. The brewery was built rapidly and its first batch of beer was unveiled at the Martinmas Fair on November 11, 1842. The beer astonished and delighted the people of Pilsen. It was a golden beer, the first truly pale beer ever seen in central Europe, for the lager beers brewed in Bavaria were a deep russet/brown in color as a result of barley malt being kilned or gently roasted over wood fires. A legend in Pilsen says the wrong type of malt was delivered to the brewery by mistake but this seems fanciful. It’s more likely that Martin Stelzer brought back from England a malt kiln indirectly fired by coke rather than directly fired by wood. This type of kiln that was used to make pale malt, the basis of the new style of beer brewed in England called pale ale. A model of a kiln in the Pilsen museum of brewing supports this theory.

urquell-brewery

And here’s an account from Food Reference:

At the start of the nineteenth century, the quality of beer everywhere was often poor and standards varied wildly. This prompted some of the Plzen’s conscientious and passionate brewers to band together to find a way of producing a beer of a superior and more consistent quality.

Their first decision was one of their finest, to appoint a young architect called Martin Stelzer. Traveling far and wide to study the best of brewery design he returned to Plzen with plans for the most modern brewery of the age.

He chose a site on the banks of the city‘s Radbuza River, which offered a number of natural advantages – sandstone rock for the easy carving of large tunnels for cold storage, and aquifers supplying the soft water which would one day help make Plzen’s finest beer so distinctive.

But, most importantly, Martin Stelzer also discovered a brewmaster who would change the way that beer was brewed forever: a young Bavarian called Josef Groll.

Beer-Pilsner-Urquell-Site-Brewery
The original gate, which still stands at the brewery.

Pilsen-Brewery-Today-Pilsner-Urquell-Beer
The brewery today.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Czech Republic, Germany, History

Beer In Ads #4336: Miss Rheingold 1955 And A Creepy Jack-O-Lantern

January 29, 2023 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Sunday’s ad is for “Rheingold Beer,” from 1955. This ad was made for the Rheingold Brewery, which was founded by the Liebmann family in 1883 in New York, New York. At its peak, it sold 35% of all the beer in New York state. In 1963, the family sold the brewery and in was shut down in 1976. In 1940, Philip Liebmann, great-grandson of the founder, Samuel Liebmann, started the “Miss Rheingold” pageant as the centerpiece of its marketing campaign. Beer drinkers voted each year on the young lady who would be featured as Miss Rheingold in advertisements. In the 1940s and 1950s in New York, “the selection of Miss Rheingold was as highly anticipated as the race for the White House.” The winning model was then featured in at least twelve monthly advertisements for the brewery, beginning in 1940 and ending in 1965. Beginning in 1941, the selection of next year’s Miss Rheingold was instituted and became wildly popular in the New York Area. Nancy Woodruff was elected Miss Rheingold 1955.” She was born in Detroit Michigan in 1933, but was raised in San Leandro, California. Humorously, one newspaper reported she attended “San Leandro high school in San Francisco,” and not in … San Leandro. When she was 18, two years ago, she moved to New York City to pursue a modeling career. She entered the 1952 Miss Rheingold contest and was chosen as a finalist, but lost to Mary Austin that year. But she tried again in 1954, and well, here we are. I’m not sure how her career fared after this year, as there’s not much information I could find. Apparently, she did some early television, but mostly commercial work. She married stock broker Jack Paul Adler of New York in 1956, and they appear to have had two children, before moving to Naples, Florida at some point. She passed away in early 2004. In this ad, from October, she’s getting ready for a Halloween party and decorating a scary-looking jack-o-lantern thing.

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, History, Rheingold

Historic Beer Birthday: W.C. Fields

January 29, 2023 By Jay Brooks 2 Comments

wc-fields-logo
Today is the birthday of W.C. Fields (January 29, 1880–December 25, 1946). His full name was William Claude Dukenfield. He “was an American comedian, actor, juggler and writer. Fields’ comic persona was a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist, who remained a sympathetic character despite his snarling contempt for dogs and children.

