Today is the birthday of Samuel Wainwright (March 6, 1822-October 19, 1874). He was born in Pennsylvania, but headed west as a young man, founding one of the first breweries in St. Louis with his brother Ellis in either 1846 or 48 (accounts differ). They went through a series of names, with the final one being Wainwright Brewery Co. when they closed for good in 1919.
Businessman, Brewmaster. Born in Pennsylvania, Samuel’s father was a well-known and wealthy brewer of ale and beer in England. Samuel served his apprenticeship to the brewer’s trade under his father’s directions, thoroughly mastering every detail of the art of manufacturing ale and beer in accordance with English methods. In 1846, Samuel purchased a small brewery in St. Louis which had previously been known as the Fulton Brewery. Along with his brother Ellis, he conducted the brewing business established under the firm name of Ellis & Samuel Wainwright until 1849 when Ellis died. For two years afterwards, the business was conducted under the old firm name, but after that Samuel purchased the interest of his brother’s estate and continued the business along until the formation of a new partnership with Charles A. Fritz. In 1857, he purchased George Busch’s interest in a malt-house and lager beer brewery and took the name of Fritz & Wainwright and engaged exclusively in the manufacture of lager beer. The business continued until 1870, when Fritz sold his interest and the business became known as Samuel Wainwright & Co.
And here’s another biography:
Samuel Wainwright was born in Pennsylvania, the son of Prominent brewer Joseph Wainwright. From a young age he and his brother Ellis apprenticed in his father’s Pittsburgh Brewery where they learned the art of brewing of ale and beer in the English method.
In 1831, at age 22, Ellis ventured westward with the intention of establishing one of the first breweries in St. Louis, Missouri. Samuel joined him around 1840 and eventually the two ran the Fulton Street Brewery until Ellis’s death in 1849.
At age 27, Samuel Wainwright became controlling partner the firm and he ran it heroically. The brewery thrived despite being in the same town already crowded with big brewing firms and dozens of smaller ones.
Wainwright’s vision was aggressive and expansive. In 1857 Samuel abandoned the Fulton Brewery and purchased the more modern brewery built in 1854 by George Busch (older brother of Adolphus). The new brewery also indicated a change in direction for Wainwright. He started focusing more on Lager Beer, which was considered the new thing in the 1850s. The change paid off. By 1857 the Wainwright brewery led the city in sales and continued to grow from there. Samuel Wainwright died at the top of his game on October 19th, 1874. He was just 52 years of age.
Today is the birthday of David G. Yuengling (March 2, 1808-September 27, 1877) who founded the Eagle Brewing Co. in 1829, and today it’s “America’s oldest brewery.” The name was changed in 1873 to D. G. Yuengling and Son when David’s son Frederick joined the company. He was born in Aldingen in what today is Germany — but then was the Kingdom of Württemberg. He was born David Gottlob Jüngling, but anglicized his name after emigrating the United States in 1828.
100 Years of Brewing has a short summary of D.G. and the brewery’s early years.
David Gottlob Jüngling was born in the village of Aldingen (today part of the town of Remseck in the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg) into a family that is listed as operating Aldingen’s first brewery by 1816. A passport application from 1862 describes the 56-year old David Gottlob as having blue eyes and black hair and standing five feet six inches (168 cm) tall. His father, Friedrich Jüngling, operated Aldingen’s brewery in the Neues Schloss (“New Palace”), a baroque manor of which he owned one quarter, including the brewery and livestock pens. Prior to starting the brewery in Aldingen, Friedrich Jüngling’s profession is listed as butcher, and he served on the town council. Both positions reflected a degree of wealth and social status within the community. Although Friedrich Jüngling was born in nearby Erdmannhausen, his wife Anna Maria Jüngling (née Wildermuth) was born in Aldingen. D.G. Yuengling had three brothers and four sisters, one of whom, Christiane, also immigrated to Pennsylvania. D.G. Yuengling may have apprenticed in his father’s brewery during his youth, or he may have acquired skills as a brewer through an apprenticeship at another brewery in the region. However, his older brother, Jakob, inherited their father’s brewery and reportedly continued operating it until his death in 1878. With Jakob in charge of the Jüngling family brewery, and economic opportunities in the 1820s somewhat limited, particularly in Württemberg, D. G. Yuengling chose to immigrate to Pennsylvania in 1829 via Rotterdam. Yuengling landed in Baltimore and quickly moved on to the towns of Lancaster and Reading in Pennsylvania, both of which were at the time heavily populated by German immigrants and Pennsylvania Germans whose demand for beer was already served by local entrepreneurs. Yuengling likely sought a location with fewer brewers and a steady demand for fresh, locally produced beer.
