Today is the birthday of August Schmid (June 4, 1843-June 4, 1889). He was born in Switzerland, emigrated to the U.S., and in 1850 with a partner, Emanuel Bernheimer, he founded the Constanz Brewery on East 4th Street near Avenue B, and a couple of years later, Bernheimer and a different partner, James Speyers, started the Lion Brewery on Columbus Ave, between 107th and 108th Streets in Manhattan, next door to the beer garden at the Lion Park, and indeed it is sometimes referred to as the Lion Park Brewery. The business was reorganized in 1868, and August Schmid also became a partner in the Lion Brewery, and by 1890 its official name was the Bernheimer & Schmid Brewery, though they continued to trade under the Lion Brewery name. In 1895, it was the sixth-largest brewery in the U.S. After 1903, it was called the Lion Brewery of New York, presumably to avoid confusion with the many other breweries with Lion in their name. Lion survived prohibition but closed for good in 1942.
This is the beginning of Schmid’s obituary from the New York Times, but it’s oddly only available to subscribers.
August Schmid of the firm of Bernheimer Schmid, proprietors of the Lion Brewery, died early Monday morning at the Hotel Royal after an illness of three days with pneumonia.
Shortly after immigrating to the United States, Swiss-German August Schmid and Emanuel Bernheimer founded the Costanz Brewery at East 4th Street near Avenue B in 1850. The brewery produced a lagered beer, a favorite among German immigrants. By 1852, they built a second Costanz Brewery at Four Corners in Staten Island, home to a large German community. Five years later, Bernheimer became the partner of another German immigrant, James Speyers and founded the Lion Brewery in 1857 in Manhattan Valley.
A group of Catholic Bavarians helped build the Lion Brewery. When it was built, they held masses in the Brewery on Sunday mornings.
At its peak, the Lion Brewery occupied about six square city blocks, from Central Park West to Amsterdam Avenue and from 107th to 109th Street. At the time Manhattan’s Upper West Side was an open area with inexpensive land housing, many public institutions and an insane asylum. There were about five to ten thousand living in shanties after being displaced by the creation of Central Park in 1859. Consequently, with the brewery and surrounding areas, the Upper West Side failed to increase its real estate value until the early twentieth century.
In 1862, a $1 tax on each barrel of beer hurt small brewers but not Lion. The anti-saloon movement in the late 19th and early 20th century encouraged Lion to clean up its own saloons. Lion Brewery got caught up in a wave of mergers and closings among some of the smaller New York Brewers in the early 1940s which continued until 1941, when the business closed. The brewery (including the canning facilities) was auctioned off on August 26, 1943. The plant was demolished in 1944 and more than 3,000 tons of steel were taken from the original brewery structure and recycled for the war effort.
After the Brewery was knocked down the lot was paved over with cinders. On Sundays, after the war, returning World War II Veterans formed a Softball League and played almost every Sunday afternoon. Home plate was located near 107th street and Columbus Avenue. Today, apartment houses occupy the Lion brewery’s former location.
Around 1860, the brewery published a pamphlet titled “Observations on Brewing and Beer: With an Analysis and Scientific Testimony Relative to the Lager Beer of the Speyers’ Lion Brewery.” The pamphlet had a short history of the different kinds of beer, and an analysis showing that their lager beer was pure. The pamphlet also included some great line drawings of the brewery complex.
In 1850 recent Swiss German immigrants August Schmid and Emanuel Bernheimer founded the Costanz Brewery at East 4th Street near Avenue B. The brewery specialized in lagered beer, a favorites among their fellow immigrants. By 1852, their success encouraged them to build a second Costanz Brewery at Four Corners in Staten Island, then home to a large German immigrant community. Eight years later, Bernheimer became the partner of another German immigrant, James Speyers, in his Lion Brewery, established in 1857.
The Lion Brewery, depicted here, occupied a site bounded by what are now Central Park West and Amsterdam Avenue and extending from 107th to 109th Streets. The background view includes Central Park, with a glimpse of the Blockhouse, a relic from the War of 1812. (The Church of the Ascension is there now, built with the brewery’s help in the 1890s). During this period Manhattan’s Upper West Side was a relatively open area offering inexpensive land and it accommodated numerous public institutions including an insane asylum. Also clustered in the neighborhood were the shanty homes of between 5-10,000 thousand people displaced by the formal opening of Central Park in 1859. The combination of shanties, public institutions, and such foul-smelling industries as breweries explains why the Upper West Side failed to develop the real estate value of other areas bordering Central Park until the early twentieth century.
