Jay R. Brooks on Beer
Tuesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1942. This World War 2 ad features an ancient warrior protecting us, and then comparing that to how vitamins also protect your well-being. And thanks to A-B’s research into all the vitamins that are part of the brewing process, they’re guarding your well-being, too.
Today is the birthday of William IV, Duke of Bavaria (November 13, 1493-March 7, 1550). William IV “was Duke of Bavaria from 1508 to 1550, until 1545 together with his younger brother Louis X, Duke of Bavaria. He was born in Munich to Albert IV and Kunigunde of Austria, a daughter of Emperor Frederick III.”
Here’s a short account of William IV’s life:
Though his father had determined the everlasting succession of the firstborn prince in 1506, his younger brother Louis refused a spiritual career with the argument that he was born before the edict became valid. With support of his mother and the States-General, Louis forced William to accept him as co-regent in 1516. Louis then ruled the districts of Landshut and Straubing, in general in concord with his brother.
William initially sympathized with the Reformation but changed his mind as it grew more popular in Bavaria. In 1522 William issued the first Bavarian religion mandate, banning the promulgation of Martin Luther’s works. After an agreement with Pope Clement VII in 1524 William became a political leader of the German Counter reformation, although he remained in opposition to the Habsburgs since his brother Louis X claimed the Bohemian crown. Both dukes also suppressed the peasant uprising in South Germany in an alliance with the archbishop of Salzburg in 1525.
The conflict with Habsburg ended in 1534 when both dukes reached an agreement with Ferdinand I in Linz. William then supported Charles V in his war against the Schmalkaldic League in 1546. William’s chancellor for 35 years was the forceful Leonhard von Eck.
William was a significant collector and commissioner of art. Among other works he commissioned an important suite of paintings from various artists, including the Battle of Issus by Albrecht Altdorfer. This, like most of William’s collection, is now housed in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. With his order to expand the Neuveste with the so-called Rundstubenbau and to set up the first Court Garden began the history of the Munich Residence as a representative palace. To the history cycle of the garden pavilion belonged Albrecht Altdorfer’s painting. In 1546 he ordered to upgrade Dachau Palace from a Gothic ruin into a renaissance palace. In 1523 with the appointment of Ludwig Senfl began the rise of the Bavarian State Orchestra.
On 23 April 1516, before a committee consisting of gentry and knights in Ingolstadt, he issued his famous purity regulation for the brewing of Bavarian Beer, stating that only barley, hops, and water could be used. This regulation remained in force until it was abolished as a binding obligation in 1986 by Paneuropean regulations of the European Union.
William died in 1550 in Munich and was succeeded by his son Albert. He is buried in the Frauenkirche in Munich.
William IV, Duke of Bavaria, wrote and signed the Reinheitsgebot, also known as the Bavarian Beer Purity Law, and later the German Beer Purity Law.
In the Bavarian town of Ingolstadt on April 23, 1516, William IV, Duke of Bavaria wrote and signed the law, along with his younger brother Louis X, Duke of Bavaria. That 1516 law was itself a variation of earlier laws, at least as early as 1447 and another in independent Munich in 1487. When Bavaria reunited, the new Reinheitsgebot applied to the entirety of the Bavarian duchy. It didn’t apply to all of Germany until 1906, and it wasn’t referred to as the Reinheitsgebot until 1918, when it was coined by a member of the Bavarian parliament.
Today is the birthday of Hans Johann Claussen (November 13, 1861-March 20, 1940). He was born in Germany, but moved to California to work at the Fredericksburg Brewery in San Jose. In 1888, he moved to Seattle, Washington to take a job as the brewmaster of the Rule & Sweeney Brewing Co., but the brewery was in danger of going out of business and late the same year, Claussen and Edward Francis Sweeney re-incorporated it as the Claussen-Sweeney Brewing Co. Just a few years later, in 1891, Claussen sold his interest in the brewery. In 1901 he opened a new brewery in Seattle, the Claussen Brewing Association. It was in business until closed by prohibition, and by the time it was repealed, Claussen decided he was old enough to stay retired.