The boomtown of Pottsville, deep in the anthracite coal belt of Eastern Pennsylvania, offered one such location. The town had been named for John Potts, who founded it after purchasing the first anthracite furnace along the Schuylkill River in 1806. The furnace had been in use since 1795. The demand for hard coal in Philadelphia and the surrounding region led to skyrocketing prices for anthracite coal land, with one parcel selling for $33,000 more than it had been purchased for five years earlier, and another increasing by $15,000 within months. Yuengling arrived in this rapidly-changing community in 1829 and set up a brewery shortly thereafter.
D.G. Yuengling (front and center) with the brewery employees in 1873.
Upon his arrival in the United States, David Gottlieb Yuengling carried with him his skills as a brewer, as well as possibly some startup money (Startkapital). In 1829, when Yuengling established the Eagle Brewery in Pottsville, the town was experiencing a building boom related to land speculation and increasing anthracite coal production. The daytime population, including mine workers, had jumped to over 3,700. In 1832, some twenty-five taverns prospered in Pottsville and, along with numerous inns and hotel, served the drinking needs of the growing population. By comparison, in 1825, “Pottsville [had] contained only fifteen houses, three taverns, three stores, a printer’s shop, a post office, and the shops of a few craftsmen.”
In addition to its increasing population, Pottsville formed an important node in an expanding regional transportation network. Trails, roads, and turnpikes linked it with other nearby communities including Schuylkill Haven, which lay along the Schuylkill River. The Schuylkill flowed in a southwesterly direction and met the Delaware River at Philadelphia. It offered an early means of waterborne transportation between interior Pennsylvania and the port of Philadelphia. The discovery of coal in Schuylkill County in 1790 spurred the construction of the Schuylkill Canal and subsequently the founding of the influential Philadelphia & Reading Railroad. Both of these enterprises transported anthracite coal from Pottsville and the surrounding coal fields to Philadelphia and later New York City and improved access to materials produced outside the region. While these new transportation facilities played little to no role in beer distribution at the time due to the highly localized nature of unpasteurized beer consumption, they brought about an increase in demand for labor in the region and supported local business activities, which provided fertile ground for Yuengling’s new brewery venture.
Yuengling’s 1829 Eagle Brewery was located on Centre Street near the Schuylkill County Courthouse, which during the economic depression of the 1870s became known for the trial of striking coal miners who were decried as Molly Maguires and executed for murder. During the brewery’s early years of operation, Yuengling likely produced beer almost exclusively for the local market. Yuengling started brewing on a small scale, perhaps due to limited financial resources and access to credit, or possibly because he did not want to risk overextending himself. The brewery’s production totals reflect the precarious nature of his small business. Furthermore, he likely performed most, if not all, of the brewing and distribution process himself. His beer would have been made in open kettles and vats and the production process would have been physically arduous. Brewing involved boiling a mash of grain and water to convert complex starches into simple sugars. Boiled grains would then be sparged (i.e. rinsed) with hot water in order to extract all the sugars from the grain. The resulting sweet and sticky wort would be boiled with hops and then cooled so that yeast could be added to ferment the sugars and produce alcohol. Depending on the type of beer produced, primary fermentation could take one or more weeks. In all, the demanding process required heating water, lifting heavy supplies, pumping hot liquids between vats, and transporting barrels of finished beer via hand truck or horse cart to nearby taverns and inns.
After a fire destroyed the original brewery in 1832, Yuengling quickly rebuilt his enterprise at its present location on Mahantongo Street. His new Eagle Brewery was situated in a location that took advantage of both natural geography and manmade features. The site at the intersection of Fifth and Mahantongo Streets lay near a freshwater spring that provided water for the community of Pottsville. The new brewery made use of this water for all brewing operations. Yuengling contracted with local laborers, possibly coal miners, to build tunnels into a mountain behind the new facility. The tunnels extended underneath the brewery and kept finished beer cool, though not cold enough to prevent spoilage without the addition of ice. When Yuengling began brewing lager, the tunnels provided an ideal area for lagering the beer during cooler months. The site’s location near the local road and canal system facilitated shipment of brewing supplies to the brewery. Malt deliveries arrived from Philadelphia by horse and cart, as well as via canal boats, and Yuengling obtained ice shipments in a similar manner. By 1842, the company was receiving malt shipments by railroad, and it began distributing its beer the same way as the rail network improved during the 1850s and 1860s. These transportation facilities also enabled beer to be transported to nearby communities, many of which contained large numbers of German immigrants among their beer-drinking populations.