Late in the life of the Lion Brewery, it became involved in a number of mergers and acquisitions, eventually becoming The Greater New York Brewery, Inc.:
Lion brewing got caught up in a wave of mergers and closing among some of the smaller New York Brewers in the early 1940s. In late 1940, the Fidelio Brewing Co., located at 1st Ave. between 29th and 30th Streets., closed. However, on November 15, 1940, it reopened business as the Greater New York Brewery, Inc. In December 1940, the Greater New York Brewery merged with the Horton Pilsener Brewing Co., which was located at Amsterdam Ave. and 128th Street. Horton Brewing President Alex White became a director of Greater New York Brewery and they continued producing previous Horton products. In January 1941, the Greater New York Brewery merged with City Brewing Corporation of Queens. In February of 1941, Horton, as part of Greater New York Brewery, closed its doors. On April 9, 1941, City Brewing Corporation, as part of Greater New York Brewery, temporarily had its license canceled because of illegal merchandising in the form of gifts to retailers. (It apparently reopened at a later date.)
In May of 1941, Greater New York Brewery, Inc. acquired the Lion Brewery. It was the only brewery of the four that merged that had facilities to package beer in flat top cans. But by February of 1942, the Lion Brewery was closed and put up for sale. There being no buyers, the brewery (including the canning facilities) was auctioned off on August 26, 1943. In 1944 over 3,000 tons of steel were taken from the original brewery structure and recycled for the war effort. In April, 1946, the Greater New York Brewery, Inc. became known as the Greater New York Industries. This entity remained in operation until 1950.
For its short lifetime the former Lion Brewery continued to produce beer in cans labeled as products of the Greater New York Brewery. The two flat tops produced are scarce, but not truly rare. However, during its short life span, the Greater New York Brewery also produced a very rare crowntainer and two rare quarts containing Lion beer and ale. There are only 3 of the Beer quarts known today and the Ale is not much more common. Another rare Lion can, a Lion Pilsner, was produced by Pilsner Brewing in New York in the 1940s, but I do not yet know this company’s relationship to the original Lion Brewing. Today, apartment houses occupy the Lion brewery’s former location.
Today is the birthday of George Muehlebach (April 24, 1833-December 22, 1905). He was born in Argau, Switzerland and emigrated to the U.S. when he was 26, in 1859, along with his family, consisting of four brothers and a sister. He first moved to Indiana, but a short time later settled in Kansas City, Missouri. There, in 1868, he and his brother John bought the Main Street Brewery, which had been founded in 1866. (Although at least one account claims John bought it himself, and George just worked there, and didn’t assume full control until much later.) It continued under the original name until 1903, when it became the George Muehlebach Brewing Co. When Muehlebach died, his son George E. took over the company and it remained in business until 1956, when Schlitz bought it, and operated it until 1973, when it closed for good.
George Muehlebach immigrated to Kansas City from Switzerland in 1859 by way of Lafayette, Indiana. In Kansas City, he founded The George Muehlebach Brewing Company, which became one of the most prominent businesses in Kansas City by the turn of the 20th century. The Swiss Cross was to be part of the logo for all their beers. In 1869, he bought the Main Street Brewery from George Hierbe at the northwest corner of 18th and Main Streets, which later became the site of the TWA Building. In 1880, he razed the original brewery and replaced it with a “Beer Castle” built in Romanesque style with a mansard-roofed tower.
The Muehlebach Beer Castle.
This more thorough biography of George Muehlebach, is a part of the article “A Beer Baron Is Born,” from KC History, at the Kansas City Public Library.
On April 24, 1833, George Muehlebach was born into a farming family in Argau, Switzerland. He went on to operate the Muehlebach Brewing Company; one of the most successful businesses in Kansas City by the early 20th century. Even after his death, the Muehlebach name lived on in Kansas City at the baseball field that eventually became Municipal Stadium and the luxurious Hotel Muehlebach.
At the age of 21, George Muehlebach, along with his three brothers and his sister, left Switzerland and moved to Lafayette, Indiana. The four brothers moved on to Westport, Missouri, where George started a saddle and harness business. He soon left Westport and delved into the overland freight business near Quindaro, Kansas and later searched for gold in Colorado. George finally found his calling, though, in 1869 when he and his brother, John, purchased the Main Street Brewery from George Hierb at 18th and Main Streets in Kansas City, Missouri.
The brewery was located on a sub-43 degree freshwater well that was a perfect source of water for a brewing operation. The Muehlebach brothers started with an annual production capacity of 3,000 barrels a year, but steadily expanded their operations to 3,932 barrels by 1879. Then John died in 1880, which left complete ownership of the brewery to George. He pressed forward and in the same year constructed a new Romanesque-style brick and stone building on the original site. Kansas Citians referred to the new building as the “Beer Castle” and relished the Pilsener beer for which the Muehlebach Brewing Company was known.