Mr. Claussen holds prestige as one of the essentially representative business men of Seattle, being prominently concerned in industrial enterprises of marked scope and importance and having shown that inflexible integrity and honorable business policy which invariably be- get objective confidence and esteem. Progressive, wide-awake and discriminating in his methods, he has achieved a notable success through normal channels of industry and today is president, treasurer and manager of the Claussen Brewing Association at Interbay, a suburban district of Seattle, and also vice-president of the Diamond Ice & Storage Company, whose business has likewise extensive ramifications.
Mr. Claussen is a native of the province of Holstein, Germany, where he was born on the 13th of November, 1861, being son of Caecilia M. and Peter Jacob Claussen, representative of staunch old German stock. Our subject prosecuted his studies in the schools of his native province until he had attained the age of ten years, when he accompanied his parents on their emigration to America, the family locating in the city of San Francisco, California, where he continued his educational work , as did he later in Dixon, that state, the family home having been on a farm for the greater portion of his youth. After completing the curriculum of the high school he entered a business college where be finished a thorough commercial course and thus amply fortified himself for taking up the active duties of life. In 1882 Mr. Claussen took a position as bookkeeper for the Fredericksburg Brewing Company in San Jose California. In 1884 he began learning the details of the brewing business, and later he passed about two years in the employ of the National Brewing Company of San Francisco, gaining a thorough experience in all branches of the industry and thus equipping himself in an admirable way for the management of the important enterprise in which he is now an interested principal. In 1888, in company with E. F. Sweeney, Mr. Claussen effected the organization of the Claussen, Sweeney Brewing Company in Seattle, and the business was conducted under that title until 1893, when the company disposed of the plant and business. In 1892 Mr. Claussen associated himself with Messrs. Charles E. Crane and George E. Sackett in the organization of the Diamond Ice & Storage Company, of which our subject became vice-president at the time of its inception and in that office he has since served, the enterprise having grown to be one of importance and extensive operations. In March, 1901, was formed a stock company which was incorporated under the title the Claussen Brewing Association, with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, which was later increased to two hundred and fifty thousand, and the company erected a fine brewing plant at Interbay and have here engaged in the manufacture of a very superior lager beer, the excellence of the product and the effective methods of introduction having gained to the concern high reputation and a most gratifying supporting patronage, which extends throughout Washington and contiguous states. The equipment of the plant is of the most modern and approved type and in every process and detail of manufacture the most scrupulous care is given, insuring absolute purity, requisite age and proper flavor, so that the popularity of the brands of beer manufactured is certain to increase. The annual capacity of the brewery is sixty thousand barrels, and the plant is one of the best in the northwest, the enterprise being a credit to the executive ability and progressive ideas of the gentlemen who inaugurated the same.
Mr. Claussen has been a resident of Seattle since 1888, and from the start he has maintained a lively interest in all that concerns the progress and material prosperity of the city, being known as an alert and public spirited citizen and able business man, and holding unqualified confidence and esteem in the community. He has been an active factor in the councils of the Democratic party, but in local affairs maintains a somewhat independent attitude, rather then manifesting a pronounced partisan spirit. In 1901, he was the Democratic nominee for member of the lower house of the state legislature, but as the district in which he was thus placed in nomination is overwhelmingly Republican in its political complexion he met defeat, together with the other candidates on the ticket. Fraternally he is prominently identified with the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Seattle Turnverein society and the German Benevolent society, in each of which he has held office. He was also one of the organizers of the Mutual Heat & Light Company in 1902, and is ever stood ready to lend his influence and definite co-operation in support of legitimate business undertakings and worthy projects for the general good. In 1892 he erected his fine residence on Boren Avenue, and this he still owns, though he now makes his home in at Interbay, in order that he may be more accessible to the brewery, over which he maintains a general supervision. He is a young man of forceful individuality and the success which has been his indicates most clearly his facility in the practical application of the talents and power which are his. In the city of Seattle, on October 10, 1891, Mr. Claussen was united in marriage to Miss Emma Meyer, who was born in Hamburg, Germany.