His career in show business began in vaudeville, where he attained international success as a silent juggler. He gradually incorporated comedy into his act, and was a featured comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies for several years. He became a star in the Broadway musical comedy Poppy (1923), in which he played a colorful small-time con man. His subsequent stage and film roles were often similar scoundrels, or else henpecked everyman characters.

Among his recognizable trademarks were his raspy drawl and grandiloquent vocabulary. The characterization he portrayed in films and on radio was so strong it was generally identified with Fields himself. It was maintained by the publicity departments at Fields’ studios (Paramount and Universal) and was further established by Robert Lewis Taylor’s biography, W.C. Fields, His Follies and Fortunes (1949). Beginning in 1973, with the publication of Fields’ letters, photos, and personal notes in grandson Ronald Fields’ book W.C. Fields by Himself, it was shown that Fields was married (and subsequently estranged from his wife), and financially supported their son and loved his grandchildren.”

w-c-fields-hat

Known as “The Great One,” William Claude Dukenfield was better known to the world by his stage name, W.C. Fields. Born in Darby, Pennsylvania, on January 29, 1880, Fields created a hard-drinking, sarcastic, egocentric persona that was so convincing he became one of the most famous drunk misanthropes who ever lived. He famously said that a man should “never work with animals or children,” and carefully cultivated the perception of a curmudgeon, but in real life he was a devoted father and grandfather.

His entertainment career began in vaudeville, where he made a name for himself as a juggler and comedian, and later took the act on Broadway, before making his first short films in 1915. He eventually made around 45 films, the most of famous of which were “Tillie’s Punctured Romance,” “The Fatal Glass of Beer,” “My Little Chickadee,” “The Bank Dick” and “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.” Most of his most memorable quotes come from his films, though they’ve become entwined with his public persona, making it difficult to separate his roles from the man.

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Fields with Mae West.

Fields’ screen character often expressed a fondness for alcohol, a prominent component of the Fields legend. Fields never drank in his early career as a juggler, because he did not want to impair his functions while performing. Eventually, the loneliness of constant travel prompted him to keep liquor in his dressing room as an inducement for fellow performers to socialize with him on the road. Only after he became a Follies star and abandoned juggling did Fields begin drinking regularly.[59] His role in Paramount Pictures’ International House (1933), as an aviator with an unquenchable taste for beer, did much to establish Fields’ popular reputation as a prodigious drinker. Studio publicists promoted this image, as did Fields himself in press interviews.

Fields expressed his fondness for alcohol to Gloria Jean (playing his niece) in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break: “I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. That’s the one thing I am indebted to her for.” Equally memorable was a line in the 1940 film My Little Chickadee: “Once, on a trek through Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew…and were forced to live on food and water for several days!” The oft-repeated anecdote that Fields refused to drink water “because fish fuck in it” is unsubstantiated.

On movie sets Fields famously shot most of his scenes in varying states of inebriation. During the filming of Tales of Manhattan (1942), he kept a vacuum flask with him at all times and frequently availed himself of its contents. Phil Silvers, who had a minor supporting role in the scene featuring Fields, described in his memoir what happened next:

One day the producers appeared on the set to plead with Fields: “Please don’t drink while we’re shooting — we’re way behind schedule” … Fields merely raised an eyebrow. “Gentlemen, this is only lemonade. For a little acid condition afflicting me.” He leaned on me. “Would you be kind enough to taste this, sir?” I took a careful sip — pure gin. I have always been a friend of the drinking man; I respect him for his courage to withdraw from the world of the thinking man. I answered the producers a little scornfully, “It’s lemonade.” My reward? The scene was snipped out of the picture.

There’s no doubt that regardless of how much Fields drank, he certainly created a reputation and persona around it. And while he seems to have favored whiskey, gin and other spirits, he did love his beer, too. Below are some quotes I’ve collected by Fields, the first group being quotes he said, or were attributed to him, while the second group are quotes from films he appeared in, and thus easier to verify.

