Historic Beer Birthday: Louis F. Neuweiler

April 28, 2026 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Louis F. Neuweiler (April 28, 1848-1929). He was born in Württemberg, Germany, and his family was in the brewing business. He came to the U.S., first to Philadelphia, where he worked at local breweries there and also met his wife. In 1891, he moved to Allentown, where he formed a partnership with Benedict Nuding, who had started the Germania Brewery there in 1875 or 78 (sources differ). When they started their partnership, the brewery name was changed to the Nuding Brewing Co, but after Neuweiler bought out Nuding in 1900, it became the Louis F. Neuweiler & Son Brewery, which it remained until finally closing for good in 1968.

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

Born into a family of brewers, he immigrated to America and settled for a time in the Philadelphia area. While in Philadelphia he met his wife Sophia. They had 16 children. They relocated to Allentown, PA in 1891. He formed a brewing partnership with longtime brewer Benedict Nuding but bought him out in 1900. In 1906 his son Charles joined the brewery and the business became known as L.F. Neuweiler & Son. The “new” Neuweiler Brewery was opened on April 28, 1913 at the corner of Front and Gordon Streets in Allentown. His son Louis joined the family business and the company became known as Louis F. Neuweiler & Sons. Their slogan was “Nix Besser” meaning “none better”. After Louis died in 1929 the business was run by Charles Neuweiler. Neuweiler beers were regional best sellers until they went out of business in 1968.

This story of the brewery is from a local Allentown newspaper, The Morning Call, from 2004:

Louis Neuweiler came to Allentown in 1891. Beermaking then was more than 100 years old in the Valley, its roots going back to the Moravian brewers in Bethlehem. Neuweiler hooked up with longtime brewer Benedict Nuding, whose business was at Seventh and Union streets. In 1900, Neuweiler bought out Nuding. In 1906, he took his oldest son, Charles, into the business that became L.F. Neuweiler & Son.
The Seventh Street location was too small for expansion, so in 1911 the Neuweilers purchased 4.5 acres at Front and Gordon streets and hired Philadelphia architects Peukert and Wunder to build the brewery. It got its water from an underground lake 900 feet below. Neuweiler ordered his own generators for electric power and had separate wells drilled.
Neuweiler opened at this location on April 28, 1913. That day, son Louis P. entered the business and its name became Louis F. Neuweiler & Sons, a name it would retain until 1965. (Louis P. Neuweiler later left the family business and became a local banking executive at Merchants National Bank.)
Neuweiler’s truly was a family operation. Charles Neuweiler sometimes drove the horse-drawn wagon to Bethlehem loaded with barrels. The women in the family kept the books.
Neuweiler’s also was something of an absolute monarchy. Generous to his family, Louis F. Neuweiler had a temper and little patience with those he regarded as lesser mortals. He once ripped the telephone out of the wall in frustration and told the operator she could go to hell when she couldn’t understand the phone number he was asking for.
Louis F. died in 1929. It was during Prohibition and Neuweiler’s was brewing only near beer with 3.2 percent alcohol and making mixers under the names Purity and Frontenac Pale. In the early 1930s, Charles Neuweiler turned down an offer to buy the brewery for $500,000 from gangster/bootlegger Arthur Flegenheimer, aka Dutch Schultz. According to son Theodore Neuweiler, his father said, “We have always made honest beer,” and ordered Schultz off the property.
At first, the post-Prohibition years were good for Neuweiler’s. Its slogan “nix besser,” none better, was shared across the community. But by the early 1960s it found itself trapped between the growing market share of the beer giants of the Midwest and the growing preference for its lighter product.
On May 31, 1968, Neuweiler’s closed its doors for the last time, $800,000 in debt.
Over the years, some of the equipment was sold. One of the stainless steel brewing tanks ended up at the Milford Park campmeeting grounds in Old Zionsville to be used for water storage.

neuweiler-brewery-2

This is a translation of his German Wikipedia page:

Neuweiler was born as the son of a family of beer brewers. He emigrated to the United States and began to work as a brewer in Philadelphia . Within a few years he obtained the title of a Braumeister. In 1891 he met the businessman and hotelier Benedict Nuding, who had founded the Germania Brewery in Allentown in 1878.
Neuweiler became Nuding’s business partner. Together, they managed the brewery with success – until 1900 they already reached an annual output of 20,000 barrels . When Nuding retired in the same year, Neuweiler took over his shares and moved his sons into the company’s business during the following years. In 1925 the name Louis F. Neuweiler’s Sons, valid until the brewery was closed, was chosen for the brewery.
The brewery continued to be successful. In 1913 Neuweiler had a new, larger brewery complex built. The new brewery employed forty employees and reached an annual output of 50,000 barrels. A subterranean lake under the property was opened and a separate power plant was built – the brewery was thus independent of the electricity and water supply through the city.
During the period of prohibition, the Neuweiler brewery produced alcohol-reduced light beer and lemonade. At the height of its success, the Neuweiler brewery produced about 400,000 barrels a year and had 15 beer brands in its assortment. On May 31, 1968, she was closed.
Neuweiler died in 1929, his sons took over the management of the company. He is buried at the Fairview Cemetery in Allentown.