In 1841, thirty-three-year-old David Yuengling married seventeen-year-old Elizabeth, daughter of John George and Rosine Elizabeth Betz from nearby Schuylkill Haven. Census records hint that John G. Betz, like his son-in-law, may have been a brewer by trade and the family may also have operated an inn in Schuylkill Haven. Also like Yuengling, the Betz family had emigrated from the Kingdom of Württemberg. Elizabeth had been born in Stuttgart, fewer than ten miles from David Yuengling’s family home in Aldingen, on September 26, 1823. Perhaps the two families had known each other in the Old World. By 1850, federal census records show that David and his then twenty-seven-year-old wife Elizabeth had five children: Elizabeth (age 6), David (age 8), Mary (age 5), Teresia (age 4), and Frederick (age 2). Eventually, the couple had a total of three sons and seven daughters.
David Yuengling dealt with numerous challenges during the early decades that his business was in operation. He faced competition from fellow brewers in Pottsville. At least three other breweries operated in the city in 1830. The Orchard Brewery opened around 1831 and brewed beer in Pottsville and later nearby Port Carbon until the late 1870s. Likewise, the Rettig Brewery opened at the end of the Civil War and survived until the Prohibition era. Numerous other breweries opened, brewed beer briefly, and then folded due to fires and financial difficulties. Yuengling also faced a threat from prohibitionist forces in Pennsylvania. Following the passage of prohibition legislation in Maine in 1851, “dry” advocates secured the passage of a law in Pennsylvania banning Sunday sales of alcohol in 1852. Two years later, a full ban went before state voters and was narrowly defeated, in large part due to heavy turnout by beer-drinking voters, including substantial numbers of German immigrants.
As David Yuengling’s three sons came of age in the 1850s and 1860s, he introduced them to the craft of brewing and put them to work in the brewery. His oldest son David Jr. apprenticed under his father and later served as a foreman for his uncle, John Frederick Betz, at Betz’s brewery in New York City. He also visited the German lands and studied the brewing craft in Munich, Stuttgart, and Klein-Schwechat, a town near Vienna in the Austrian Empire. Middle son Frederick obtained a college education and studied business at the Eastman Business School in Poughkeepsie. He later studied brewing in the German lands and Austria, as well as at the Berger and Engel Brewing Company in Philadelphia, and eventually went to work in his father’s brewery. Less is known about the education of William Yuengling, who died at the age of thirty-six in 1898.
After the Civil War, David Jr. decided to strike out on his own and established a new brewing enterprise in Richmond, Virginia, in 1866. Startup capital for the new Betz, Yuengling & Beyer Brewery (later James River Brewery, D.G. Yuengling and Company) came from the Yuengling family and John Betz, David Jr.’s uncle, as well as another brewer, Louis Beyer. This small expansion project was presumably planned with input from the elder Yuengling and is typical of a careful venture into secondary markets. The Richmond brewery remained under David Jr.’s oversight until it was sold in 1878.
As the senior David Yuengling neared his mid-60s, he chose to make middle-son Frederick a minority partner in the business. The legal foundation for the future of the family firm was solidified when the brewery became D.G. Yuengling and Son in 1873. That year also marked a high point in the number of breweries in the United States with over 4,000 in operation. Following the 1873 financial panic, however, the industry began to consolidate as the resulting business depression put numerous local and regional breweries out of business and ambitious and well-capitalized breweries such as Anheuser-Busch began to make inroads in regional markets outside the Midwest by taking advantage of railroad transportation and new technologies for keeping beer fresh such as pasteurization and refrigeration, both of which required significant capital investments. Consequently, the number of breweries fell by over a thousand by the mid-1870s and continued a precipitous decline through the beginning of the twentieth century, when about 1,500 remained in operation.