WC-Fields-Fatal-Glass-Beer

Personal Quotes

  • “I never drank anything stronger than beer before I was twelve.”
  • “Everybody has to believe in something … I believe I’ll have another beer.”
  • “If I had to live my life over, I’d live over a saloon.”
  • “I never drink water; that is the stuff that rusts pipes.”
  • “I drink therefore I am.”
  • “There are only two real ways to get ahead today — sell liquor or drink it.”
  • “I like to keep a bottle of stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy.”
  • “I must have a drink of breakfast.”
  • “I never worry about being driven to drink; I just worry about being driven home.”
  • “It was a woman who drove me to drink, and I never had the courtesy to thank her for it.”
  • “A woman drove me to drink and I didn’t even have the decency to thank her.”
  • “Fell in love with a beautiful blonde once. Drove me to drink. And I never had the decency to thank her.”
  • “Now don’t say you can’t swear off drinking; it’s easy. I’ve done it a thousand times.”
  • “Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.”
  • “Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water.”
  • “I never drink water. I’m afraid it will become habit-forming.”
  • “What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?”
  • “I spent half my money on gambling, alcohol and wild women. The other half I wasted.” [Note: Tug McGraw has a similar quote attributed to him.]

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Film Quotes

  • Ouliotta Delight Hemogloben: “Do you think he drinks?”Mrs. Hemogloben: “He didn’t get that nose from playing ping-pong.”
    — From “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break,” 1941
  • Receptionist: “Some day you’ll drown in a vat of whiskey!”The Great Man: “Drown in a vat of whiskey. Death, where is thy sting?”
    — From “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break,” 1941
  • The Great Man: [Suffering from a hangover] “Somebody put too many olives in my martini last night!”Stewardess: “Should I get you a Bromo?”

    The Great Man: “No, I couldn’t stand the noise!”

    — From “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break,” 1941
  • Egbert Sousé: “Ten cents a share. Telephone sold for five cents a share. How would you like something better for ten cents a share? If five gets ya ten, ten’ll get ya twenty. A beautiful home in the country, upstairs and down. Beer flowing through the estate over your grandmother’s paisley shawl.”Og Oggilby: “Beer?”

    Egbert Sousé: “Beer! Fishing in the stream that runs under the aboreal dell. A man comes up from the bar, dumps $3,500 in your lap for every nickel invested. Says to you, “Sign here on the dotted line.” And then disappears in the waving fields of alfalfa.”

    — From “The Bank Dick,” 1940
  • Egbert Sousé, to his bartender: “Was I in here last night, and did I spend a twenty dollar bill?”Bartender: “Yeah.”

    Egbert Sousé: “Oh, boy. What a load that is off my mind. I thought I’d lost it.”

    — From “The Bank Dick,” 1940
  • Cuthbert J. Twillie: “During one of my treks through Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew. Compelled to live on food and water … for several days.”
    — From “My Little Chickadee,” 1940
  • Cuthbert J. Twillie, nursing a hangover: “I feel as though a midget with muddy feet had been walking over my tongue all night.”
    — From “My Little Chickadee,” 1940
  • Whipsnade: “Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.”
    — from “You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man,” 1939
  • S.B. Bellows: “Meet me down in the bar! We’ll drink breakfast together.”
    — From “The Big Broadcast of 1938,” 1938
  • Businessman: “You’re drunk.”Harold: “Yeah, and you’re crazy. But I’ll be sober tomorrow, and you’ll be crazy for the rest of your life.”
    — From “It’s a Gift,” 1934
  • Quail, to a valet: “Hey, garcon. Bring me a drink.”Valet: “Water, sir?”

    Quail: “A little on the side…very little.”

    — From “International House,” 1933

wc-fields-intl-house
W.C. Fields in “International House.”