neuweilers-tray

And this history of the brewery is from the English Wikipedia page:

Neuweiler Brewery was founded by Louis Neuwiler, who bought out longtime local brewer Benedict Nuding in 1900. Nuding’s operation was limited by its location, and in 1911 Neuweiler and his son, Charles, eager to expand, hired Philadelphia architects Peukert and Wunder to build a new complex some distance away, at Front and Gordon streets.
The brewery, featuring its own generators for electric power, opened in 1913. By 1932, the brewery buildings and the warehouse building were joined as one structure, and the former machine warehouse became an independent electric plant with an ammonia tank and ice machine. A pump warehouse had been added onto the northwest corner of the former stock warehouse, and a two-story bottling plant with a basement was located to the north of the other buildings. Neuweiler produced several brands of beer: Light Lager, Cream Ale, Stock Ale, Premium Ale, Bock (seasonal), Half & Half, Porter, Stout and Hochberg. Most were available in the 12 oz. “Steinies” or Export bottles, quarts, cans or kegs. When in full operation, Neuweiler’s was one of Allentown’s largest employers.
By 1950, the bottling plant was extended to the corner of North Front Street and Liberty Street, the stock warehouse was extended toward North Front Street, and a tile ash hopper was located behind the boiler house.
Brewery operations ceased in 1968 due to competition from national breweries. However, the Neuweiler recipes and brand names were purchased by the Ortlieb Brewery of Philadelphia, who also purchased the Fuhrmann and Schmidt (Shamokin) breweries in 1966. After the brewery’s closure, the F&S Brewery produced several of the Neuweiler beers (Porter, Light Lager and Cream Ale) from around 1970 until closing in 1975. After F&S closed, the Ortlieb brewery continued Neuweiler Cream Ale at the Philadelphia plant until the late 1970s.

1915_-_Neuweiler_Beer_Laboratory
“This photo from 1915 shows the laboratory at the Neuweiler Brewery that created the various brews made and sold by the company.”

These pages are from “American Breweries of the Past,” by David G. Moyer:

Neuweiler-1

Neuweiler-2

And this lively history is from a local Allentown television station:

Arthur Flegenheimer, aka “Dutch Schultz,” is not remembered as one of your major league 1930s gangster headline-grabbers like Al Capone or Jack “Legs” Diamond. But such a view badly underestimates the man and his ruthlessness. And when he strode into the offices of Louis F. Neuweiler and Sons Brewery on Front Street in Allentown in 1932 he must have seemed formidable enough.
Cutting to the chase, the dapper dressing “Dutch” had some words for brewery owner Charles Neuweiler, son of the brewery’s founder and then the company’s president. He wanted to buy out the Neuweiler family operation which, since the start of Prohibition in 1920, had been reduced to turning out ice cream, “near beer” and carbonated soda water. He was offering $500,000 in cold cash.
Schultz may have thought he had made Neuweiler an offer he couldn’t refuse. It’s not known if the Dutchman’s “boys” were hanging around with itchy trigger fingers on their “gats” during the conversation.
But according to Charles’s son, Theodore Neuweiler, who recounted this tale to the press in the 1950s, his father was not biting. “We have always made honest beer,” he recalled his father saying before ordering Schultz off his property. And apparently the gangster went quietly.