Between 1870 and the beginning of national Prohibition in 1920, the brewery held four different names, but remained in the Muehlebach family. By 1899, capacity had increased to 25,000 barrels annually, and the company deployed seven local delivery wagons. The company soon added a brewhouse, a stockhouse, and an engine house to support its operations. Fueled by local demand, even this capacity skyrocketed further to 50,000 barrels in 1907, 80,000 barrels in 1910, and 100,000 barrels in 1911. The Muehlebach brewery was by then the second largest in Kansas City, behind only the Kansas City Breweries Company.
This is his obituary from the 1906 Brewers Journal:
An aerial photograph of the brewery from 1940. It’s the building located center-left with the three smokestacks.
Today is the birthday of Frantz Brogniez (October 26, 1860-October 9, 1935). He was born in Hainaut, Belgium. His father was also a brewmaster and a 25 year member of the Belgian senate in Brussels. He also trained as a brewer at Louvain, and at his first brewing job in Lichterveld in 1882, he created Belgium’s first “blond” beer. Moving to the United States in 1896, he founded the The Belgian Brewery in Detroit Michigan, which was later renamed the Tivoli Brewery. He then moved to Terre Haute, Indiana to found the Peoples Brewery there. Moving to Houston in 1912, he became the brewmaster of the Houston Ice and Brewing Co. Shortly thereafter, at the International Exposition at Ghent, Belgium one of the beers he created in Houston, Southern Select, won the Grand Prize (out of 4,096 beers entered). After that, the brewery became the south’s biggest brewery, but prohibition put Brogniez out of a job. He was also a violin player and co-founded the Houston Symphony. During prohibition, he developed a honey-based ice cream called “Honey Boy Ice Cream,” and also did some brewing in Juarez, Mexico. After prohibition ended, Howard Hughes (yes, that one) persuaded Brogniez to be the brewmaster of his new Gulf Brewing Company in Houston, and he brought his recipe for Southern Select with him, and renamed it “Grand Prize Beer.” He ran Hughes’ brewery until he died in 1935, and afterwards his son Frank took his place at Gulf Brewing. Gulf was acquired by Hamm’s in 1953.
Frantz H. Brogniez was born at the family estate of Redemont, Haine – St. Paul, Belgium on October 26, 1860. He was an accomplished musician, chemist and Brewmaster. He married three times. Frantz first married Cornelie van der Hulst who bore him three children, two girls and a boy, I don’t know the girl’s names, the boy was Willie who died at a young age. They separated for unknown reasons. He then met Alida Mathilde Grymonprez, fell in love and in 1896 moved to the US for a fresh start. Alida bore him two children. They were Frantz (Frank) Philippe and Alida Mathilde. Alida fell sick and passed in 1903. Agreeing to Alida’s dying wishes, Frantz married Alida’s sister Alice Albertine Grymonprez who bore him two sons. They were Fernand Jules and Raymond Hector. Alice was 26 years his junior. Both Alida and Alice are interred here at Forest Park Cemetery with Frantz. Frantz passed away on October 11th 1935, just shy of 75 years, 2 years after Prohibition ended.
Some of Frantz’s accomplishments include winning the world’s Grand Prize for beer while Brewmaster at Houston Ice and Brewing’s Magnolia Brewery in 1913. Also in 1913, Frantz along with Miss Ima Hogg and Mrs. E. B. Parker formed the Houston Symphony. Lastly, Frantz was the original Brewmaster for Howard Hughes’ Gulf Brewery best known for its Grand Prize Beer.
Frantz Brogniez was the Belgian-born brewmaster who turned the Houston Ice and Brewing Company into the largest brewing company south of Milwaukee, and later operated Howard Hughes’ Houston-based Gulf Brewing Company. In 1913, while he was serving as brewmaster at Houston Ice and Brewing, Brogniez beat out 4,096 other brewers around the world to win the Grand Prize at the International Congress ofBrewers. The beer for which was honored was Houston Ice and Brewing’s most popular, Southern Select. During Prohibition, Brogniez moved to El Paso and worked with brewing interests in Juarez. At the end of Prohibition, Hughes coaxed Brogniez back to Houston to oversee the operations of Hughes’ Gulf Brewing Company, which produced Grand Prize beer. Brogniez’ son, Frank, operated the brewery after his father’s death.
Frantz and his son Frank examining the brewery.
Frantz was born October 26, 1860, at Haine-Saint Paul, in Hainaut, Belgium. His father was a brewmaster and a 25 year member of the Belgian senate in Brussels.
Frantz was one of those rare very gifted and remarkably knowledgeable men, accomplished in bio-chemistry, engineering, music, and well versed in painting, sculpture and poetry. In 1881, Brogniez entered the University of Louvain and enrolled in “Special Sciences,” including engineering and biochemistry. He continued his studies at the Louis Pasteur Institute in France.