To learn more about Claussen’s first brewery, the Claussen-Sweeney Brewing Co., there’s a thorough history of is at Gary Flynn’s Brewery Gems.
Likewise, Brewery Gems has a longer history of the Claussen Brewing Association.
Monday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1942. This World War 2 ad features ghostly horses riding the sky above Navy warships to illustrate the power of diesel engines which, according to A-B, were first built for use in their breweries. Hmm.
Today is the birthday of Samuel Bär Liebmann (November 12, 1799-November 21, 1872). He family owned a brewery in Germany but because of the German revolution, Samuel sent some of his sons to America in 1850, and he and the rest of the family soon followed. They settled in Brooklyn and initially ran the old Maasche Brewery, but later built a new brewery in Bushwick. Originally, it was called the Samuel Liebmann Brewery, but when his sons joined the brewery, it was called the S. Liebmann’s Sons Brewery. When Samuel died in 1872, his sons took over the family brewery. After prohibition ended, the brothers’ six sons re-opened the brewery as the simpler Liebmann Breweries, but in 1964 they changed the name again to Rheingold Breweries, after their most popular beer. The brewery closed in 1976.
Schmiedelfeld Castle
This biography of Liebmann is translated from his German Wikipedia page:
Samuel Liebmann was born in 1799 in Aufhausen, Württemberg, a district of the municipality Bopfingen [in Germany]. His parents were the merchant and religion teacher Joseph Liebmann and Berta Liebmann (nee Fröhlich). He had three brothers (Heinrich, David and Leopold) and two sisters (Johanna, Sarah) and attended elementary school in Aufhausen.
In June 1828 Liebmann married Sara Selz. When his father Joseph Liebmann died in 1832, Samuel Liebmann and his brother Heinrich left their hometown Aufhausen and bought the estate Schloss Schmiedelfeld. This they operated with economic success.
Liebmann moved to Ludwigsburg in 1840. There he acquired the inn “Zum Stern” with attached brewery, which he also successfully led. In the course of the German revolution he showed himself to be a supporter of the revolutionary movement. This meant that the royal soldiers, who belonged to this time to the regular clientele, the stop at Liebmann’s inn was prohibited by order. This ban and the failure of the German Revolution led to his decision to emigrate to America.
In 1850, he sent his son Joseph to America to build a new home there. Four years later, Samuel Liebmann followed with the rest of the family.
There, the family signed a lease for the Maasche Brewery on Meserole Street Williamsburg, which was renamed with the arrival of the family the S. Liebmann Brewery. After the lease expired, Samuel Liebmann set up a new brewery under the same name on the corner of Forest and Bremen Street in Bushwick.
Liebmann’s wife died in 1865. Three years later he retired from the brewery’s active business. Under his leadership, the company has grown steadily.
Samuel Liebmann died in 1872 at his home in Williamsburg. He is buried on the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn. His sons took over the management of the brewery.
This is from “The Originators of Rheingold Beer: From Ludwigsburg to Brooklyn – A Dynasty of German-Jewish Brewers,” by Rolf Hofmann, originally published in Aufbau, June 21, 2001:
New Yorkers over the age of fifty will remember the brand name Rheingold Beer and the company’s brilliant publicity stunt in which a bevy of attractive young women competed annually for the privilege of being elected that year’s Miss Rheingold and appearing in ads on billboards and in the subways throughout the New York area.