Shortly thereafter FDR would be elected, Prohibition banished, and happy days here again. And “Dutch” would die in 1935 on a hospital operating room table in Newark, New Jersey, following a hit by rival gangsters.
Today Neuweiler’s, which closed in 1968 and was left in a state that could only be called abandonment, is once more in the local news. Plans about its possible future as apartments, lofts or shops as part of the Neighborhood Improvement Zone- aka “the NIZ”- have caused much speculation. Could Neuweiler’s — at least the building if not the brewery — come back to life?
All of this activity would have undoubtedly impressed old Louis F. Neuweiler, the brewery’s founder, although he might be disappointed that nobody is talking about making beer there. As a native of Wurttemberg, Germany he knew what beer was to all good Germans of his time and place- a thick hardy brew that was both food and drink and had been as long as there had been Germans.
For a time, Neuweiler worked in a Philadelphia brewery and rose within the ranks of the company. In 1891 he came to Allentown and teamed up with longtime local brewer Benedict Nuding. A Civil War veteran and several years Louis Neuweiler’s senior, Nuding’s brewery was located at 7th St. near Union.
Beer making had been going on in the Lehigh Valley probably since the first German settlers arrived. Commercial operations in Allentown are usually traced to the Eagle Brewery that opened at Lehigh and Union Streets in the 1850s. By the start of the 20th century there would be a number of breweries dotting the Lehigh Valley in Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton.
By 1900 Nuding was ready to retire and Neuweiler brought him out. But even then Neuweiler had bigger ambitions. He had just admitted his son Charles into the business and began to look around for a space that was much larger than the site on 7th Street and also closer to a railroad line that would make shipment easier.
What the new brewery also needed was a supply of pure water.
Neuweiler found all that he was hoping for- even a lake of pure water 900 feet underground- on a 4.5 acre site at the corner of Front and Gordon Streets. To build the brewery he hired Peukert & Wunder, Philadelphia architects with a national reputation for brewery design.
Work began on Neuweiler’s in 1911. It was completed two years later and opened for production on April 28, 1913. The Lehigh Valley had seen many brewery openings before but Neuweiler’s was something special. With its red brick tower that could be seen for many miles it dominated the horizon along the banks of the Lehigh River. In an extra architectural flourish a huge N, similar to those on a Paris bridge that honored Napoleon, framed and mounted in a colossal cartouche, was placed on the side of the building. The era didn’t nickname brewers “beer barons” for nothing.
Despite its size Neuweiler’s was a family business. Charles had been required to learn the business from the ground up, including driving a wagon load of beer barrels when called on to do so. Even the female members of the family played a role by keeping the brewery’s books.
Neuweiler’s was not a democracy. Patriarch Louis F., while a generous father to his family, expected obedience from them, even as adults. Although there is nothing on the record this may explain why one of his sons, Louis P., left the family business and got into local banking.
One of the longtime family stories that was recorded dealt with a confrontation between Louis F. and a telephone operator. When she could not understand the number Neuweiler was asking for he became so enraged he suggested there was a warm place she should go and ripped the phone’s cord out of the wall. His sons, fearing local reaction and gossip, told their father he had to call her back and apologize. According to the surviving sources the exchange went something like this:
Neuweiler: “Is this the woman who I told to go to hell?”
Operator: (timidly) “Yes”
Neuweiler: “Well you don’t have to go now!”
Louis F. died in 1929 and with the end of Prohibition in 1933 Neuweiler’s flourished. But the rise of national brewers and the post World War II preference for lighter beers doomed Neuweiler’s and other local ethnic brewers. But, who knows. Thanks to the NIZ the big N may rise again.

Historic Beer Birthday: Henry Hoerl

April 26, 2026 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Henry Hoerl (April 26, 1854-November 14, 1917). He was born in Altdorf, in Bavaria, Germany, the son of a German brewery owner, where he learned the trade. When he was 24, he came to the U.S. and found employment with a number of breweries throughout New York. In 1892, he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to become the Superintendent of the Val. Blatz Brewing Co. a position he held for the rest of his life.

Here is his obituary from the American Brewers’ Review:

This biography of Henry Hoerl is his entry from “Freemasonry in Wisconsin: Biographical Sketches of Men who Have Been Prominent in the Various Masonic Bodies in the State,” published in 1900.

And this biography is from “Memoirs of Milwaukee County: from the earliest historical times down to the present, including a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in Milwaukee County,” published by the Madison, Wisconsin Western Historical Society in 1909.

Henry Hoerl, for many years a prominent figure in the brewing circles of Milwaukee, has achieved his prominence through untiring energetic effort. He is of German descent and was born at Altdorf, Bavaria, Germany, April 26, 1854, the son of George and Anna (Funck) Hoerl, natives of the famous old city of Nuremberg. Henry, the subject of this review, received his education in the elementary schools of his native city and then took a course in the high school. After finishing his studies he was employed in breweries in Germany for several years. He served with distinction in the German army as sergeant of artillery of a Munich regiment. Ambitious to rise in the world and recognizing the greater possibilities and advantages offered in this country to young men of energy and determination, he left his home in 1878, when twenty-four years of age, and set out for the new world, entering upon a career in the course of which he encountered many disappointments, to ultimately reap the reward of honest efforts in abundant prosperity. Soon after landing in New York he found employment in the breweries there and took the brewmaster’s course in the New York Brewing Academy, winning the first prize in 1886. This brought him into prominence among the brewing men of the city and he secured an excellent position. In 1892 he moved to Milwaukee to become superintendent of the Valentine Blatz Brewing Company and has made their beer famous. On June 4, 1878, Mr. Hoerl married Katherine, the daughter of Michael and Katherine (Neuner) Strobel, of Albany, N. Y. Four children have come to bless this union: Emil, who is the proprietor of the Germania brewery of Altoona, Pa. ; Jenny, John M., who resides in Milwaukee, and Annie, the wife of George Schott, who runs a cooperage works in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Hoerl are communicants of the Lutheran church, to which their ancestors have belonged for many generations. Mr. Hoerl is affiliated with the Masonic Order, having taken the Bine Lodge, the Chapter, Knights Templar and Consistory degrees, and he is also a member of the Mystic Shrine. Hoerl is a popular member of the Deutscher Club, the Millioki Club, the Milwaukee Music Vercin and the “West Side Turn Verein.”