In 1882, Brogniez went to Lichterveld to work in a brewery. While there, he developed the first “blond” beer in Belgium.
He moved to Detroit Michigan in 1896 and established The Belgian Brewery. It was quickly renamed the Tivoli Brewery after he took on some investors. He befriended Henry Ford and often went riding with him. Frantz never learned how to drive.
He left Detroit in 1904 and moved to Terra Haute Indiana where he established the Peoples Brewery and supervised its design and construction. It grew to one of the largest in the nation at the time.
In 1912 he moved to Houston for the warmer climate for his chronically ill wife and became the brewmaster for Houston Ice and Brewing’s Magnolia Brewery. A year later they learned of the International Exposition at Ghent Belgium. The Exposition was held every couple of years and was a competition where beer from all over the world was put through a battery of tests. Frantz had some beer grabbed off the line and sent it with a friend that was traveling to Belgium. This particular year 4,096 beers were entered. Out of all these beers, Southern Select was the last one standing with 3 tests still to go. It won the Grand Prize. HI&B became the largest brewing company in the south. Frantz remained with HI&B until Prohibition ended his job.
Also in 1913, Frantz, Mrs. E. B. Parker and Miss Ima Hogg established the Houston Symphony. By this time he was a Mason and an Elk.
While WWI was going on around 1918, sugar was in short supply so Frantz was asked if he could develop a recipe for ice cream using something other than sugar for the sweetener. He developed what became Honey Boy Ice Cream made with honey. It was fairly popular. When WWI ended, the rights were sold to Reddig Ice. Honey Boy disappeared.
During Prohibition Frantz moved to El Paso Texas and brewed beer at Cerveseria Juarez in Juarez, Mexico. Some of these beers were award winners as well.
When it looked as if Prohibition was going to end in 1933, Frantz moved back to Houston where HI&B was trying to get back into the brewing business. It became obvious that HI&B had big plans and not much money. At the same time, Howard Hughes wanted to get into the brewing business thinking it would provide much needed jobs. Mr. Hughes enticed Frantz away from HI&B and formed Gulf Brewing. With little modification to an existing building they quickly installed a state of the art brewing facility of Frantz’s design. Grand Prize beer became a reality. It was named for the Grand Prize that Southern Select won. It was the same recipe as Southern Select. Grand Prize grew to be one of the south’s most popular beers.
Two years later at the age of 75, Frantz passed away in the arms of his son Frank with his family present.
Here’s a basic history of the Houston Ice and Brewing Co., which was also known as the Magnolia Brewery, from Houston Past:
The Magnolia Ballroom building on the Franklin Street side of Market Square (715 Franklin) was built in 1912, on the foundation of an older building (the Franklin Building), and once housed the taproom and executive offices for the Houston Ice and Brewing Co.’s Magnolia Brewery. The building was the first in Houston to have refrigerator-style air conditioning. In 2006, it became the first commercial building in Houston to receive the Houston Protected Landmark designation.
By 1915, the Houston Ice and Brewing Company encompassed more than 10 buildings on more than 20 acres located on both sides of Buffalo Bayou. In fact, the brewery even spanned the bayou for some period of time – the Louisiana Street bridge now crosses the bayou at the same location. To provide easier access across the bayou, the brewery built a 250-foot wood and concrete bridge stretching from the Franklin Street bridge toward the Milam Street bridge.
The Magnolia Brewery produced a number of signature brands of beer, including (it is reported) Magnolia, Richelieu, Hiawatha, Grand Prize, and Southern Select (the latter being the most famous). In 1913, brewmaster Frantz Brogniez was awarded Grand Prize at the last International Conference of Breweries for his Southern Select beer – beating out 4,096 competing brewers from around the world. In 1919, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the labeling on one of the Houston Ice and Brewing Company’s brands did not infringe upon a Schlitz trademark. (Having noted that the similarities in the two bottles were limited to their content and brown labels, the Court stated: “If there were deception it seems to us that it would arise from beer and brown color and that it could not be said that the configuration appreciably helped.”)
The company’s decline began during Prohibition, when the Houston Ice and Brewing Company was forced to rely solely on its ice sales. Many of the brewery’s structures were then destroyed in the historic 1935 flood, which was later blamed on the Magnolia Brewery bridge. The brewery struggled to survive, but closed in 1950.
The Magnolia Ballroom is just one of two Houston Ice and Brewing Company buildings that remains standing. In 1969, a high-end restaurant called the Bismark was located on the second floor, and the Buffalo Bayou Flea Market operated out of the basement. The basement has since housed a variety of bars and clubs. The upstairs floors are currently used for special events – much of the ornate interior of the building has been preserved, and it is decorated with historic photos.