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Celebrities, Film, History

Beer In Ads #4335: Miss Rheingold 1955 Decorates For Halloween

January 28, 2023 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Saturday’s ad is for “Rheingold Beer,” from 1955. This ad was made for the Rheingold Brewery, which was founded by the Liebmann family in 1883 in New York, New York. At its peak, it sold 35% of all the beer in New York state. In 1963, the family sold the brewery and in was shut down in 1976. In 1940, Philip Liebmann, great-grandson of the founder, Samuel Liebmann, started the “Miss Rheingold” pageant as the centerpiece of its marketing campaign. Beer drinkers voted each year on the young lady who would be featured as Miss Rheingold in advertisements. In the 1940s and 1950s in New York, “the selection of Miss Rheingold was as highly anticipated as the race for the White House.” The winning model was then featured in at least twelve monthly advertisements for the brewery, beginning in 1940 and ending in 1965. Beginning in 1941, the selection of next year’s Miss Rheingold was instituted and became wildly popular in the New York Area. Nancy Woodruff was elected Miss Rheingold 1955.” She was born in Detroit Michigan in 1933, but was raised in San Leandro, California. Humorously, one newspaper reported she attended “San Leandro high school in San Francisco,” and not in … San Leandro. When she was 18, two years ago, she moved to New York City to pursue a modeling career. She entered the 1952 Miss Rheingold contest and was chosen as a finalist, but lost to Mary Austin that year. But she tried again in 1954, and well, here we are. I’m not sure how her career fared after this year, as there’s not much information I could find. Apparently, she did some early television, but mostly commercial work. She married stock broker Jack Paul Adler of New York in 1956, and they appear to have had two children, before moving to Naples, Florida at some point. She passed away in early 2004. In this ad, from October, she’s getting ready for a Halloween party and decorating a scary-looking jack-o-lantern thing. You can probably guess what beer she’s serving at her party.

Below is the full-page version of the same ad:

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, History, Rheingold

Historic Cider Birthday: H.P. Bulmer

January 28, 2023 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

bulmers
Today is the birthday of Henry Percival “H.P.” Bulmer (January 28, 1867-December 2, 1919). He was born in Credenhill, Herefordshire, England. He founded Bulmer’s Cider in 1887, and his brother Fred joined him in the business a year later. “He is said to have taken his mother’s advice to make a career in food or drink, “because neither ever go out of fashion.” The company’s two principal brands are its own Bulmers cider, which is sold worldwide, and Strongbow, which is sold across Europe, the US, Australasia and the Far East. The company is owned by Heineken International. Today, HP Bulmer makes 65% of the five hundred million litres of cider sold annually in the United Kingdom and the bulk of the UK’s cider exports. The firm’s primary competitor is the Irish C&C Group and its Magners brand (which holds the licence to the Bulmers name within the Republic of Ireland only).”

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Here’s his biography from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

Bulmer, Henry Percival [Percy] (1867–1919), cider maker, was born on 28 January 1867 at the rectory, Credenhill, Herefordshire, the second son of Charles Henry Bulmer (1833–1918), rector of Credenhill, and his wife, Mary Grace Parnel Bulmer (née Cockrem). The rector was the son and grandson of Hereford wine merchants and cider makers, and himself won prizes for his bottled cider and perry. Bulmer, who was usually known as Percy, suffered from asthma as a child, and his interrupted education at Hereford Cathedral school between 1880 and 1886 gave him no chance of going to university. In 1887, at the age of twenty, he began to make cider out of the apples grown in his father’s glebe orchard, borrowing the family pony and a neighbour’s cider-mill for the purpose.

At that time most cider was made by farmers with ancient and primitive equipment out of any apples that came to hand, to be drunk as payment in kind by their thirsty but undiscriminating labourers. Bottled cider, carefully made from selected apples, for sale in hotels, public houses, and off-licences, was a rarity. It was this select market that Bulmer meant to supply. In the autumn of 1887 he moved to Hereford, where in his first full year of business he made forty casks (4000 gallons) of cider, that sold for a mere £157. His elder brother, Edward Frederick Bulmer (1865–1941), cider maker, born on 26 May 1865, at the rectory, Credenhill, lent a hand with the manual labour in the long vacations. Unlike Percy, Fred Bulmer went from Hereford Cathedral school to Shrewsbury School, and thence to King’s College, Cambridge, with an exhibition in classics. On graduation in 1889, he joined his brother in the cider business. The brothers only had one employee at first, but, small though the firm was, it produced cider of excellent quality, winning prizes in Paris in 1888 and at the Royal Agricultural Show in 1889. These successes almost certainly reflected not only the rector’s skill and experience, but also his financial support, as the brothers had little capital. They borrowed from some of Fred’s Cambridge friends and from the local bank; the rector, by pledging his life insurance policy, raised a further £1760. With these funds they bought land, erected some buildings, and invested in equipment typical of the industrial age—a steam engine, hydraulic presses and pumps, and some large vats.