Unlike a few of the wealthy, American “beer barons” of the late nineteenth century, Yuengling did not retire to his native Germany, not even part time. His was a privately-held, midsize business (Mittelstand), and conditions may not have allowed him to retire abroad. He may simply have decided against withdrawing too much capital from his life’s work, or perhaps he also felt a strong sense of allegiance to his community. David Gottlieb Yuengling passed away after falling on the stairs of his home after a day of working in his brewery’s office on 29 September 1877, at the age of 70. Hundreds of Pottsville residents and brewery workers gathered to pay their final respects. The responsibility for continuing the Yuengling brewery legacy rested with D.G. Yuengling’s sons, because women typically did not own and lead businesses enterprises. Nevertheless, the founder’s widow, Elizabeth, who lived until 1894, inherited his shares in the firm and Frederick acted as minority owner.
The brewery in 1855.
Throughout his life in the United States, David G. Yuengling was an active member of the Pottsville community. He was the first president of the Pottsville Gas Company and later a director of the Pottsville Water Company. Yuengling also supported the German Lutheran Church in Pottsville and contributed $10,000 for the construction of the church building, and served as a vestryman (council member). His posts with the gas and water companies illustrate Yuengling’s concern with encouraging progress in Pottsville, as well as securing the supply of resources necessary for his brewing business. Unlike the Forty-Eighters, German immigrants who had escaped reactionary monarchies in Europe and who tended to vote Republican, Yuengling was a Democrat. Whereas the Democratic Party had embraced the nativist and anti-immigrant cause by 1848, the Republican Party and its rising star Abraham Lincoln had been founded by anti-slavery Whigs and Free Soilers. Yuengling, however, had immigrated to America twenty years prior, during the era of Jacksonian democracy with President Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, at the helm in the White House. Jackson’s message had been one of economic opportunity and democracy for the common, white man, as well as the preservation of the Union. At the same time, though he was a Democrat, David Yuengling also belonged to two secret societies, the Masons and the German Order of the Harugari (Der Deutsche Orden der Harugari), a mutual aid society founded in response to nativist actions against German immigrants. Like his father, Frederick Yuengling also served the community of Pottsville as president of the Pottsville Gas Company, as well as a “director of the Safe Deposit Bank and of the Pottsville Water Company.”
In addition to his engagement in the Pottsville community, which served the development of the town as well as his own business interests, David Yuengling committed time, skills, and experience to establish and further the brewing careers of a number of fellow German immigrants. His brother-in-law, John F. Betz, himself the son of a brewer, served an apprenticeship in the Yuengling brewery before participating in a grand brewing tour in Europe and establishing a brewery in New York City and later Philadelphia. Betz went on to build a brewing empire in the City of Brotherly Love and later, as previously noted, helped bail out David Yuengling Jr.’s failing brewery in New York City in the late 1890s. Henry C. Clausen Sr. was a second prominent brewer who started as a Yuengling apprentice. Clausen and John Betz co-owned a brewery in New York City and the former founded the H. Clausen and Son Brewery in the 1870s, which was for a time one of the largest breweries by production total in the nation. His son, Henry C. Clausen Jr., later founded and served as president of the U.S. Brewers’ Association.
As an immigrant entrepreneur, David Yuengling Sr. drew on his background in the Old Country while embracing new opportunities available in the U.S. His participation in the local Lutheran community and his membership in the German Order of the Harugari attest to his desire to sustain elements of his German ethnic heritage even after living in the United States for many years. His craft training in the German lands provided him with the technical skills necessary to produce quality beer in a new environment. He began brewing English-style beers, both because they were popular with the local drinking public in Pennsylvania and also because his training in the 1820s would have involved brewing ales. He proved open to new innovations in brewing, however, and began working with lager beer as the style became popular both in Central Europe and in the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century. Today, D.G. Yuengling & Son’s flagship beer harkens back to the lager beers brewed by David Yuengling during the Civil War era.
There are also a couple of books on the Yuengling family and brewery. There’s Yuengling: A History of America’s Oldest Brewery and D.G. Yuengling & Son, Inc., part of the Images of America series. And there’s also a Yuengling Fan website with quite a lot of information.
Today is the birthday of John Welde (March 2, 1839-August 2, 1901). He was born in Baden, Germany and came to Philadelphia in 1856, when he was seventeen. In 1884, he founded a brewery in Philadelphia, and the following year a business parter, John Thomas, joined the business, and they called it Welde & Thomas, later adding “Brewing Company” to the name. In 1904, it was consolidated with several other breweries into the Consumers Brewers Co., which remained in business until closed by prohibition in 1920. The brewery reopened after repeal in 1933 as the Trainer Brewing Co., but only lasted one year.
In 1884, John Welde, a German immigrant, established a brewery in Philadelphia on the corner of Broad and Christian Streets. A year later, he formed a partnership with John Thomas, a Philadelphia native, who had been a partner in another brewery. Together they created Welde and Thomas, a brewing firm that was later reorganized into the Welde and Thomas Brewing Company. They moved to a new location and modernized the facility with innovative equipment, growing the brewing capacity of the plant to 50,000 barrels per year. In March 1897, Welde and Thomas, along with five other breweries were consolidated under the title of the Consumer’s Brewing Company. The combined breweries were able to produce approximately 300,000 barrels a year.
John Welde was married and had at least one son, Frederick, both of whom predeceased him. John died in Philadelphia in 1901 and is buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery.
Beer and brewing have held an important place in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia history. The first brewery in the City was erected in 1683. William Penn constructed a brew house on his Pennsbury Manor estate in Bucks County. In the 18th century, the drink of preference in most taverns was beer or ale. By 1793, Philadelphia was producing more beer than all the other seaports in the country. The first steam engine was installed in Francis Perot’s brewery in 1819. This was the height of technology and the first time an engine was used to produce beer. Lager beer was first introduced in 1840 by Philadelphia brewer John Wagner. At the Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876, the United States Brewers’ Association constructed the Brewers’ Building to showcase all aspects of brewing. At one time, there were more than 100 breweries operating in Philadelphia and its surrounding areas.
This biography was printed in the “The Columbian Exposition and World’s Fair Illustrated,” from 1893:
This description is from an Advertising Print for Welde and Thomas Brewing Co., created around 1895, and now in the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
This colorful framed print, an ad for the Welde and Thomas Brewing Company, of Philadelphia, also commemorates the 1895 America’s Cup race between the American yacht Defender and the British Valkyrie III. Imagery of the yacht race dominates the print and the American vessel, the ultimate victor in the match, holds primacy of place. Defender’s full sails provide a dramatic canvas for the names of two of the company’s products: Penn and Sanitas Beers. These brands, along with Quaker, were among those brewed by Welde and Thomas.
Three detailed insets border the print. One shows “Penn’s Brewery of 1682” in Pennsbury, Buck’s County; another shows the Welde and Thomas buildings at Juniper and Fitzwater Streets in Philadelphia; and the third is an image of William Penn holding a bottle of beer. The ad deftly aligns Welde and Thomas beer to icons of American success: the very founding of Philadelphia and its early embrace of brewing as well as an American yacht’s triumphant defense of the America’s Cup.
German immigrant John Welde established a brewery in Philadelphia in 1884, forming a partnership with Philadelphia businessman John Thomas the following year. In 1886, they moved to the Juniper and Fitzwater Streets location and invested in new equipment, increasing their capacity dramatically. In 1897, Welde and Thomas consolidated operations with five other breweries, organizing under the name Consumer’s Brewing Company. Thomas died in 1899 and Welde in 1901.
Today is the birthday of Charles Weyand (March 1, 1869-1905). He was born in upstate New York, and was the son of Christian Weyand, who co-founded what would become the Christian Weyand Brewing Co. in Buffalo, New York. There’s not too much information about Charles, I suspect because he died fairly young and worked as the secretary and treasurer for his family’s business. His brother, John Weyand, became the president of the brewery after his father died, and it remained in business until closed by prohibition in 1920.
This biography of Weyand is from “Our County and its people, A descriptive work on Erie County, New York,” edited by Truman C. White, 1898:
Weyand, Charles M., Buffalo, secretary and treasurer of the Christian Weyand Brewing Company, is a son of Christian and Magdelen (Meyer) Weyand, and was born in Buffalo, March 1, 1869. In order to thoroughly equip himself for the business of life he intended to pursue, after passing through the Canisius College he entered the Bryant & Stratton Business College, where he obtained a thorough business education. He immediately entered business with his father and in 1890, when the concern was made a stock company, he was elected secretary and treasurer, which responsible position he now holds. He was married in October, 1891, to Bohumila Louise Andele of Buffalo, and they have one daughter. Mr. Weyand is a member of the Buffalo Orpheus and the St. Louis Dramatic Circle.