And here’s some more about the Gulf Brewing Co., founded by Howard Hughes, also from Houston Past:
Howard Hughes’ connection with the Houston-based Hughes Tool Company is fairly well-known. It is less well-known that Hughes started a brewery in Houston, on the grounds of the Hughes Tool Company, called Gulf Brewing Company. Hughes opened the brewery at the end of Prohibition, and its profits helped the tool company survive the Depression.
Gulf Brewing Company produced Grand Prize beer, which for a time was the best-selling beer in Texas. It has been reported that a beer called Grand Prize beer was also produced prior to Prohibition, by the Houston Ice and Brewing Company. While that may be accurate, any confusion is likely connected to the fact that Hughes’ Grand Prize brewery was operated by the man who served as brewmaster at Houston Ice and Brewing before Prohibition. In 1913, while he was brewmaster at the Houston Ice and Brewing Company, Belgian-Houstonian Frantz Brogniez was awarded Grand Prize at the last International Conference of Breweries for his Southern Select beer – beating out 4,096 competing brewers. Brogniez left Houston during Prohibition, but Hughes convinced him to return to serve as brewmaster for the Gulf Brewing Company. Brogniez’ son operated the brewery after his father’s death.
Today is the birthday of Santiago Graf (October 16, 1845-August 31, 1904). He was born in Zurich, Switzerland, but emigrated to Mexico in the 1870s. He founded Mexico’s first modern lager brewery, Compania Cervecera Toluca y Mexico, which is “the state capital of the State of Mexico as well as the seat of the Municipality of Toluca.” He also pioneered the ‘Graf’ style of Vienna lager, one of the two styles of Vienna lager today and still popular in Mexico and the southwest United States.” Victoria is a 4% abv Vienna lager first brewed in 1865. His brewery continued on after his death, and was acquired by Grupo Modelo in 1935.
In 1875 Graf purchased the original Compania Cervecera Toluca y Mexico, a small producer of cerveza sencilla, a form of light ale, from fellow Swiss Ausgustin Marendazand and began brewing a popular amber ale which is often cited as the first commercially successful beer brewed in the southwest. The problems with temperature control during wort production and fermentation in Mexico’s hot climate forced him to continue brewing ale until the opening of an international railroad link with the United States enabled him to import the first large ice producing absorption machines from Germany in 1882. With better equipment and the ability to cool wort and fermenter’s properly, Graf was the first to successfully brew lager in Mexico. In 1890, Graf formed a stock company and erected the first large, modern lager brewery in Mexico.
Graf brewed various types of light colored ambers but seemed uninterested in pale beers like the popular Pilsener style. Disappointed with the quality of malt and hops available locally, he imported all his hops from Europe and most of his malt from the United States. In addition, he set up his own malting facilities in Mexico, using barley imported from the United States. Graf was able to increase the acidity of his mash by increasing the percentage of dark malts in his recipes thereby counteracting the high alkalinity of brewing water available in Mexico, with the alkalinity simultaneously mellowing the acidic flavors of the dark malts in the final product. The result was a popular, mellow, darker style of Vienna lager. The popularity of the Toluca y Mexico beers was such that Graf frequently had difficulty filling orders and was forced to seek outside investors to rapidly increase production.
Current popular brands of Graf style Viennas include major brands such as Negra Modelo, Nocha Buena, and Dos Equis Amber.
Graf died on August 31, 1904 from endocarditis vegetations as a complication of an ongoing infection and is buried in Toluca, Mexico
This short biography is from the American Brewers Review:
This account of Graf’s brewery is from “100 Years of Brewing,” published in 1903:
Compania Cervecera Toluca y Mexico around 1896.
And this account of Graf’s beer was published in an earlier version of “100 Years of Brewing,” from 1901:
And finally, here is a video about the history of the brewery.
Today is the birthday of Frederick Wacker (September 30, 1830-July 8, 1884). Wacker was born in Württemberg Germany (though some sources claim he was from Switzerland) and founded the Chicago brewery Wacker & Birk in 1857 with business partner Jacob Birk. Shortly thereafter, Birk left to start a different brewery, and the name was changed to the Frederick Wacker Brewing Co. 1865. But Birk appears to have returned to the business, because the name became the Frederick Wacker & Jacob Birk Brewing & Malting Co., and it remained some form of the two men’s names until it was closed for good by prohibition. Frederick Wacker is also remembered as the father of his more famous son, Charles Wacker, for whom Wacker Drive in Chicago was named. And while there are plenty of photos of Charles, not a one could I find of his father.
Here’s a biography of Frederick Wacker, from the History of Chicago, Volume 3, by Alfred Theodore Andreas, published in 1886.
