Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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No More Gluek Beer

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gluek
Cold Spring Brewing in Minnesota announced yesterday that they will no longer brew the historic Gluek brand. Gluek began brewing in 1857, before Minnesota was even a state.

In 1857 on the bank of the Mississippi River in an area which would someday be known as Minneapolis, German immigrant Gottlieb Gluek started the Mississippi Brewing Company. Soon the name was changed to the Gluek Brewing Company, and by 1964 Gluek became Minneapolis’s oldest continuously-operated business.

In 1858 the company brewed 3,996 barrels of beer, and by 1901 the annual capacity was second only to the two “giants” the Minneapolis Brewing Company (later renamed as the Grain Belt) and the Theo. Hamm Brewery of St. Paul.

But after 1964 it fell on hard times and, like many regional breweries, was bought by G. Heileman. The original brewery was torn down but a new one was later built back in Cold Spring, Minnesota in 1997. A couple of years ago, however, they renamed Gluek Brewing to Cold Spring Brewing as fewer and fewer consumers knew or cared about Gluek’s history in the region.

gluek-dark

As an AP story reports:

By September, Gluek will be phased out. But vice president and general manager Doug DeGeest says Cold Spring Brewing is keeping the Gluek trademark, and it’s possible the beer could come back.

DeGeest says it was a business decision to discontinue the Gluek brand. He says the Cold Spring-based company cannot keep up with production and needed to decide which product in its portfolio of beers to discontinue.

When I was the beer buyer at BevMo, we brought in some of the Gluek beer in cans and they also sold us a beer exclusively (for California, at least) which we sold as a private label beer. That was Fat Cat Lager, which was a decent enough all-malt generic lager. I believe Randy Mosher did the label design.

Fat-Cat-label

Regardless of Gluek’s ultimate place in American brewing history, it’s always sad to see another old brand consigned to the scrap heap of discontinued brands, but then I’m sentimental that way.

Death By Rattlesnake Beer

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rattlesnake
Continuing my unintentional theme of dead animals and beer, here’s an odd one from the archives of Minnesota news, as highlighted in Yesterday’s News, 140 Years of Minnesota News by Ben Welter. Although reported in the Minneapolis Tribune in 1900, July 19 to be exact, the incident actually occurred in Iowa. The report assures us, however, that it was near the Minnesota border. Since it’s archival, here’s the original news report in its entirety:

DEATH LURKS IN THE BEER

Three Men Die in Agony After Drinking Lager.

By Wire From Fort Dodge, Ia., July 19.

Four young men living in Cerro Gordo county, near the Minnesota line, purchased and drank a keg of Eastern-brewed beer some days ago, and as a result three of them have died and the fourth is now in terrible agony, and is reported to be on the point of death.

The day was warm and the beer was consumed hurriedly by the friends, who little realized that they were sipping a death-dealing draught. They were all taken sick immediately, and although a physician was soon summoned, the taking off of three of the young bibbers could not be prevented.

To ascertain, if possible, the strange cause of the sickness, the keg was broken into and the decomposed remains of a genuine rattlesnake was found. Improbable as the story sounds, it is true; and is rendered plausible by the fact that empty kegs are often left lying around for weeks before being shipped back to the breweries. It is thus easy for reptiles and insects to crawl into the kegs as cool resorts.

The scalding out of the kegs upon their return to the brewery would naturally kill any living organism, which would remain right in the keg. It was only a few years ago that a man here became sick from drinking keg beer and an investigation showed that a dead toad occupied the keg with the beer.

I’m certainly glad sanitation standards in breweries have improved markedly over the last 110 years.

rattlesnake-pint-glass
This mug, believe it or not, is available for purchase at What on Earth.