The beer’s evocative name with its allusion to Germany’s great river, was the culmination of a German-Jewish family enterprise that had its beginnings in 1840 in the town of Ludwigsburg, north of Stuttgart, in what was then the Kingdom of Württemberg. One Samuel Liebmann, a member of a prominent Jewish family in the region, settled there and bought the inn and brewery “Zum Stern.” A liberal and staunch supporter of Republican ideals, Liebmann encouraged other like-minded citizens, including some soldiers from the garrison, to meet in his hospitable surroundings. The ideas fomented there contributed to the local revolution of 1848. It brought the opprobrium of the King down upon Liebmann’s enterprise, and “Zum Stern” was declared off limits to the soldiers. Soon thereafter, in 1850, Samuel Liebmann emigrated to the U.S.
The family settled in Brooklyn and Samuel, together with his three sons, Joseph, Henry, and Charles, opened a brewery once again at the corner of Forest and Bremen Streets. With the responsibilities divided among the family – Henry became the brewing expert, Charles. the engineer and architect, Joseph, finance manager – the company was already flourishing by the time of Samuel’s death in 1872. Success also led to a concern for the company’s Brooklyn surroundings, and the Liebmanns became involved in local welfare – focusing on housing and drainage systems.
Each of the three brothers had two sons, and when the older Liebmanns retired in 1903, the six members of the third generation took over. Other members of the family also contributed to the gradual expansion of the company. In 1895 Sadie Liebmann (Joseph’s daughter), married Samuel Simon Steiner, a trader in high quality hop, an essential ingredient for good beer. Steiner’s father had begun merchandising hop in Laupheim in 1845 and still today, S.S. Steiner, with its headquarters in New York, is one of the leading hop merchants. Under these fortuitous family circumstances, beer production grew constantly. In the early years, the brewery had produced 1000 barrels per year, by 1914 its output stood at 700,000 barrels.
The Liebmann family.Unfortunately, political developments in the U.S. between 1914 and 1933 were extremely disadvantageous for the Liebmann brewery. The resentment against Germany and anything German during World War I led to an informal boycott of German beers. Following close upon the lean wartime years, was the implementation of Prohibition in 1920 forbidding the manufacturing and trading of alcohol. The Liebmann enterprise managed to survive by producing lemonade and a product they called “Near Beer.”
With the reinstatement of legal alcohol production under President Roosevelt in 1933, opportunities for the brewery opened up, abetted by the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler’s Germany. The pressures on Jewish businessmen there, brought Dr. Hermann Schülein, general manager of the world-renowned LšwenbrŠu brewery, to America. Schulein’s father, Joseph, had acquired two of Munich’s leading breweries at the end of the nineteenth century–Union and Münchner Kindl–and his son had managed the 1920 merger with Löwenbrau. Arriving in New York with this experience behind him, Hermann Schülein became one of the top managers of the Liebmann brewery and was instrumental in its spectacular growth after World War II.
Working with Philip Liebmann (great-grandson of Samuel), Schülein developed a dry lager beer with a European character to be marketed under the brand name “Rheingold.” According to company legend, the name was created in 1883 at a brewery dinner following a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. When the conductor took up his glass, he was so taken with the shade of the beer, that he declared it to be the color of “Rheingold.” For New Yorkers, however, the name Rheingold did not bring to mind the Nibelungen fables, but the pretty young ladies who participated in Schülein’s most brilliant marketing strategy – the selection of each year’s Miss Rheingold by the beer-drinking public of greater New York
At the height of the campaign’s success in the 1950’s and 60’s, the Liebmann Brewery had an output of beer ten times that of Löwenbrau at the same time in Munich.
For thirty years, Rheingold Beer reigned supreme in the New York area, but by 1976, as a local brewery, it could no longer compete with nationwide companies such as Anheuser & Busch, Miller, and Schlitz, and its doors were closed. Only recently, using the same brewmaster, Rheingold is once again being sold in the tri-state area.