The Chicago brewery Frederick started was originally called Seidenschwanz & Wacker, and was located on Hinsdale, between Pine and Rush streets. It was founded in 1857, but the following year it became known as Wacker & Seidenschwanz, and was on N. Franklin Street. That version lasted until 1865. Beginning that same year, its name changed once again to the Frederick Wacker Brewery, and its address was listed as 848 N. Franklin Street, presumably in the same location as its predecessor. Sixteen years later, in 1882, it relocated to 171 N. Desplaines (now Indiana Street) and it became known as the Wacker & Birk Brewing & Malting Co. This is also when Charles joined his father’s business, when he would have been 26 years old. Just before prohibition the name was shortened to the Wacker & Birk Co., although it appears to have closed by 1920.
Today is the birthday of George Edward Muelebach (August 10, 1881-January 11, 1955). He was the son of George Muelebach, who emigrated to Kansas City, Missouri, from Switzerland and founded the George Muehlebach Brewing Co. in 1868, along with his brother John Muelebach (some sources say Peter). But George E. took over the brewery upon his father’s death in 1905. In 1915, he also opened the now-historic Muehlebach Hotel, which may have taken a lot of his focus, as well as his minor league baseball team, the Kansas City Blues. By the time of George E’s passing, he had retired to California as vice-president. A year after his death, the brewery was sold to Schlitz, who closed the Kansas City brewery in 1973.
This is a short biography of Muehlebach from Find-a-Grave:
George Muehlebach built and operated the Muehlebach Hotel in Kansas City, Mo., which was visited by every United States President from Theodore Roosevelt. His most famous presidential connection was Harry S. Truman, who used the hotel as the White House headquarters during frequent visits to his nearby hometown of Independence, Mo. Truman stayed in Independence but conducted business in the penthouse suite of the Muehlebach hotel. It was here that he predicted his upset victory to staffers during election night 1948, and it was here that he signed the Truman Doctrine legislation aid for Turkey and Greece on 22 May 1947.
Muehlebach was also the owner of a minor league baseball team, the Kansas City Blues (American Association). His team won the AA pennant in 1918, 1923 and 1929. In 1936, the Blues became a farm club of the New York Yankees. They won the AA championships five times in the 1930s and 1940s. The official website of Minor League Baseball calls the Blues teams of 1929 and 1939 two of the 100 greatest Minor League Baseball teams ever.
And this is his obituary:
And this biography was written by Barbara Magerl for the Missouri Valley Historical Society’s Special Collections:
George Edward Muehlebach assumed leadership of the Muehlebach Brewing Company in 1905 at the young age of 23, when George Muehlebach, his Swiss-born father and founder of the brewery died. Educated at Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic School and Webster School, young George graduated from Spaulding’s Commercial College by age 17. Summer jobs at the brewery at 18th and Main had familiarized him with all operations of the brewery, which was founded in 1868. Under Muehlebach’s leadership the brewery’s size and sales doubled between 1905 and 1913.
A Kansas City promoter, he built the Muehlebach Hotel at 12th and Baltimore in 1916, became a bank director, board member of Research Hospital, and a member of several prestigious clubs.
As a teenager, George had played first base on the Muehlebach Brewing Company’s Pilseners baseball team, spawning a keen interest in the sport. He owned the Kansas City Blues, twice American Association champions, from 1917 to 1932.
Muehlebach built a half-million dollar ballpark at 22nd and Brooklyn in 1923, the only park in its league free of billboards. Under various names, Muehlebach Stadium was Kansas City’s ballpark until the Truman Sports Complex was built.
After producing non-alcoholic drinks during Prohibition, Muehlebach Brewing closed in 1929. When Prohibition ended, George E. Muehlebach was the city’s first Liquor Control Director. He returned to brewing in 1938 as vice-president and general manager of a partnership with Schlitz Brewery at Third and Oak Streets.
A personally modest man known for his fairness and generosity, George Muehlebach died on January 11, 1955. Today the Hotel Muehlebach is a reminder of his role in Kansas City.
The Muehlebach was the White House headquarters for Harry S. Truman during his frequent visits to his home in nearby Independence, Missouri. Truman stayed in Independence but conducted business in the Presidential Suite in the hotel’s penthouse. Truman signed the Truman Doctrine legislation aid for Turkey and Greece at the hotel on May 22, 1947.
Truman predicted his upset victory to staffers at the hotel during election night 1948 (although he spent the night out of the media spotlight at the Elms Hotel in Excelsior Springs, Missouri). The Presidential Suite was later renamed the Harry S. Truman Presidential Suite following his terms of office.
In 1959 the Society of American Registered Architects (SARA), founded by architect Wilfred Gregson in 1956 with the mission of “Architect Helping Architect”, held its first national conference at the Hotel Muehlebach. Gregson reported to those assembled: “You are the ones who have made the first great step toward a unified profession of architects. You are a living report that will go to every part of these fifty United States”. In the fall of 1974, President Gerald Ford stayed at the Muehlebach when he was in town as the keynote speaker for the National FFA Convention. He shook hands with many of the FFA band members that were standing in a rope line in the lobby. The band members were also staying at the hotel the same week.
Immediately following the 1976 Republican Convention, Robert A. Heinlein was the Guest of Honor at the 34th World Science Fiction Convention held at the Radisson Muehlebach and the Hotel Phillips, directly across the Street. He was booked into the Muehlebach’s Harry S. Truman Presidential Suite for the 5-day convention held during the 1976 Labor Day weekend.
Today is the birthday of Leopold Nathan (July 30, 1864- December 24, 1937). He was born in Laupheim, in Württemberg, Germany, in 1864. “He studied chemistry in Frankfurt am Main and became a leading expert in wine and beer processing. In 1912 he founded the Nathan-Institut, or Nathan-Institute AG.” He developed the Nathan Brewing System, the closed system using conical-cylindrical fermenters that are ubiquitous today.
This is his biography, translated from Dutch, from his page on the BeerWiki:
Leopold Nathan (Laupheim, July 30, 1864 – Berlin-Dahlem , December 24, 1937) was a German scientist, brewer and inventor. He was born at Schloss Laupheim. This slot had the disposal of a brewery, so early did not only his interest in fermentation measure that also to nature in general. Due to poor health, after doctoral education he did not go to the gymnasium, but in the doctrine of an uncle, where he could transform his love for flowers and plants into the open air into theoretical knowledge. Before his 18th he studied fruit and wine studies at Geisenheim University College. For some time he had been the assistant of Hermann Müller, better known as Hermann Müller-Thurgau, the breeder of the Müller-Thurgau grape breeder.
Nathan dedicated himself to making wine from berries and paid close attention to the yeast types used. In winter of 1888, Nathan again contacted brewing when he studied the yeast reindeer culture for three months in the famous laboratory of the Carlsberg Brewery, where Emil Christian Hansen performed groundbreaking work for the brewing industry.
In the years thereafter he made more and more of fermentation, first of berries, later also the preparation of champagne and schaumwein and sekt – the German version of champagne.
Nathan Institute
Nathan develops a new way of producing and riping beer under substantially sterile conditions, the [Nathan_Brouwerij | Nathan System]. Around the turn of the century, Leopold Nathan came to Switzerland, where he would later receive citizenship. In 1912, in Zurich, together with Ing. Gille, Bonenblust and Einstein founded the Nathan Institute. From this institute, the process and components of the brewing facilities are further improved and the commercial activities supported. The chemical department of the Technical University of Munich, Nathan, awarded his title in 1923 the title ‘Doctor ing.’.
The Walkerville Co-operative Brewing Company Ltd of Adelaide signed an agreement with the Nathan Institute of Zurich in November 1925 for the installation of its plant at the company’s brewery at Southwark, and this became the first Nathan system to be installed in Australia. It was a major project for the brewery, requiring the erection of additional buildings to accommodate the new equipment. Beer production commenced in the Nathan plant late in 1927, and a formal opening ceremony was held in January 1928.
Nathan Bitter was the first beer brewed and was instantly popular, being sold around Australia. The South Australian Brewing Company was becoming the more dominant brewery in the 1930’s and by the end of the decade they had purchased the Walkerville Brewery. Since the Nathan Beers were so popular they continued to make the beer at the Southwark Brewery, the brewery wanted to remove the Walkerville branding so they renamed the brewery to the Nathan Brewery.
This is Nathan’s obituary, written by H. Lloyd Hind, from the Journal of the Institute of Brewing in March of 1938:
Members will have heard with regret of the sudden death of Dr. Leopold Nathan, at Berlin. To many he was personally known through his visit to Edinburgh and London in 1930, when he addressed both Sections. His name stood very high in the brewing world on account of the great technical advances he introduced. These may possibly have overshadowed his scientific attainments, which were of no mean order. Though he lived to the age of 73, he was rather delicate in his youth, but overcame this and developed the remarkable energy which characterised him in later years. He had a varied career. Engaged first at a distillery in Erfurt, he passed on to the study of viniculture and, finally worked under Hanson at Copenhagen. Returning to Germany he was engaged in the preservation of vegetables by drying and drew attention to the possibilities of canning.
During this early stage of his career he also worked on the manufacture of fruit juices and was the first to apply pure yeast culture to wines, and was one of the earliest protagonists of the collection of fermentation gas. This work led him to study brewing, and ultimately to the rapid brewing process, with which his name is associated. The object of the Nathan process is to produce a lager beer in much shorter time than is usual. It is based on the principle of pure yeast in sterile wort. In 1900, Nathan moved to Zurich, and in 1912 founded the Nathan Institute and from there directed many installations all over the world. The output of beer brewed by his process now amounts to more than 1,500,000 barrels a year. He drew attention many years ago to the necessity of using air-free CO, and to the advantages of bottling under CO2. The University of Munich recognized the value of his scientific and technical work by conferring on him the honorary degree of doctor.
The Nathan Brewery
But it’s his brewing system that he invented and improved upon throughout his life that he’s remembered for, so let’s take a look at the Nathan System.
This description is from the page on the Nathan Brewery, translated from Dutch, on the BeerWiki
In the early twentieth century, in climatic conditions, it was virtually impossible to brew a good beer in areas with a tropical climate. The German but Swiss resident Brewer and inventor Leopold Nathan developed a new type of brewery with a brewing method in that time. The method was aimed at not contacting the wort with direct outdoor air and significantly reducing the bearing time. Several breweries were already in use in Germany who used a Nathan installation and the results were hopeful. During this time, conventional fermenters used conventional breweries, and after a storage period of up to six months, the beer was suitable for consumption.
The tight, technically well-equipped interior of a Nathan brewery.
As with the classic method, the malt is scraped and mixed with water. This mixture is then heated in steps to convert the starch into sugars during the germination. The next step is filtering out the grain residues and the remaining liquid (the wort) is boiled and hops are added. In this process the wort becomes sterile.
With the method of Nathan, the wort is removed in a special barrel of all hop and malt residues and then cooled to 5 ° C as soon as possible by means of a surface cooler. This cooler is located in a space where filtered and sterile air is blown. The chilled wort goes slowly from below into the vessel and is pumped so until the liquid is clear.
Yeast
Unlike the usual open fermentation bins, aluminum barrels were used in a Nathan brewery. These cylinder conical tanks were an essential part of the Nathan Breweries. This type of tank was patented by Nathan in 1927 and are still used in many breweries. The tanks were fitted with a jacket that allowed cooling to the right temperature. The yeast – a cultured, clean culture – was added from below and kept in motion by sterile air or carbon dioxide so that the yeast process could be accurately controlled. In six to nine days, depending on the type of beer, the fermentation was completed. Because it was a closed system all carbon dioxide generated at the fermentation could be collected and reused after purification. Before use, the used material was sterilized with alcohol.
The Nathan Institute also provided “loose” yeast cultivation plants. Such an installation was placed at the Hürlimann brewery based in Zurich. At this brewery a lot of research was done on yeast and its functioning. Hürlimann brought “Birell” one of the first truly successful alcohol-free beers on the market.
The storage that took place in a classic brewery in those days was accelerated in the Nathan method by a few days a lot of small bubbles of carbonated acid (collected at the fermentation) by pumping the young beer.
Schematic drawing of a Nathan brewery on the back of a French-language brochure.
This is a report on a talk Nathan gave in Chicago at a meeting of the American Society of Brewing Technology in 1914:
This is one of his earlier patents.
And this history is from Ian Spencer Hornsey’s “A History of Beer and Brewing:”
Friday’s ad is for “Brasserie du Cardinal,” from 1960. From the late 1800s until the 1960s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster was made for Brasserie du Cardinal, in Fribourg, Switzerland, which was founded in 1788 by François Piller. In 1991 (though one source says 1996), it was acquired by Feldschlösschen, which is owned by the Carlsberg Group. I believe this poster may have been created by Swiss artist Pierre-Alexandre Junod, but I’m not 100% sure.
Thursday’s ad is for Ginder-Ale, from maybe the 1940s or 50s. From the late 1800s until the 1980s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. I’ve been posting vintage European posters all last year and will continue to do so in 2020. This poster was created for Brouwerij Martinas, which was also known as the Brouwerij Ginder-Ale after 1928, when their best-known beer was introduced. The brewery was founded in 1871 in Merchtem, a municipality located in the Belgian province of Flemish Brabant, by Florentinus De Boeck. In 1973, it was acquired by Brouweij Artois and today is part of AB-InBev, who still makes the beer for the local market of Merchtem. This poster was created by Donald Brun, who was a very well-known Swiss graphic designer. This is obviously a mock-up or draft of an ad, with space for a “slogan” at the bottom. If it was ever used in a commercial ad, I’ve been so far been unable to find any evidence of that.
Tuesday’s ad is for Salmenbräu Rheinfelden, from 1930. From the late 1800s until the 1980s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. I’ve been posting vintage European posters all last year, and will continue to do so in 2020. This poster was for Salmenbräu which was located in Rheinfelden, Switzerland. “It was founded in 1799 and was independent for almost two centuries until it became part of the Sibra Holding (later Cardinal) in 1971. The production facilities remained in operation until 2002, from 1991 most recently under the umbrella of the Feldschlösschen group, which also comes from Rheinfelden.” The artist who created the poster was Swiss illustrator Martin Peikert.