And finally, I came upon this little oddity via eBay. It’s an invitation sent to Hoerl at the Val. Blatz Brewing Co. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The invitation was to attend a brewmaster’s convention of the United Brewer’s Association of the City of New York and the Surrounding Area, September 26-28, 1897. It doesn’t look like he mailed it back, but he may have been thinking about it, as he marked it for 2 train tickets to be reserved to get there.

Historic Beer Birthday: Heinrich L. Hartman

April 25, 2026 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Heinrich Ludwig “Henry” Hartman (April 25, 1824-August 3, 1870). He was born in Kirchheim am Neckar, Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. There’s very little definitive information I could find on him. By the 1850s, he had moved to the United States, settling in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. In 1856, he opened a brewery called the Hartman Brewery, which he operated until 1870, when he died at age 46, leaving his wife, Pauline Elizabeth Loelke along with three sons and a daughter (plus he also had another son, but who died before him, in 1864).

After his death, the brewery was sold to John Yost, Jr., eventually becoming known as the Lebanon Valley Brewing Co., but closed for good in 1959. A new brewery has opened recently, the Lebanon Valley Craft Brewery, carrying on their legacy.

Historic Beer Birthday: Henry Becker

April 19, 2026 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Henry Becker (April 19, 1851-April 20, 1906). He was born in Bavaria, and emigrated to the U.S. when he was 21, coming first to New Orleans, and two years later settling in Terre Haute, Indiana. At some point, he became involved with the Seventh Street Brewery, which had been founded in 1848 (although another source seems to dispute that believing they are unrelated and that Becker’s was founded independently in the 1870s, which actually makes some sense to me). Its name was changed to the Terre Haute Weiss Beer Brewery in 1898 (if related to Seventh Street), but after Becker’s death in 1906, his son took it over, renaming it the Henry J. Becker Brewery. Becker’s son then sold it two years later, in 1908. The buyer, Charles J. Graf, closed it for the good the same year.

Henry-Becker-obit-abr — Obituary of Becker from the American Brewers’ Review in 1906.

There’s very little information I could find on Becker or his brewery. It appears to have been very small, with capacity below 500 bbl, making it something of a proto-nano in its day. I could also not find any photos of Becker or the brewery and no breweriana whatsoever, aprt from the bottle below, which must be from between 1906-09. One unusual fact I did find is that they brewed a Berliner Weiss.

Historic Beer Birthday: Emil Schandein

April 16, 2026 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Emil Schandein (April 15, 1840-July 22, 1888). He was born in Bavaria, Germany, but emigrated to America when he was sixteen, in 1856. Arriving first in New York, he moved shortly thereafter to Philadelphia, and moved around quite a bit, until finally settling in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1866 where he joined the Philip Best & Co. brewery staff. That same year he married Best’s daughter Lisette, and her father sold the remaining half of the business to her husband, making Frederick Pabst president, and Schandein vice-president. Schandein was a director of the brewery from 1873-1888. When he passed away in 1888, Lisette was elected vice-president.

This is the Google translation of Emil’s German Wikipedia page:

Schandein was born in 1840 in Obermoschel . His parents were the royal tax and community beneficiary Joseph Wilhelm Schandein (1800-1862) and Louisa Schandein (b. Barth). His uncle was the historian Ludwig Schandein.
At the age of 16 he emigrated to the USA and settled in Philadelphia . After working in different cities, he moved to Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1863. There he married Elizabetha “Lisette” Best, a daughter of the breeder owner Phillip Best.
Together with his brother-in-law Frederick Pabst, he bought shares in his Philip Best Brewing Company and from 1873 until his death took the post of vice-president.
In addition to his work for the brewery, Schandein was one of the founders and first president of the German Society of Milwaukee. He was also director of the Northwestern Life Insurance Company, the Second Ward Savings Bank and President of the Milwaukee Brewers Association.
Emil Schandein died in 1888 during a stay in Germany. He is buried at the Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee.
Only after his death was in 1889, the Saddle Your Mansion, a villa in the German Renaissance style, on the 24th and Grand Avenue (now Wisconsin Avenue) in Milwaukee completed. The Milwaukee County Emergency Hospital was built in 1929 on the site of the building.
His widow, Lisette Schandein, assumed his post as vice president after his death until 1894. She died in 1905 during a stay in Germany.
Shandein bequeathed part of his estate to the Kaiserslauter Kreisrealschule and to the Pfälzisches Gewerbemuseum. The Schandeinstrasse in Kaiserslautern is named after him. The Schandeinstrasse in Speyer, however, is named after his uncle Ludwig.