Here’s an “Origin of Liebmann Brewery” posted by a relative on Ancestry.com:
On May 12 1833 (Sulzbach-Laufen Archive) Samuel and his older brother Heinrich bought a castle/inn Schmiedelfeld, Sulzbach-Laufen, Schwaebisch Hall District that dated from 1739. They renovated the place and created a prosperous farm/estate and in 1837 began a brewery in the cellar. In 1840, he moved to Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart and purchased the gasthaus [guest house or inn] “Zum Stern” on Seestrasse 9 (later Zum Rebstock) which included a brewery. (source: Translation extract from Dr. Joacim Hahn’s book, History of the Jewish Community of Ludwigsburg)
After supporting a movement to oust King William I of Wurttemberg, and sensing the wavering tolerance of Jewish businessmen, Samuel sent his eldest son Joseph to the US in 1854 to scout out a location to establish a brewery.
Samuel retired in 1868 and turned the family business over to his sons Joseph, Charles, and Henry under the name S. Liebmann’s Sons Brewery.
Today is the birthday of Joseph Coors Sr. (November 12, 1917–March 15, 2003). He was the grandson of brewery founder Adolph Coors and president of Coors Brewing Company. “After graduation, he began work in the Coors Porcelain Co., the porcelain business that helped the company survive Prohibition. With his brother William Coors (whose desks were located only one foot apart), Joseph refined the cold-filtered beer manufacturing system and began America’s first large-scale recycling program by offering 1-cent returns on Coors aluminum cans. He served one term as a regent of the University of Colorado in 1967-1972, attempting to quell what he considered to be campus radicalism during the Vietnam war. He served as president of Coors in 1977-1985, and chief operating officer in 1980-1988. His leadership helped expand Coors beer distribution from 11 Western states in the 1970s to the entire USA by the early 1990s.”
This short biography is from Find-a-Grave:
Businessman. Brewery magnate and leading member of the Coors Brewing family and company founded by his grandfather. Worked at the Coors Brewery in Golden, Colorado, starting in 1946 as technical director, became Executive Vice President in 1975, President in 1977, and Chief Operating Officer from 1985-1987. Engaged in an intense conforation with labor over an effort to unionize the Coors Brewery. An outspoken conservative who helped establish (with Paul Weyrich) The Heritage Foundation, The Independnce Institute (Golden, Colorado), and the Mountain States Legal Foundation. Elected to one term as a Regent of the University of Colorado (1966). Member of the ‘kitchen cabinet’ of President Ronald Reagan.
And this brief biography of Joe Coors is from CoorsTek:
Joseph Coors, Sr., one of Adolph Jr.’s sons, assumed leadership at the pottery in 1946 and began the process of becoming the industrial ceramic technology leader. He started the first formal R&D group at Coors Porcelain and strengthened the technical and design staff.
Here’s his obituary from CBS News:
Joseph Coors, who used his brewing fortune to support President Reagan and help create the conservative Heritage Foundation, has died at age 85.
Coors, whose grandfather founded Golden-based Adolph Coors Co. in 1873, died Saturday in Rancho Mirage, Calif., after a three-month battle with lymphatic cancer.
In the 1970s, Coors began providing money and his famous name to start the Heritage Foundation, the influential think tank in Washington, D.C. Even earlier, he served as one of Reagan’s advisers and backers in the “kitchen Cabinet,” which financed Reagan’s political career from the governorship of California to the White House. The two first met in Palm Springs, Calif., in 1967.
“Without Joe Coors, the Heritage Foundation wouldn’t exist — and the conservative movement it nurtures would be immeasurably poorer,” the foundation’s president, Edwin Feulner, said in a statement.
In 1988 he retired as chief operating officer. He remained a director until three years ago.
Coors used his chemical engineering background to refine the brewery’s cold-filtered beer manufacturing system, which he created with his brother Bill. The brothers also initiated what is believed to have been the first large-scale recycling program by offering a one cent return on Coors’ aluminum cans in 1959.