There was an informal division of labour between the two brothers: Percy Bulmer concentrated on production, organizing the factory, reading Pasteur on yeasts, visiting Rheims to learn the techniques of champagne making (transferable to cider), and Germany to study the handling of sugar beet (what was good for beet was good for apples). He also studied bottling at the works where the Apollinaris mineral water was produced. The firm consulted analytical chemists from time to time, and from 1905 had a small laboratory of its own, where important discoveries were made by H. E. Durham. Fred Bulmer undertook purchase and marketing, and was, inter alia, the commercial traveller. Affable and outgoing, he was equal to most situations. Confronted with a blunt Yorkshireman, who asked him who the hell he thought he was staring at, Fred replied ‘The rudest bugger I ever saw’ (Bulmer, Early Days, 10). The riposte won him a good order and a firm friendship. Nevertheless, he was happy to give up touting for orders when in 1896, with output not far short of 200,000 gallons a year, the firm appointed a full-time commercial traveller. The Bulmers owed their success not only to hard work, access to adequate funds, and a little science, but also to a flair for publicity. In an age well aware of the uses of advertising, they were skilful practitioners of the art: in brochures, by poster, and by the choice of such evocative brand names as Pomagne, Woodpecker, and Strongbow. The firm ran its business on advanced paternalist lines, instituting a superannuation scheme in 1898, and family allowances in 1938. It also built some workers’ housing. The housing schemes and charitable trusts continue to benefit the people of Hereford.

Percy Bulmer was chairman and managing director, and also the more single-minded businessman. He was secretary of the short-lived National Association of English Cider Makers, founded in 1894. Fred, as head of the largest firm of cider makers, was the natural choice as chairman when the association was refounded in 1920. Percy had doubted the power of government to effect much social improvement, whereas Fred Bulmer was an ardent ‘new Liberal’, active in local politics. He was a local and a county councillor, and was twice mayor of Hereford. In later years, he moved to the right and in 1931 supported the National Government.

Percy Bulmer married a cousin, Susan Mildred Ball (1870/71–1968), in 1894, and they had four sons, and a daughter who died in infancy. Fred Bulmer married, in 1899, Sophie Rittner (1874–1968), the daughter of a Liverpool merchant of German origin. They had three sons and three daughters.

The brothers ran the business as a partnership until 1918, when H. P. Bulmer & Co. was turned into a private company, as a result of Percy Bulmer’s developing cancer; he died at the early age of fifty-two at his home, Longmeadow, Hereford, on 2 December 1919. His brother succeeded him as chairman. By then the firm was a soundly established concern with 200 employees, and produced some three-quarters of a million gallons of cider a year. When Fred Bulmer retired in 1938, the workforce had quadrupled, output was approaching 4 million gallons, and the firm was by far the largest cider maker in the country. Fred died on 2 September 1941 at his home, Adams Hill, Breinton, Herefordshire, at the age of seventy-six. Of contrasting characters and complementary talents, H. P. and E. F. Bulmer can fairly be regarded as joint creators of the firm that bears the younger brother’s name. It became a public limited company in 1970.

bulmers-factory-1888
The original Bulmers’ cider factory in 1888, on Ryelands Street, Hereford.

And this history of the Bu;mer Cider Co. is from the website of The Cider Museum, Pomona Place, Hereford, on the part of their “Archive of Cider Pomology” entitled Industrialisation 1860s Onwards:

Fred Bulmer describes the beginning of the Bulmers factory, in a charming booklet called ‘Early Days of Cider Making’. He and his brother (H P or Percy Bulmer) were young men, sons of a gentleman vicar. Fred was Cambridge educated but Percy, due to ill health, had ‘no Education at all’ and it was he who began the cider business, joined one year later by Fred. In the first year of their enterprise, 1887, Percy produced 4,000 gallons of cider using traditional methods. The brothers became ‘whole time workers’, working round the clock. There were no cider making machines to speed the process up, so they invented them. With the help of an engineering friend the brothers innovated, they also imported a mill and press from France where production was more advanced, and in 1892 put in hydraulic pumps and two more presses. By 1894 they were selling £7558 of cider a year, 48 times more than the first year of their partnership in 1888. They also had a workforce. Bulmers only produced bottled cider in the early years and in 1898, just 11 years on from their first year, the bottling line employed 37 women.

Bulmers grew and grew. By 1919 there were 2 acres of cellaring below ground and they were selling 80,000 gallons p.a. which made a profit of £9,000. In 1937 as much as 20,000 tons could be pressed during the season September to December.

Between 1948 and 1960 turn over increased from £1,604,000 to £3,008,000. In 1957 a new bottling hall was erected at end of Plough Lane and by 1964 most bottling had been transferred there.

In 1970, in response to a cash flow crises brought on by investment in the company and high death duties on two family members, the decision was made to go public. The Bulmer family retained 65% of the shares.

In 1970 there were nine directors, four of whom were Bulmer’s family. The turnover was nearly £11m and they employed 1,817 people. Nearly 85,000 apple trees were planted in an attempt to keep ahead of demand and the orchards were producing 15,000 tons of apples a year. Output was over 100,000 gallons a day and their modern flagon bottling line could fill 12,000 bottles and hour. They had 60% of the £25m market (£15m). In 1985 the board had been divided into executive and non executive directors, 12 in all, four of whom were Bulmer’s family. By this time 35,000 tons of apples were being pressed a year. The record day was 1982 when the company pressed just over 1,000 tonnes in a day. The group produced several drinks including cider and had overseas operations. The total turnover was £138m and the profit £17m.

In 2003 Bulmers got into financial difficulties due to over investment abroad. The firm was taken over by Scottish and Newcastle. In 2008 Scottish and Newcastle were taken over by Heineken who now run the Bulmer’s cider business. Fruit processing (crushing the apples) has moved from the Bulmers site in Plough Lane, Hereford to Universal Beverages Ltd (UBL), Ledbury, also owned by Heineken. Some fermentation, processing and bottling is also done at this site but the huge majority of production is still carried out at the Plough Lane site in Hereford. The fruit concentrate is taken into the factory here by tanker and processed into their leading brands such as Strongbow and Woodpecker employing around 250 people and producing over 3 million hectolitres a year (68 million gallons), about half UK total output. Bulmers also runs a bouyant Fruit Office employing 30 staff, managing 10,000 acres of orchard, about a quarter of which is company owned, the remaining three quarters is on long term contract to individual growers.

Bulmers-early
An early view of the Bulmers Cider Co.

And this short history is from H.P. Bulmers Wikipedia page:

Using apples from the orchard at his father’s rectory and an old stone press on the farm next door, Percy Bulmer made the first cider, upon which the family fortune would be made.

In 1889, his elder brother Fred (Edward Frederick Bulmer), coming down from King’s College, Cambridge, turned down the offer of a post as tutor to the children of the King of Siam to join Percy in his fledgling cider business.

With a £1,760 loan from their father, the brothers bought an 8 acres (3.2 ha) field just outside the city and built their first cider mill. It was little more than a barn compared to the huge modern stainless-steel computer-controlled cider-making plant that has grown up on a 75 acres (30.4 ha) site nearby.

Cider-making was then an unpredictable activity, the natural fermentation process being achieved by yeast contained within apples; meant that the cider often became sour. It was a college friend of Fred’s, Dr Herbert Durham, who, in the 1890s, isolated a wild yeast to create the first pure cider yeast culture, which would ensure that fermentations were consistent. This was the start of commercial cider-making.

Bulmers was first granted the Royal Warrant in 1911 and continues today as ‘Cider Maker to Her Majesty the Queen.’ It was incorporated as a private company on 27 June 1918. It described its cider as “The White Wine of England”.

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H.P. Bulmer’s in the early 20th century.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Cider, England, History

Historic Beer Birthday: John Goetz

January 28, 2023 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

christian-moerlein
Today is the birthday of John Goetz, Jr. (January 28, 1855-January 23, 1898), who was married to Christian Moerlein’s daughter Lizzie and worked in his father-in-law’s brewery. He also organized the Brewers Exchange, and was its first president, a trustee in the U.S. Brewers Association, and helped organize the Ohio Brewers Guild.

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Here’s his obituary from the American Brewers’ Review, which provides a summary of his life:

John-Goetz-obit
After Goetz married Lizzie Moerlein, he went to work for his father-in-law at one of Cincinnati’s biggest breweries, Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. In fact, before prohibition, it was one of the nation’s ten largest. But like many breweries, it was closed by prohibition, and wasn’t re-introduced until 1981. In 2004, the brand was purchased by Greg Hardman, a local resident of the Greater Cincinnati area, who also bought several other local beer brands in addition to Moerlein.

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And here’s an additional biography.

john-goetz-bio

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries Tagged With: History, Ohio

Beer Birthday: Jean-Marie Rock

January 28, 2023 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

orval

Today is the 75th birthday of Jean-Marie Rock, former brewmaster of Orval. While I’d visited the brewery a couple of times, I had the pleasure of judging Belgian beers with Jean-Marie at the World Beer Cup when it was in Nashville, which was an amazing experience. He first brewed for Palm and later for Lamot in Mechelen, brewing lagers, before joining Orval in 1972. He retired about six years ago, and is doing some consulting, plus working on another brewery in Belgium, Monsieur Rock. Join me in wishing Jean-Marie a very happy birthday.

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Carl Kins and Jean-Marie in Nashville.
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Jean-Marie and me at the World Beer Cup.
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A satisfied-looking Jean-Marie.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun

Beer In Ads #4334: Miss Rheingold 1955 At The Fox Hunt

January 27, 2023 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Friday’s ad is for “Rheingold Beer,” from 1955. This ad was made for the Rheingold Brewery, which was founded by the Liebmann family in 1883 in New York, New York. At its peak, it sold 35% of all the beer in New York state. In 1963, the family sold the brewery and in was shut down in 1976. In 1940, Philip Liebmann, great-grandson of the founder, Samuel Liebmann, started the “Miss Rheingold” pageant as the centerpiece of its marketing campaign. Beer drinkers voted each year on the young lady who would be featured as Miss Rheingold in advertisements. In the 1940s and 1950s in New York, “the selection of Miss Rheingold was as highly anticipated as the race for the White House.” The winning model was then featured in at least twelve monthly advertisements for the brewery, beginning in 1940 and ending in 1965. Beginning in 1941, the selection of next year’s Miss Rheingold was instituted and became wildly popular in the New York Area. Nancy Woodruff was elected Miss Rheingold 1955.” She was born in Detroit Michigan in 1933, but was raised in San Leandro, California. Humorously, one newspaper reported she attended “San Leandro high school in San Francisco,” and not in … San Leandro. When she was 18, two years ago, she moved to New York City to pursue a modeling career. She entered the 1952 Miss Rheingold contest and was chosen as a finalist, but lost to Mary Austin that year. But she tried again in 1954, and well, here we are. I’m not sure how her career fared after this year, as there’s not much information I could find. Apparently, she did some early television, but mostly commercial work. She married stock broker Jack Paul Adler of New York in 1956, and they appear to have had two children, before moving to Naples, Florida at some point. She passed away in early 2004. In this ad, from September, she’s going on a fox hunt and is getting some water for five hunting dogs.

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, History, Rheingold

Beer Birthday: Logan Plant

January 27, 2023 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

beavertown
Today is the 44th birthday of Logan Plant, founder and brewmaster of Beavertown Brewery, which he started in 2011. I met Logan first at the Firestone-Walker Invitational Beer Festival a few years ago and have run into a couple of times since both there and at the RateBeer Best Festival. He’s a very friendly and talented person and his beer is great, and it’s always been a pleasure to hang out with him. Please join me in wishing Logan a very happy birthday.

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At the Firestone-Walker Invitational in 2017.

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With Jeremy Marshall, from Lagunitas, and me at the RateBeer Best Awards show in January 2017.

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With Matt Brynildson at the Firestone-Walker Invitational in 2017.

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With me, Matt Brynildson and another F-W brewer at the Firestone-Walker Invitational in 2016.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: England, Great Britain, UK

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