This Phillip Best Brewing Co. stock certificate, from 1873, is signed by then-president Emil Schandein.

This is from the “National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. III,” published in 1891:

Historic Beer Birthday: August Krug

April 15, 2026 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of August Krug (April 15, 1815-December 30, 1856). Krug was born in Miltenberg, Bavaria, Germany, but when he was 33, in 1848, emigrated to the U.S. and settle in central Wisconsin. He opened a restaurant and the following year, 1849, added a brewery, which was known then as the August Krug Brewery. When he died young, in 1856, his bookkeeper, Joseph Schlitz took over management on behalf of Krug’s widow, Anna Marie. In 1858, Schlitz married Krug’s widow and renamed the brewery after himself.

Here’s a biography of him from Find-a-Grave:

Brewer. His August Krug Brewery was the foundation that became the giant Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Born Georg August Krug in Miltenberg, Bavaria, Germany, he came to the USA about 1848, established a restaurant in Kilbourntown (now central Milwaukee), Wisconsin and added a small brewery in 1849 which, limited by lack of refrigeration to brewing in cooler months, produced about 150 barrels the first year. In 1850, his father, Georg Krug, came to visit, surviving a shipwreck on the way. The father managed to save himself, Krug’s eight-year-old nephew August Uihlein and $800 in gold. The gold was used to expand the brewery and hire four people, including Joseph Schlitz as bookkeeper. Krug, who is credited with building Kilawukee’s first underground brewer’s vault tunneled into the hill to provide the consistent cool temperatures essential to brewing and storage, died seven years after his brewery produced its first barrel of beer. The bookkeeper, Schlitz, acquired both his brewery and then his widow after Krug died in 1856. The brewery’s market share increased steadily, and sales doubled when Schlitz entered the Chicago market immediately after the Chicago Fire in 1871. Schlitz was lost at sea in 1875, after which Krug’s four nephews began the Uihlein dynasty that was to run the company during its long history. In the 1960s, Schlitz was the second-largest brewer in the world; during the 1970s it was troubled by indictments for improper marketing, by insufficient advertising and by public resentment over a change in the brewing recipe; finally a 1981 strike lead to the closure of their Milwaukee plant although it was still the USA’s third-largest brewer when purchased by the Stroh Brewery Company of Detroit (now part of Pabst Brewing Co.) in 1982.

schlitz_first_brewery — The August Krug Brewery, c. 1850s.

This portion of the brewery’s history from Immigrant Entrepreneurship is entitled “Political Revolution, Emigration, and Establishing a Regional Player in Brewing: August Krug and Joseph Schlitz” and is the early section that includes Krug’s contributions:

At the beginning was the German revolution of 1848. Georg August Krug (born April 15, 1815 in Miltenberg, grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt; died: December 30, 1856 in Milwaukee, WI) was born the son of Georg Anton Krug (1785–1860) and Anna Marie Ludwig (1784–1864), who owned the brewery “Zum Weißen Löwen,” the predecessor of today’s Faust brewery, in Miltenberg. This was a small and contested town at the River Main, which belonged until 1803 to the Electorate of Mayence (Mainz), became part of the grand duchy of Baden in 1806, was transferred to the grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1810, and finally became part of the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1816. Georg August Krug worked in the family business but also became a member of a group of revolutionists surrounding a local doctor and farmer, Jakob Nöthig, who later emigrated to the U.S. after he was accused of being a ringleader (Rädelsführerei) of a local band of political agitators and other offenses against the Bavarian authorities. Krug and his father were among the petitioners in Miltenberg on March 8, 1848 who demanded liberal reforms. On the following day Miltenberg was shaken by protests and turmoil, and Bavarian armed forces reestablished order. Facing official prosecution, the younger Krug became part of the first wave of politically-motivated emigration. He arrived in the United States in May 1848, where he used only his second name and where he was naturalized on December 15, 1854.
In Milwaukee, at that time a preferred destination for the 48ers, August Krug established, probably with his savings, a saloon and restaurant on 4th and Chestnut Streets. Far from Bavaria, he still managed to receive additional support from his family. First, his fiancée Anna Maria Wiesmann Hartig arrived from Miltenberg (Oct. 9, 1819–Jan. 20, 1887) and they eventually married—likely in 1849. She was the daughter of Michael Wiesmann and Christina Schlohr, both from Miltenberg. Her presence allowed an expansion of his business activities. While Anna Maria Krug managed the restaurant, August Krug started a small brewing business at a nearby building at 420 Chestnut Street in 1849. Second, his father Georg Anton Krug arrived in the United States on October 25, 1850, accompanied by his grandson, 8-year-old August Uihlein. Such visits were not without risk: the visitors travelled on the Helena Sloman, the first German steamship on the transatlantic route. It encountered distress at sea on November 28, 1850 and sunk. Nine people were killed, but the vast majority of the crew and the passengers, in total 175 persons, were rescued by the American ship Devonshire. Georg Anton Krug lost a Bavarian beer pump, which went down with the wreckage, but he rescued $800 in gold (or $23,000 in 2010 dollars). This capital was invested into the brewery of his son and used to hire three additional employees, including a bookkeeper named Joseph Schlitz.
August Krug became a respected citizen. In 1850, his real estate property was valued at $1,600 ($46,100 in 2010 dollars). His household consisted of five people: himself and his wife Anna Maria, two brewery workers (both from Bavaria), and a young 18-year-old women, probably a servant. Krug was apparently a respected voice in his neighborhood, as his name was invoked in a newspaper advertisement for a local fireproof tile maker. He could afford to visit Germany in 1855, where he was able to meet with his relatives again.
By the mid-1850s, Krug already saw himself as a competitor for preeminence with other German immigrant brewers in Milwaukee in particular the Best family and Miltenberg-born Valentin Blatz (1826–1894). However, he was injured in an accident late in 1856, when he tumbled down a hatchway, and passed away several days later. The value of the eleven lots of real estate he owned was estimated at $20,050 ($532,000 in 2010 dollars). There were a total of $15,296.76 in claims and demands against the estate, including $276.50 owed to bookkeeper Joseph Schlitz (in 2010 dollars, equivalent to roughly $406,000 and $7,330, respectively).

Historic Beer Birthday: Anton Heeb

April 11, 2026 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Anton Heeb (April 11, 1811-January 23, 1888). He was born in Hesse-Kassel, Germany, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1835, when he was 24 years old, originally landing in Baltimore, Maryland. Here, Tavern Trove picks up the story:

He lived in that city for a short time then moved to Newark, New Jersey. By 1838 he had moved to the St. Louis, Missouri, a city that at the time was on the western frontier of America.
In August of 1838 Anton Heeb married Elizabeth Fleischhauer and they had one child before she died a few years later. Heeb married again to Carolina Knopf in 1845, but she also died just a few days after giving birth to their first child Laurenz in February 1846. In November of that year Heeb married once again to Katharina Gehrig. In addition to being a very brave woman she was the daughter of Joseph Anton Gehrig, a brewer who had just arrived in St. Louis from Switzerland.

The elder Gehrig at age 49 had obtained employment at the Washington Brewery in St. Louis and there he met and took under his wing fellow brewer and Swiss emigre 22 year old Matheus Tschirgi.
Gehring was not in America to be in somebody’s employ. He wanted a brewery of his own. He saw opportunity in the Territory of Iowa, specifically in the river town of Dubuque. In the spring of 1846 Gehrig and Tschirgi journeyed 350 miles up the Mississippi to a brand new town that had never before seen a brewery. But when Gehrig died in August he left a fully functioning brewery in the hands of the apprentice brewer Tschirgi. Heeb and his betrothed received the terrible news along with a request to come help young Tschirgi in the Dubuque brewery.
Reports say that Heeb was an experienced brewer and maltster, but the St. Louis City Directory of 1847 lists Anthony Heeb as a brick maker. Nonetheless Heeb got married, wrapped up business in St. Louis and by the next spring he and his wife had arrived in Dubuque.
Iowa had now become a state and Dubuque was growing quickly. With Heeb in charge the Dubuque brewery started making money and the Heeb family started growing as well. Ultimately Anton and Katharina had nine children together.

The Heeb brewery grew too. In addition to being the first brewery in Iowa it maintained its position as the largest brewery in Iowa too. Tschirgi eventually moved on to found other breweries throughout Iowa. Heeb stayed put, ultimately guiding the brewery for 41 years until his death at age 76, on the 23rd of January 1888.
In 1892 the Dubuque Brewing and Malting Company was brought into the Iowa brewery syndicate, and over the next four years Iowa anti-saloon laws convinced the brewery to close.