Until the 1970s, Coors beer was sold in 11 just Western states. But aggressive competition from industry giants Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing prompted the company to expand. By the early 1990s, Coors was available nationwide. It is the third-largest brewer in the United States.
But the company was the object of sometimes bitter criticism from activists who criticized Coors’ politics and accused the company of a variety of violations of labor and environmental laws and bias against gays and other minorities.
In 1977, labor unions launched a boycott after a bitter 20-month strike. The boycott ended 10 years later after the company agreed to forgo erecting legal roadblocks often used by management against an attempt to organize its workforce. The following year, Coors employees turned down Teamsters representation.
Born in Golden on Nov. 12, 1917, Coors was educated in public schools. He graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., in 1940 with a degree in chemical engineering.
His first job at Coors Co. was with the company’s ceramics division, working in the clay pits west of Golden where the raw material for porcelain was mined. The porcelain business, purchased in the early 1900s, helped keep the company afloat during Prohibition, when the brewery produced malted milk and near-beer.
Coors also served a term as a regent of the University of Colorado, confronting what he saw as campus radicalism during the Vietnam War.
Coors and his brother worked in the same office, their desks not more than a foot apart. But Bill Coors said their politics were quite different.
“He was very principled and dedicated. But we got along a lot better if we didn’t talk politics,” Bill Coors said. “He was conservative as they come. I mean he was a little bit right of Attila the Hun.
In addition to his brother, he is survived by his wife, Anne; five sons, Joseph Jr., Jeffrey, Peter, Grover and John, all of the Golden area; 27 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
Today is the birthday of Michael Arthur Bass (November 12, 1837–February 1, 1909). He was the oldest “son of Michael Thomas Bass and the great-grandson of William Bass, the founder of the brewery firm of Bass & Co in Burton,” England.
He was “known as Sir Michael Bass, 1st Baronet, from 1882 to 1886, was a British brewer, Liberal politician and philanthropist. He sat in the House of Commons from 1865 to 1888 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Burton. He was a Director of the family firm of Bass, Ratcliff, Gretton and Co. from 1863, and Chairman of the Directors upon his father’s death in 1884. He also sat as a Member of Parliament for Stafford from 1865 to 1868, for East Staffordshire from 1868 to 1885 and for Burton from 1885 to 1886. As a brewer, it was uncomfortable to be a Liberal MP as there was a strong temperance element to the Liberal party at the time.”
This account of his life is from the 1912 Supplement to the Dictionary of National Biography, by Charles Welch:
BASS, Sir MICHAEL ARTHUR, first Baron Burton (1837–1909), brewer and benefactor, born in Burton-on-Trent on 12 Nov. 1837, was elder son of Michael Thomas Bass, brewer [q. v.], by his wife Eliza Jane, daughter of Major Samuel Arden of Longcroft Hall, Staffordshire. Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, he graduated B.A. in 1859, M.A. in 1863. Bass on leaving the university at once entered his father’s brewing business, and was soon well versed in all branches of the industry. By his energy he did much to extend its operations, became head of the firm on the death of his father in 1884, and to the end of his life never relaxed his interest in the active management. The firm, which was reconstructed in 1888 under the style of Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton, Ltd., has buildings covering over 160 acres of land, employs over 3000 men, pays over 300,000l. a year in duty, and has a revenue of over 5,000,000l. per annum.
Bass entered parliament in 1865 as liberal member for Stafford, represented East Staffordshire 1868-85, and the Burton division of Staffordshire 1885-6. He proved a popular member of the house, and was a personal friend of Gladstone. His father having refused both a baronetcy and a peerage, Bass was made a baronet in vita patris in 1882, with remainder to his brother, Hamar Alfred Bass, and his heirs male; Hamar Bass died in 1898, leaving his son, William Arthur Hamar Bass, heir to the baronetcy. Bass was opposed to Gladstone’s home rule policy in 1886, but on other great questions he remained for the time a consistent liberal, and presided on 9 March 1887 when Francis Schnadhorst, the liberal party organiser, was presented with a testimonial of 10,000 guineas. He was raised to the peerage on Gladstone’s recommendation on 13 Aug. 1886 as Baron Burton of Rangemore and Burton-on-Trent, both in co. Stafford.