Last year I decided to concentrate on Bock ads. Bock, of course, originated in Germany, in the town of Einbeck. Because many 19th century American breweries were founded by German immigrants, they offered a bock at certain times of the year, be it Spring, Easter, Lent, Christmas, or what have you. In a sense they were some of the first seasonal beers. “The style was later adopted in Bavaria by Munich brewers in the 17th century. Due to their Bavarian accent, citizens of Munich pronounced ‘Einbeck’ as ‘ein Bock’ (a billy goat), and thus the beer became known as ‘Bock.’ A goat often appears on bottle labels.” And presumably because they were special releases, many breweries went all out promoting them with beautiful artwork on posters and other advertising.
Tuesday’s ad is for “Neuweiler’s Bock Beer,” and was created in 1939. Neuweiler Brewery was located in Allentown, Pennsylvania and was founded in 1900. It closed in 1968.
Last year I decided to concentrate on Bock ads. Bock, of course, originated in Germany, in the town of Einbeck. Because many 19th century American breweries were founded by German immigrants, they offered a bock at certain times of the year, be it Spring, Easter, Lent, Christmas, or what have you. In a sense they were some of the first seasonal beers. “The style was later adopted in Bavaria by Munich brewers in the 17th century. Due to their Bavarian accent, citizens of Munich pronounced ‘Einbeck’ as ‘ein Bock’ (a billy goat), and thus the beer became known as ‘Bock.’ A goat often appears on bottle labels.” And presumably because they were special releases, many breweries went all out promoting them with beautiful artwork on posters and other advertising.
Sunday’s ad is for “Daufer & Co. Bock Beer,” and was created in 1934. Daufer & Co. was located in Allentown, Pennsylvania from 1860 until 1938, although it was known by a variety of names over that time period.
Today is the birthday of John Emmerling (February 21, 1851-May 24, 1912). He was born in Philadelphia, but moved to Johnston in Western Pennsylvania, where he founded the Empire Brewery in 1878. It was concurrently also known as the Emmerling Brewing Co. the entire time it was in business, until it was closed by Prohibition in 1920.
JOHN EMMERLING, proprietor of the Empire Brewery, of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was born in Philadelphia, this State, February 22, 1851. His education was acquired in the public schools of his native city, upon the completion of which he learned the business of brewing. Subsequently, he traveled extensively, visiting many of the more important cities of the West, and finally, located in Pittsburg, where he married. In 1878 he came to Johnstown, and immediately embarked in the brewing business on his own account. Starting in the humble building now known as the Eintracht Hall, the brewery of John Emmerling prospered so well that in one year it was moved to the larger building now occupied by the bottling house of William Thomas. Six years more saw the business grow until it became necessary to build and remove to the large and commodious brick structure which occupies nearly half a square, fronting on Horner street. The plant is two hundred by one hundred and eighty feet, three stories high, and has an annual output of eight thousand barrels, and contains all the latest improved machinery known to the brewer’s art, including engines, two ten-ton refrigerators, seven pumps for various purposes, and bottling apparatus. A visit to the vault in which the beer is stored, gives to the uninitiated a genuine surprise. Following the guide, one wanders in and out among the huge hogsheads, some of which contain forty, and others as high as eighty barrels of the amber fluid, surrounded on all sides by pipes covered to the depth of several times their own thickness with white frost, produced by the intense cold of the ammonia and brine which they contain, one can but express astonishment at the wonderful advance made since the time when nature alone supplied the cooling substance. So large is the local demand for the beer brewed at this establishment, that very little is shipped out of the city. Two wagons are kept going constantly, and two others are used when the demand requires. The present force consists of fourteen men, to which several others are added when increased business makes demand. On September 26, 1872, Mr. Emmerling married Miss Phil. Houch, a daughter of Earnest Houch, a prominent citizen of Pittsburg, and to them have been born ten children. Mr. Emmerling was one of the organizers of the board of trade, in which he takes an active interest.
And this is his obituary from the Western Brewer, June 1912
John Emmerling at the wheel of a 1908 Maxwell that he drove round-trip between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in a race with a $20,000 prize at stake (around $532,258 today’s money). Emmerling (who owned Emmerling Brewery) came out on top.
This is John Emmerling’s brewery, also known as the Empire Brewery in Johnston, Pennsylvania, which also served as the family’s residence.
Today is my good friend and fellow beer writer Lew Bryson’s 66th birthday. You used to be able read his writings at his website, lewbryson.com, Seen Through a Glass, and his Session Beer Project, and for a while there was less there because he became the managing editor of Whiskey Advocate and wasn’t writing about beer, although he’s still kept up with his political Why the PLCB Should Be Abolished. His latest book is also about Tasting Whiskey. But he’s back, baby, and is once again also writing about beer at his websites and other places. Lew is my favorite big galoot and the brother I never had. Join me is raising a glass of beer or whiskey and wishing Lew a very happy birthday.
Me and Lew at Triple Rock a few years ago.
Last year in D.C. judging the World Beer Awards.
At an event at the Reading Market when CBC was in Philadelphia in 2016.
With Em Sauter, Ken Weaver and me for GABF judging in 2017.
Birthday boy Lew (middle) flanked by fellow Pennsylvanians Don Russell (a.k.a. Joe Sixpack) and Jack Curtin. I’m originally from Pennsylvania, too. What is it about the Commonwealth and beer writers?
Lew and Rick Lyke at the World Beer Festival in Durham in 2008.
Award-winning beer writer Lew with Pete Slosberg at GABF several years ago.
Today is the birthday of Henry Charles Haefner Jr. (February 13, 1895-July 7, 1948). He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was the son of Henry C. Haefner, who founded what would become the Joseph Haefner Brewery, although it was also known as the Empire Brewery, and it’s best-known brand was Tivoli Beer. It reopened after prohibition as Haefner Brewing Co. and remained in business until 1946, when it became the Lancaster Brewing Co. for another three years, closing for good in 1949. Haefner Jr. worked with his father at the brewery and continued running it after his father died, and apparently neither of his two daughters were able to or wanted to continue the business.
There’s not much information I could find about Junior. His Find-a-Grave page has just this from the Intelligencer Journal Lancaster, from July 8, 1948:
Henry C. Haefner Jr. fifty-three Millersville R1 died at his home Wednesday at 7:30 am after a lingering illness. He formerly was associated with his father in the Haefner Brewery Co. Born in Philadelphia a son of the late Henry C and Josephine Lammer Haefner he was a member of St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
Surviving are his wife Margaret Schwebel Haefner, two daughters: Margaret Elizabeth wife of Allen G. Caldwell and Sybilla Frances wife of Ernest C. Doll, Jr. both of Millersville R1 and these brothers: Francis J., Paul, Leon, Joseph and George all of this city, and three grandchildren.
Today is the birthday of Charles Engel (February 11, 1816-June 2, 1900). was born in Stadtgemeinde Bremen, in Bremen, Germany. He emigrated to Philadelphia when he was 29, in 1840, and began brewing there, first as Engel and Wolf’s, and later as Bergner & Engel’s.
Here’s his obituary from the American Brewers Review of July 1900.
Here’s his story, from “100 Years of Brewing,” recounting his role in brewing some of the first lagers in America:
His first partnership was with Charles Wolf, but after he retired, Gustavus Bergner joined the company and it became known as the Bergner and Engel Brewing Company.
“100 Years of Brewing” also has an entry for the Bergner and Engel Brewing Company:
And this similar account is by Pennsylvania beer historian Rich Wagner:
Charles Wolf, a sugar refiner in the neighborhood, had an employee named George Manger, who was a brewer by trade. Manger obtained some of the yeast and began making larger batches in a brewery on New Street near Second. Around the same time, Charles Engel, also a brewer, emigrated and found work in Wolf’s refinery. In 1844 Engel and Wolf brewed their first batch of lager beer in the sugar pan and stored it in sugar hogsheads to be shared with their friends.
The same year, the refinery was destroyed by fire and Mr. Wolf went into the brewing and distilling business at 354 Dillwyn Street. Engel & Wolf’s brewery became a popular resort of the Germans of Philadelphia who were known to “drink the brewery dry.” Since lager yeast requires colder fermenting and aging (lagering) conditions than ale yeast, ice houses became more important than ever. Vaults were dug in 1845, and with the increasing number of German immigrants, Mr. Wolf expanded the brewery. In 1849 he purchased a property on the Schuylkill River known as Fountain Green where lager beer vaults extending over 200 feet were dug. For several years wort was hauled by ox teams from Northern Liberties to the vaults at Fountain Green, a distance of about three miles. Over the next few years a new brewery was erected on the site, modern and complete in every way. It was the first large-scale lager brewery in the United States.
Fountain Green was an ideal location. It was out in the country where there was plenty of room. There were springs on the property. Wolf’s farm was just up the road. The banks of the river are composed of Wissahickon Schist, which is fairly soft and easy to dig. In winter, being right on the river was an advantage when harvesting ice for refrigeration. In addition, the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad served the brewery with the “Engel Side” spur.
Philadelphia developed along both of it’s rivers, but along the more navigable Delaware, ship building, shad fishing, industry and commerce were most abundant. Philadelphia’s reputation as “The Workshop of the World” was earned in large part by the “river wards” of Northern Liberties, Kensington, and Frankford. These neighborhoods were literally teaming with breweries. When lager beer began to catch on, many brewers rented beer vaults along the Schuylkill River, and in the area that came to be known as Brewerytown.
Engel & Wolf enjoyed success, but in 1870 the property was acquired by the Fairmount Park Association. The city had just built the Fairmount Water Works, the most technologically sophisticated, state of the art municipal water pumping facility in the nation, and to ensure water quality, removed all industry from the Schuylkill River for a distance of five miles upstream. At this time Mr. Wolf retired and his partner joined Gustavus Bergner to create the Bergner and Engel Brewing Company.
Gustavus’ father Charles had started a brewery on North Seventh Street in the Northern Liberties in 1852 which Gustavus took over upon his father’s death. In 1857, Gustavus erected a brewery at 32nd & Thompson Streets, an address that would become the heart of Brewerytown. Interestingly enough, Brewerytown was essentially up and over the river bank from the old Engel and Wolf brewery.
The earliest picture of Brewerytown that I have been able to uncover is based on four Hexamer Surveys that were made in 1868. They show thirteen breweries, one of which had a distillery, three “lager beer vaults,” including one owned by Peter Schemm, a row of dwellinghouses with beer vaults beneath them, a number of stables and at least three or four brewery saloons.
Beginning in the 1870’s ice-making and artificial refrigeration technology radically altered the equation. It made proximity to river ice of little importance. Huge fermenting and storage houses could be constructed anywhere and they could maintain cold temperatures year round. Where brewers had been bound to brew only during the colder months, it was now possible to brew year round. With the exponential increase in popularity of lager beer, artificial refrigeration was the answer to a dream.
Some brewers who had rented vaults in or near Brewerytown built breweries there. Others refrigerated their breweries and no longer needed to rent vaults. According to the list of projects executed by brewery architect Otto Wolf, the breweries were continually being altered and enlarged to accommodate the trade. The trend was for the brewers to go west to Brewerytown from the river wards, but some left Brewerytown and went into business in Kensington.
The Bergner & Engel B.C. was one of the largest brewers in the country. B & E won the Grand Prize at the Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia in 1876 and the Grand Prize at the Paris Exposition in 1878. Their beer was shipped across the country, and around the world. Gustavus Bergner was very active in the United States Brewers Association, the Philadelphia Lager Beer Brewers Association, and the Philadelphia Brewmasters Association. B & E was the largest brewer in Philadelphia, and eventually absorbed three other Brewerytown breweries: Mueller, Eble & Herter, and Rothacker.
When prohibition loomed on the horizon, Mr. Bergner had significant political clout and did everything humanly possible to prevent severe trauma to the brewing industry, not only in Philadelphia, but throughout the nation. At first, the brewers thought they would not be affected. After all, beer was hardly intoxicating when compared with liquor. Then they thought if they reduced the alcohol to 2.75% they could still sell their product. Anti-dry forces in Congress attempted to make beer available by physicians’ prescription. But in the end the Federal Government established the legal limit for “near beer” at one half of one per cent alcohol.
Prohibition devastated the brewing industry. It was such an unpopular law, that for some time, things just went on as they had before. Most of the city’s brewers were law-abiding German Americans. They could not fathom a world without a foamy seidel of beer. Not only that, but they would have to become criminals in order to make beer, their “staff of life.” Legally, they brewed “near bear,” and made soda. They made malt extract for the malt shop as well as for the home brewer, and sold yeast and ice. The Poth brewery became home to the Cereal Beverage Company, the local distributor of Anheuser-Busch’s Bevo. Due to demand and profitability, however, many continued to produce “high-octane” beer, even after being raided several times, sometimes while they were involved in litigation.
The government targeted the biggest guy on the block and made an example of B & E. After being raided, B & E continued to make beer. It was a case of the public and business community defying a terribly unpopular law and the government responded with a vengeance. And while B & E had lots of legal tricks up its sleeve, in the end the government prevailed and shut them down. Breweries throughout the city were padlocked. And in December of 1928, as police sewered nearly a million gallons of B & E beer, officers were quoted as saying “B & E made the best beer in the city.”