This obituary of Anton Heeb is from the Daily Times on January 24, 1888

Mr. Anton Heeb Dies at His Home on Couler Avenue Yesterday Afternoon.
Biography of the Most Prominent Brewer in the Northwest.
Mr. Anton Heeb died at his home, 2125 Couler avenue, at a quarter after 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon, his bedside being surrounded by his immediate relatives. The cause of death was a complication of diseases of which rheumatism was the most prominent. He had been subject to the latter disease for about twenty-five years, but about a year ago he was attacked by his old complaint in such a manner that he was greatly enfeebled and kept gradually growing weaker until the lamp of life flickered for the last time. He demise had been expected for two weeks by his family, but the public were not aware that his end was so near, and when it became known it occasioned deep regret.
Mr. Heeb was born in Kurhessen, Germany, on the 11th of April, 1811, and accordingly lacked but a few months of being 77 years of age. He emigrated to America and landed in Baltimore, in 1835. He remained in Baltimore a short time, and then moved to Newark, N.J., where he also remained a short time, and then removed to St. Louis, remaining there until 1846, when he came to Dubuque to seek a location for a brewery. Finding this a suitable place, he, in 1847, established one here and conducted it up to about the time he was taken sick, something over a year ago, being in the business forty-one years. His business grew until it became the most extensive in Iowa, if not in that portion of the Northwest, west of the Mississippi, and he was known far and wide. In January , 1846 he was united in marriage to Miss Katharina Gehrig, a distant relative of the Late Joseph Gehrig, of the Jefferson House, also a native of Germany, who was his second wife, his first wife being Miss Carolin Knapp. He leaves two children by the latter, Jacob and Lawrence of LeMars. His surviving children are: Caroline, who is the wife of Mr. Fred Tschudi; Julia, the wife of Mr. Michael Zwack; Bertha, who is Mrs. L.J. Baumhover; Emily, who is in a convent at Redwing, Minn., and whose name in religion is Sister Cassilda; Anna, the wife of Mr. Frank Hellman of Sioux City; Ben and A.F. Heeb. Mr. Louis Heeb, another of his sons, and one of the most excellent young men Dubuque has ever had, died three of four years ago.
Mr. Heeb was a man of a great deal more than ordinary intelligence, and on several occasions was honored by his fellow citizens with offices of honor and trust. He served his ward as a member of the Council; and was also a member of the Board of Supervisors, in both of which positions he performed his duties in a manner which reflected the highest credit upon himself and his constituents. At the time of his demise he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Dubuque Fire and Marine Insurance Company. Mr. Heeb was the soul of honor, a thorough gentleman, kind-hearted and charitable, and his death will be sincerely regretted by all. He has lain down the burdens of this life with the silvered crown of honored age upon his head, and his memory will be revered in the years to come.

And this account is from Encyclopedia Dubuque:

HEEB, Anton. (Hesse Cassel, Germany Apr. 11,1811–Dubuque, IA, Jan. 23, 1888). Heeb once operated the largest brewery in Iowa. He emigrated to America and landed in Baltimore in September, 1835; in 1836, he went to St. Louis; he came to Dubuque in 1846. The following year, 1847, he came here, located permanently, and established the A. HEEB BREWING COMPANY at Couler and Eagle Point avenues (later Central Avenue and East 22nd Street). In July 1875 records in the United States Revenue Office in Dubuque indicated that Heeb had sold 904 barrels of beer. In 1879 the Dubuque Herald stated that he had purchased $7,000, equivalent to $166,166.67 in 2016, in hops. At the time of his death, the company had an annual production of 15,000 barrels. Heeb’s brewery was among those which formed the DUBUQUE BREWING AND MALTING COMPANY.
Heeb served as a director of the GERMAN TRUST AND SAVINGS BANK and the DUBUQUE FIRE AND MARINE INSURANCE COMPANY. At the time of the building of the Chicago, Dubuque and Minnesota and the Chicago, Clinton and Dubuque railroads, he was involved in construction contracts with Mr. Morgan. He was elected an alderman to the city council and a county supervisor.

And here’s a second obituary of Anton Heeb from the Daily Herald, also on January 24, 1888

DEATH OF A. HEEB
Another of Dubuque’s Prominent Citizens Answers the Last Summons
Yesterday afternoon at a quarter past three, death ended the sufferings of one of Dubuque’s most prominent citizens, Hon. Anton Heeb. For the past twenty five years he had been afflicted with rheumatixm, and for the past year had suffered almost continually with it, though able at times to be up and around. For about two weeks it had been feared hourly that the disease, combined with his advanced age, would result fatally. Yesterday morning he was somewhat brighter than hehad been, and his family were hopeful, but a relapse set in and at the hour stated, he died.
Anton Heeb was born April 11, 1811, at Kurheasen, Germany, and emigrated to this country in 1835, landing at Baltimore. From there he went to New Jersy, and in 1836 went to St. Louis. He came to Dubuque in 1846 and in the following year established the foundation of the great business which bears his name. During the more than forty years in which he has conducted the brewing business it has constantly grown so that it became the largest institution of the kind in the state. He was also known to be most scrupulousin all his business dealings, and has left as a precious heirloom, a most enviable name for honesty and integrity. He did not devote his entire attention to the brewing business, but found time to engage in many public enterprises. At the time of the building of the Chicago, Dubuque and Minnnesota and the Chicago, Clinton and Dubuque railroads, he was largely interested in construction contracts in connections with Mr. Morgan. He was a director of the German Bank, and also of the Dubuque Fire and Marine Insurance Company, and was interested in other institutions of the city. He was an honorary member of the Pius Benevolent Society.
Mr. Heeb was twice married his first wife being Miss Caroline Knapp. In 1846 he was united in marriage to Miss Kathrina Gehrig, a native of Germany and a relative of the late Jos. Gehrig. Besides his wife, he leaves surviving his several children, Jacob and Lawrence of LaMars, Iowa, sons by his former wife, and Caroline (Mrs. Fred Tschudi), Julia (Mrs. Michael Zwack, Bertha (Mrs. L. J. Baumhover), Emily (Sister Cassilda, of Red Wing convent), Ben, Anna (Mrs. Frank Hellman of Sioux City), and A. F. The oldest child by his second wife, Louis, died a few years ago.
Mr. Heeb was a most exemplary citizen and was deeply loved by all the members of his family and respected by all who knew him or had business dealings with him. He was a staunch Catholic, and in his last moments received the sacraments and the consolations of his church.
He was during his lifetime, a staunch Democrat and was elected a county supervisor and twice as a member of the city council. His official record was typical of the man, and he endeavored in every way to serve the public with the most scrupulous honesty and with the utmost regard to the public welfate. Dubuque has lost in his death one of her best and most public spirited citizens, and one who will be sincerely mourned.
The funeral will take place from the family residence, 2125 Couler avenue, Thursday morning at half past 9, to St. Mary’s church, of which Mr. Heeb was during his life, a most faithful and liberal communicant. The interment will be at the German Catholic cemetery.

And these are from an article in 1932 speculating about whether or not the brewery would reopen after prohibition.

Historic Beer Birthday: Rudolf Brand

April 10, 2026 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Rudolf Brand (April 10, 1851-March 25, 1916). He was born in Odenheim, Rheinhessen, Germany. When he was seventeen, in 1868, he emigrated to the U.S., initially to New York, where he worked as a cooper. A few years later he was a foreman at the Busch and Brand brewery in Chicago, Illinois, which was founded by a Michael Brand, who appears to be Rudolf’s uncle. In 1880, he partnered with Ernest (or Ernst) Hummel and founded his own brewery in Chicago, initially known as the Brand (Charles) & Hummel (Ernest) Brewing. A few years after opening, they started trading under the name South Chicago Brewing Co.

The brewery was located at Avenue L and 100th Street. Unfortunately it closed for good in 1922, presumably due to Prohibition.

In May of 1873, he married Clara Sophia Uhlich. The couple had three children two boys and a girl.

He appears to have served as President of the Brewers Association around 1899.

Historic Beer Birthday: Johann Sedlmayr

April 9, 2026 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Johann Sedlmayr (April 9, 1846-November 24, 1900). Johann was the grandson of Gabriel Sedlmayr and the third son of Gabriel Sedlmayr II. Johann’s father inherited the Spaten Brewery, along with his brother, when his father died, but Gabriel became sole owner after his brother Joseph left to start his own brewery, Franziskaner. Two of Johann’s older brothers died before their father, so when Gabriel II passed away, he and his younger brothers Carl and Anton inherited the family brewery.

The caption of this photo, from German Wikipedia, translates to “Delivery of the Spade brewery to the sons Johann, Carl and Anton Sedlmayr 1874,” although I can’t say which one is Johann. I don’t know much more about his time running the brewery. “From 1884 to 1890 he was a member of the German Reichstag for the electoral district of Oberbayern 1 Munich I and the Nationalliberal Party.”

Historic Beer Birthday: Mathias Meller

April 9, 2026 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Mathias Meller (April 9, 1827-April 1, 1900). He was born in Neuss, Germany, which is in the North Rhine-Westphalia area, and emigrated to the U.S. when he was 22, in 1849. He eventually settled in Galena, Illinois. In 1860 (or 1874, sources differ), he founded the Math. Meller Brewery (also called the Fulton Brewery), which would become the Casper Eulberg & Sons Brewery, and later, briefly, the Galena Brewing Co. after prohibition, before closing for good in 1936.

Here’s a short biography of Meller:

And this biography appears to be from a book on people from Jo Davis County

Curiously, their most popular beer was called Red Stripe, and had been made since the late 19th century. Apparently, when prohibition closed the brewery, they sold their recipe to British brewers who began production of the now-famous label in Jamaica.

« Previous Page