The growing hostility of the liberal party to the brewing interest as shown in their licensing policy and the widening of the breach on the Irish question led Burton to a final secession from the liberals, and he became a liberal unionist under Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain. After 1903 he warmly supported the latter’s policy of tariff reform, and he led the opposition to Mr. Asquith’s licensing bill in 1908, which was rejected by the House of Lords.
Always genial, outspoken, and good-humoured, Burton was a personal friend of King Edward VII, both before and after his accession. The king frequently visited him at his London house, Chesterfield House, Mayfair, at his Scottish seat, Glen Quoich, and at Rangemore, his stately home on the borders of Needwood Forest, near Burton. The king conferred upon him the decoration of K.C.V.O. when he visited Balmoral in 1904.
He was a deputy-lieutenant and a J.P. for Staffordshire, and a director of the South Eastern Railway Company. An excellent shot, he was long in command of the 2nd volunteer battalion of the North Staffordshire regiment, retiring in August 1881 with the rank of hon. colonel. He built and presented to the regiment the spacious drill-hall at Burton, and gave for competition at Bisley the Bass charity vase and a cup for ambulance work. Burton’s gifts and benefactions to the town of Burton were, like those of his father, munificent; together they presented the town hall, which cost over 65,000l. He gave club buildings to both the liberal and the conservative parties in succession; he constructed, at a cost of about 20,000l., the ferry bridge which spans the valley at the south end of Burton, and afterwards freed the bridge from toll at a cost of 12,950l. and added an approach to it over the marshy ground known as the Fleet Green Viaduct in 1890. As an acknowledgment he accepted a piece of silver plate, but he declined the proposed erection of a public statue. As a loyal churchman he generously contributed towards all diocesan funds, but will chiefly be remembered as a builder of churches. St. Paul’s Church at Burton, built by him and his father, is a miniature cathedral; its cost in first outlay was 120,000l., a sum of 40,000l. was provided for its endowment, and large sums in addition for improvements and embellishments. Another fine church, St. Margaret’s, Burton, was also built by father and son, and they erected St. Paul’s Church Institute at a cost of over 30,000l.
Burton had a cultivated taste as an art collector, and Chesterfield House, his residence in Mayfair, which he bought of Mr. Magniac, was furnished in the style of the eighteenth century and contained a choice collection of pictures by English artists of that period, which became widely known owing to his generosity in lending them to public exhibitions; Gainsborough, Reynolds, and Romney were represented both numerously and by masterpieces. His more modern pictures were at Rangemore, and included some of the best works of Stanfield, Creswick, and their contemporaries.
Burton died after an operation on 1 Feb. 1909, and was buried at Rangemore church. He married on 28 Oct. 1869 Harriet Georgiana, daughter of Edward Thornewill of Dove Cliff, Staffordshire, by whom he had issue an only child, Nellie Lisa, born on 27 Dec. 1873, who married in 1894 James Evan Bruce Baillie, formerly M.P. for Inverness-shire. In default of male issue, the peerage, by a second patent of 29 Nov. 1897, descended to his daughter.
By his will he strictly entailed the bulk of his property to his wife for life, then to his daughter, then to her descendants. The gross value exceeded 1,000,000l. He requested that every person and the husband of every person in the entail should assume the surname and arms of Bass, and reside at Rangemore for at least four months in every year.
Here’s his obituary:
Sunday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1943. This World War 2 ad features a scene aboard a warship that’s firing its guns, contrasting the modern ship to the sailors firing cannons from a colonial wooden ship, with the tagline “The Ammunition is being passed.”
Today is the birthday of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., one of my favorite authors. I wrote about him when he passed away in 2007 in a post entitled So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut’s Beer Heritage and detailed his relationship with John Hickelooper’s father and a beer Wynkoop later made based on Vonnegut’s grandfather’s recipe. There were essentially two different beer stories involving the Wynkoop Brewing and Vonnegut, and I’ve learned a little more about them over the past decade.
The first one was in the mid-1990s, when the Denver Public Library held a special event around 1996 (sources vary between 1995-97) called Denver Public Libation to commemorate the opening of the new library. The library partnered with Wynkoop, who invited several well-known authors to write mini-stories to be printed on the labels. Some of the writers included Clive Cussler, Allen Ginsberg, and Hunter Thompson, among others. Vonnegut also wrote something for the event. His piece was 160 words and entitled “Merlin,” and tells the story of “the unfortunate events that ensue when the master wizard casts a spell that equips the Knights of the Round Table with Thompson submachine guns.” Despite its short length, I cannot find a copy of it anywhere, and it doesn’t appear to have been reprinted anywhere else. It’s listed in his bibliography as having only been “Serialized on bottles of Denver Public Libation Ale, made by Wynkoop Brewing Company.”
John Hickenlooper wrote about the story in “The Opposite of Woe: My Life in Beer and Politics:”
The second instance was around the same time, when Wynkoop created a beer with Vonnegut based on his grandfather’s recipe. It was called Wynkoop Mile High Malt.
Vonnegut himself detailed the experience in his 1997 semi-autobiographical novel “Timequake.”
The label artwork was based on a self-portrait by Vonnegut, who was also an artist.
And in the book “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut,” by Kurt Vonnegut and William Richard Allen, he explains more about his grandfather’s beer.
On November 11, 2007, Wynkoop Brewing Company in Denver, reintroduced Kurt’s Mile High Malt to celebrate the late author’s birthday. The beer was originally created by Vonnegut’s grandfather, Albert Lieber, of the Indianapolis Brewery, using coffee as the secret ingredient. Kurt’s Mile High Malt was first brewed in 1996 thanks to Wynkoop Founder and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a friend of Vonnegut’s. At Vonnegut’s request, coffee was added to the Mile High Malt, making it a close recreation of his grandfather’s original.
Then, in 2014, they released it again for the brewery’s 25th anniversary. It was part of their “Even-Smaller Batch Series” and was even canned.
Today is the birthday of William A. Birk (November 11, 1861-June 11, 1916). William was the son of Jacob Birk, who co-founded Chicago’s Wacker & Birk Brewing Co. When Jacob retired, he bought the Corper & Nocklin Brewery for his sons, renaming it the Birk Bros. Brewing Co. William and his brother Edward ran the brewery through Prohibition, and it successfully reopened after repeal, and continued until 1950.
Here’s William’s obituary from the American Brewers’ Review from the year after he died:
Here’s some biographical info from “Historical Review of Chicago and Cook County and Selected Biography,” by A.N. Waterman:
Birk, his father having been born in Germany and being in early manhood a harnessmaker. He came to Chicago in 1854, prospered in trade and business, and for many years conducted a hotel on West Lake street. In 1881 he became associated with Fred Wacker & Son, then engaged in the malting business, and in the following year became associated with the firm in brewing operations under the firm name of the Wacker & Birk Brewing Company. In 1891 the business was sold to the English corporation, the Chicago Breweries, Limited, and Jacob Birk and his two sons, William A. and Edward J., incorporated the Birk Brothers’ Brewing Company. Since the founding of the company, at that time, William A. has been president and Edward J. Birk, secretary and treasurer. The basis of the complete and extensive plant was the Corper & Nockin brewery, purchased in 1891, and since remodeled and enlarged. The elder Birk retired from his connection with the business in 1895.
And here’s another account, from the “History of Cook County, Illinois,” published in 1909:
