Mineral Point (Iowa County)

• John Phillips Brewery (1835–1850?)
• East end of High Street

John Philips’s brewery “near the old Mineral Point mill” was the first commercial brewery in Wisconsin, though little is known of its operations.1550 A map of Mineral Point ca. 1840 does not show Phillips (sometimes spelled Philips) as a landowner, so it is possible that he was renting or leasing the premises.1551 It was still in operation in 1845 and possibly into the 1850s, but the precise date of closing is not known. The only brewers listed in the 1850 population census were Thomas Julia and Thomas Williams, but there is not enough information to indicate whether they were actually brewing in Mineral Point at the time. It is possible one or both of them had taken over Phillips’s brewery. (See also chapter 2.)

• William Terrill (1851–53)
• Jacob Roggy (1853?–1854)
• Gillman Bros, Wisconsin Brewery (1854–1874)
• Charles Gillman, Wisconsin Brewery/Tornado Brewery (1874–1898)
• Ballo Bruetting (1898–1902)
• Mineral Springs Brewing Co. (1903–1920)
• Mineral Springs Products Co. (1920–1936)
• Mineral Springs Brewing Co. (1936–1961)
• 272 Hoard Street (Shake Rag Street)

William Terrill was listed in the 1850 census as an innkeeper, and contemporary maps show that his property was located along the Dodgeville Road (modern Hoard Street). Terrill may have been brewing in a small way at his tavern, but later in the year he erected a separate brewery. The Wisconsin Tribune of Mineral Point reported in February 1851 “The new brewery of William Terrill, in this village, we understand is completed. The building is one of the first class, principally of stone, and reflects much credit upon those involved in its creation.”1552 However, almost exactly two years later Terrill advertised his brewery was for rent. There appears to have been little interest in the enterprise, since the brewery was still was on the market in November.1553 Jacob Roggy operated the plant for less than a year before it was purchased by Charles and Frederick Gillman (sometimes spelled Gillmann).

Both the county history accounts and excise records indicate that Charles Gillman was not devoting his full time to the brewery, as he was mayor of Mineral Point and county treasurer at various points. The brothers took on other partners: Jacob Spielmann from 1855 to 1868 and William Muser from 1872 until 1874. At that point Charles Gillman purchased the entire business and became sole proprietor. By 1870, the brewery was employing eight hands to brew 2,500 barrels of beer. At this point the brewery was still powered by horse, but the establishment represented an investment of $25,000—two and a half times the value of rival Argall. The brewery shipped its beer around the region, and an 1871 map of Mineral Point shows a beer garden run by J. Jenck just across Hoard Street from the brewery.1554

In 1878, the brewery was struck by what is considered one of the most destructive tornadoes in Wisconsin history. On 23 May, the twelve people then on the premises heard the roar of the approaching storm and took refuge in the brewery cellar, along with the driver of the Arena stagecoach “who confiding in the stability of the brewery, had hurried thither with his vehicle in search of shelter.” The roof of the brewery was torn off and shattered in the air, the stone walls were knocked down, two barns were flattened and Gillman’s residence totally destroyed. None of those hiding in the cellar were harmed, though the brewery incurred $20,000 of damage, which was far more than any other property in the area. While unfortunate, the disaster gave Gillman a chance to rebuild with modern equipment. The new brewery was steam powered and more than doubled the previous capacity to 6,000 barrels per year. The new plant was often referred to as the Tornado Brewery, especially in the area.1555 According to the 1884 Sanborn insurance map, the new brewery had a twelve-horsepower engine, a malt house, and several outbuildings but no bottling facilities. In the mid-1890s, a bottling house was added on Hoard Street.

In 1898, Charles Gillman retired from brewing, and the brewery passed to the management of Ballo Bruetting, a German immigrant who had previously worked at Blumer’s brewery in Monroe. Bruetting worked to expand the market of his new brewery and bought a saloon in Monroe to introduce his new product in his former home.1556 He operated the brewery for about four years until it was damaged by fire. In March 1903, brothers-in-law Felix Unterholzner and Otto H. Lieder moved to Mineral Point to restore the damaged brewery to production. Lieder was an experienced brewery manager, having worked for Ruhland Brewing in Baraboo for more than twenty years. While they changed the name of the company to Mineral Springs Brewing Co., the logo featured the initials U and L in honor of the owners. The new brewery had a capacity of 10,000 barrels per year, but distribution was still limited to the counties surrounding Mineral Point.1557

In 1918 Otto’s son Raymond J. Lieder (sometimes spelled Leider in contemporary newspaper articles) returned from a stint in the U.S. Navy to become brewmaster at Mineral Springs—a position which seemed to have little future with Prohibition on the horizon. However, he ended up staying with the firm until he retired in 1960, eventually owning the company.1558 Mineral Springs continued to operate for a time during the dry years but in 1926, Mineral Springs was fined for a violation of Prohibition laws.1559

The Unterholzner and Lieder families started brewing quickly after beer was legalized in 1933. (It is not clear how quickly—they were reported to have obtained their brewers’ license in May, but an ad in the Mineral Point Democrat on 6 April 1933 advertised Mineral Springs beer.) During the following years, production averaged about 6,000 barrels per year, with a surge during World War II to around 11,000, in a brewery with a reported capacity of 12,000 barrels. This surge encouraged the owners to expand capacity to 15,000 barrels, though the company never approached the higher levels of production again. The brewery had only one major brand, Mineral Spring, though it occasionally released a bock or holiday beer in the appropriate season.

After the death of Otto Lieder in 1949, his widow Mary took over as president and Raymond remained as brewmaster, eventually becoming president in 1958. His son Raymond Jr. joined the firm as assistant brewmaster. Sales declined precipitously in the last years of the 1950s, and in May 1961, Raymond J. Lieder Jr. Announced that the brewery had ceased operations.1560 In 1968, local preservation advocate Kenneth Colwell purchased the old brewery with the intent of restoring the brewery as a crafts shop, and by 1972 the brewery was the site of weaving classes which continued until 1990, when the building was sold and used for a time as a winery. Since then, the brewery has continued to be used as a residence and for other purposes including a pottery studio.1561

• James Argall, Garden City Brewery (1854–1884)
• James Argall & Co. (1884–86)
• Maurice J. Minor (1886–1898)
• East End of Nichols Street Near Brewery Creek

It is possible that James Argall took over the brewery of John Phillips sometime in the 1850s. Nichols Street is essentially an extension of High Street toward Brewery Creek, so the location seems to fit, and Wayne Kroll concludes that Argall’s business was a continuation of Phillips’s.1562 However, Phillips’s building was apparently inadequate, since Argall built a large new stone brewery in 1854.

Argall was apparently well off, and had a good reputation in the city. Argall was primarily a brewer of ale and porter, though he was listed in the R. G. Dun & Co. credit reports as a lager beer brewer.1563 (All references to the brewery in industry directories listed only ale and porter.) Argall installed steam power before his rival Gillman—the 1870 census of industry indicated that he had a five-horsepower boiler at that point. The 1884 Sanborn Insurance map shows that there was a dwelling on the second floor of the rear of the building, and that the brewery did its own malting. Argall seems to have made small improvements during the 1880s since capacity increased from 1,000 barrels in 1884 to 1,500 barrels. An 1881 county history claimed “For a number of years, Mr. Argall paid considerable attention to bottling beer; but of late years, has abandoned this branch of the business.”1564 While this would have made him an early bottler of lager beer, it was already common for ale brewers to bottle their product.

In 1886, Maurice Minor took over the brewery and operated it for the next twelve years. Industry journals indicate that he continued to brew draught ale and Sanborn maps show few changes to the brewery. These maps list the building as “dismantled” in 1900, but the plant was not torn down for many years.

• Brewery Creek (1998–present)
• 23 Commerce Street

Brewery Creek may have the most picturesque and historic location of any of Wisconsin’s brewpubs. The creek from which the establishment takes its name is where John Phillips started the first brewery in Wisconsin. Brewery Creek is housed in an 1854 building that was originally a railroad warehouse and was later used for agricultural implements and a veterinary surgery. When Deb and Jeff Donaghue and their daughter Nelle purchased the building in 1995 it had a dirt floor and a lot of boarded up windows and doors. By 1998, they had converted the space into a restaurant, brewery, and bed-and-breakfast inn.

Jeff Donaghue started homebrewing in 1967—well before it was legal. His brews at Brewery Creek represent a range of historical styles and classic ales. He has brewed a porter based on an 1750 recipe, and other creations like a Scottish stout. His shandies are among the most popular of his “cracking good beers.”1565

Minocqua (Oneida County)

• Minocqua Brewing Company (1998–present)
• 238 Lake Shore Drive

Minocqua Brewing Company began brewing in 1998. The building was originally a Masonic Lodge (it also served as an Evangelical Free Church) and is located on the shore of a peninsula that juts into Minocqua Lake. The first iteration of the brewpub was founded by five partners who developed a taste for craft beer on their western hunting trips. Under brewmaster Rick Mayer, Minocqua Brewing developed a strong local following with a variety of beer styles. In early 1999, the brewery hosted the first-ever Ice Cold Beer Fest, a fundraiser for local charities (and which has become an official festival of the Wisconsin Craft Brewers Guild). Minocqua began bottling some of its beers later that year, beginning with Northern Wheat Ale and Pale Ale under the Island City brand—making them the first bottled beers from Oneida County since Rhinelander Brewing Co. closed in 1967. Early on, the beer was packaged in liter and half-liter bottles, but the Minocqua purchased the assets of Far Superior Brewing Co. (of Colorado) which provided them with bottling equipment for 12-ounce bottles.1566

Ryan White had no previous brewing experience when his family bought Minocqua Brewing after a fire in 2004. He trained at South Shore and Stone Cellar and then took over the brewing reins in Minocqua when the brewpub reopened in 2006. Minocqua Brewing has itself been a training ground for brewers, including Deb Loch, who co-founded Urban Growler in St. Paul—Minnesota’s first all-female-owned brewery.1567

Mishicot (Manitowoc County)

• Vierth & Fick (1867?–1868?)
• Julius Linstedt (1868?–1884)
• John George Scheuer (1884–1904)
• Mishicot Brewing Co. (1904–1921)
• 3 Rockaway Street, South Side of Twin River

Vierth & Fick are only known from a single excise tax entry in December 1867. It is possible that this business was taken over by Julius Linstedt, though it may have been a separate location. The Manitowoc Pilot confirmed that a brewery was in operation by October 1867, but did not name the proprietors.1568

Julius Linstedt (spelled a variety of ways) first appears in the R. G. Dun & Co. credit reports in early January 1869, so it is likely that he was in possession of the brewery prior to that time. (The transfer is not confirmed in the excise records.) An account from 1935 claims that Linstedt built the brewery in 1864, and if this was the case, Vierth and Fick may have rented or leased the brewery for a short period. Linstedt’s brewery was small—only producing 400 barrels with two workers in 1870, but the proprietor was highly regarded. The Dun reports included notes like “[good] man in all respects,” and “first class man.” He was also chairman of the County Board in 1880, and “held most of the local offices.”1569 Toward the end of the decade, Linstedt was able to increase production to more than 700 barrels a year, which was respectable for a small-town brewery at the time. However, Linstedt fell ill in 1883, and died in early 1884.

Area farmer John George Scheuer purchased the brewery in 1884, and continued to develop the brewery. His capacity remained between 500 and 1,000 barrels during the 1880s, and industry directories indicate that he added a malt house sometime during the 1890s. Early in the twentieth century, Scheuer added a bottling plant, though it is not clear when. The first mention of bottling in annual reports was in 1911, though breweries often made no special mention of bottling in these very minimal reports. The brewery was incorporated in 1904 with an infusion of Milwaukee capital, and while Scheuer was not among the original incorporators, he was still with the firm as brewmaster and became a director a few years later. The brewery continued to operate through 1918, but the 1919 annual report indicated that the company did not conduct business that year. A note on the 1920 report indicated: “We have reduced the value of our capital stock, since our business is obsolete and our property has decreased in value through enforced idleness.”1570 The corporation dissolved in July 1921, but Scheuer’s sons stayed in business making soft drinks for a while under the name Scheuer Beverage Co.

An attempt was made to restart the brewery after Prohibition. The Scheuer family sold the business to Chicago investors led by Albert Diamond, Benjamin Bortz and Philip Heller, but they ran short of funds after starting extensive improvements and were unable to meet their obligations. Gertrude Scheuer sued to get the brewery back, and then sold it to the firm of Stelzer & Schmidt, but the brewery was never restarted.1571

Monroe (Green County)

• Bissinger (1845–48)
• John Knipschilt (1848–1857?)
• Esser & Hermann (1858–1861)
• John Hermann (1861–66)
• Ruegger & Kolb (1867–68)
• Ed Ruegger & Co. (1868–1871)
• Ruegger & Hefty (1871–74?)
• Jacob Hefty (1874?–1890)
• Hefty & Son (1890–91)
• Hefty & Blumer (1891)
• Adam Blumer, Monroe Brewery (1891–1906)
• Blumer Brewing Co. (1906–1920)
• Blumer Products Co. (1920–1933)
• Blumer Brewing Corp. (1933–1943)
• Blumer Brewing Co. (1943–47)
• Joseph Huber Brewing Co. (1947–1985)
• Jos. Huber Brewing Co. (1985–89)
• Berghoff-Huber Brewing Co. (1989–1990)
• Jos. Huber Brewing Co. (1990–2006)
• Minhas Craft Brewery (2006–present)
• 102 Emerson/Modern

Very little is known about the founder of the founder of this brewery, including the first name of Mr. Bissinger, or exactly when he started the brewery.1572 Some accounts from the period suggested that his brewery supplied customers up to ninety miles away. German immigrant John Knipschilt (or Knipschild) acquired the business around 1848. The 1850 industrial census reported his output as 360 barrels, which sold for about $5.00 each. In February 1855 the jail across from the brewery caught fire, but the flames were reportedly doused “with the contents of some large vats inside” the brewery. While it is possible that the vats contained water rather than beer, the story that a fire was put out with beer was certainly more appealing.1573 Knipschilt operated the brewery and its malt house until at least 1857, when he offered to pay Janesville prices for barley.1574 When George Esser and John Hermann purchased the business in 1858, Esser claimed “it had not been in operation for some time and was in a rather neglected state, necessitating extensive repairs on the brewing kettle, and a number of other improvements, such as two cellars, a malt mill and a malt drier. By the end of October we were ready for operation and by mid-November we sold our first beer.”1575

Esser made great claims for the expanded market of the brewery: “Gradually our business extended, until finally only a very negligible amount of beer was shipped into our territory from outside breweries.” While he claimed his delivery range extended twenty-three miles from the brewery including three locations in Illinois, production in 1860 was 400 barrels—only ten percent more than a decade earlier. A dispute between the partners in 1861 resulted in John Hermann staying in Monroe and Esser returning to the Madison area.1576 Hermann operated the brewery until 1866, when he went out of business.1577

The next owner, Captain Edward Ruegger, took over the brewery sometime prior to May 1867. His first partner was Abraham Kolb, who also owned a hotel and saloon in Monroe but was in financial trouble.1578 In 1869 Ruegger found a new partner, Jacob Hefty, though Hefty’s name did not appear on the business until 1871. With Hefty’s arrival, the brewery began to grow rapidly—jumping from 858 barrels in 1871 to 1,122 the next year and over 1,300 two years later. Ruegger sold out to Hefty in 1874 and went into the grocery business in Monroe.1579 Hefty’s brewery suffered a disastrous fire in late December 1875. The total loss including building and contents was nearly $20,000. What was left of the thirty-foot wall of the brewery fell onto the Hefty residence a few days later, though the family had feared this outcome and had evacuated the premises.1580 Ten years later the brewery was struck by fire again—this time believed to be arson because kerosene was found on the site.1581

In 1885 Hefty brought his brother-in-law Adam Blumer on as a partner, and sold his share of the brewery to Blumer in July 1891. (Hefty was married to Catherine Blumer, and Adam was married to Margaret Hefty).1582 Once he became sole proprietor, Blumer immediately began an expansion program which featured a new warehouse designed by Chicago architect August Maritzen. Blumer also installed a ten-horsepower steam engine in the brewhouse that year.1583 In 1895, the Monroe Evening Times carried a front-page feature with extensive details of the installation of a new Vilter ice machine, and at around the same time the company added a bottling plant.1584 Despite the ice machine, the brewery continued to harvest ice (8,000 tons in 1898-9), mostly for shipment to its saloons.1585 The business continued to prosper, and advertisements appealed as much to customers’ sense of business as flavor:

We Don’t Play Marbles. We get right down to business every day in the week. We run our business in a business-like manner. We don’t descend to any trickery in order to gain a few pennies. We think more of the life long trade of a customer before we do of an extra ten per cent. profit on each sale. We believe we are going to last much longer than the other man. If you like this way of duing busines [sic] send us your order for a case of beer.1586

Though under different owners, this brewery definitely outlasted “the other man.”

The year 1899 was a busy one for Blumer’s brewery. The company continued to expand its plant, building new stables to accommodate increased shipments. Output reached nearly 9,000 barrels, though the Monroe Weekly Times noted that while production was up over 800 barrels the amount paid for revenue stamps more than doubled to $17,636, mostly because of the extra tax imposed to fund the Spanish-American War. Blumer brought in a new foreman (brewmaster), Conrad Haberstumpf, formerly of Detroit, who remained through 1905. The company also purchased two railroad boxcars painted yellow and with the same monogram and lettering as used on the labels for shipping to outside markets, which now included Darlington and Mineral Point.1587

The company incorporated in 1906 and continued to grow steadily in the years preceding Prohibition, with the most noteworthy addition being a new bottling plant in 1907 to meet the still increasing demand.1588 Adam Blumer also prepared for the future by giving increased responsibility to his sons Fred J., Jacob C. and Adam Jr. When Adam Sr. died in 1918, Fred took over the brewery, but could only shepherd the brewery into the dry years and oversee the conversion to other products. In addition to soft drinks and near beer, the company also made ice cream and was a distributor for farm and road machinery.1589

The Prohibition years were difficult for the Blumer family as well as the brewery. Fred Blumer originally leased the plant to a group of Chicago investors, but when one of them was found to have gang ties, Blumer took control again and reorganized the company with Ripon-based investors Charles Storeck and A. E. Wells joining the company. Blumer Products was raided in March 1925, and the officers were charged with violating the Prohibition Act by “flooding southern Wisconsin with high grade beer.” While the charge of “flooding” may have been a press exaggeration, the “high grade” was not because two cases seized were found to be eight percent alcohol.1590 A much bigger crisis came in April 1931, when Fred Blumer was kidnapped in front of his residence. The case became a national sensation, and was only resolved a week later when Blumer was released in Decatur, Illinois without payment of the $150,000 ransom which the kidnappers had demanded. (The ransom demand was reduced to $50,000 after it became clear that Blumer was not the wealthy beer baron the kidnappers had thought.) The Blumer family was traumatized by the event, and seldom spoke of it in subsequent years. Fred even refused to identify the suspected kidnappers after arrests were made.1591

When it became clear that real beer was on the way back in 1933, Blumer Brewing made a swift conversion and already had 3,000 barrels of real beer aging by mid-March. Golden Glow returned to its former designation as beer rather than “special brew” as an estimated 350,000 bottles left the plant on 7 April—headed for points as distant as Champaign and Urbana, Illinois, and Minneapolis.1592 Fred Blumer remained in charge of the brewery until 1937, when he resigned in the midst of financial struggles at the brewery.

The company was taken over by Carl O. and Robert F. Marty (along with other investors), who were much better known as owners of cheese factories and developers of vacation properties than for their brewing. The brothers maintained control until 1941, when a group of employees leased the brewing operations, though the Monroe Marty Corp. continued to own the building and equipment and to store and cure cheese in a portion of the factory. The employee group was headed by Joseph Huber, who served as president and general manager. Huber, a Bavarian immigrant, had arrived in Wisconsin in 1923 and worked at Schlitz for four years before taking a position at Blumer Brewing. The new management decided to scale back production to 25,000 barrels and the distribution range to fifty miles in order to have a more manageable and profitable business.1593 In 1947, the company made slight alterations to the business and changed the name to Jos. Huber Brewing Co.—a name that would remain until the next century. While most of the management team remained the same, the company planned two big changes: introducing a new product called Huber Beer and installing canning equipment. At this point, the company was producing over 30,000 barrels per year and distributing the Golden Glow and Hi-Brau brands in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, North and South Dakota, and Minnesota as well as in Wisconsin.1594

Despite the original plan to focus on the local market, Jos. Huber Brewing Co. expanded significantly and became the largest of Wisconsin’s small-town breweries. (The story of Huber’s rise and transformation is covered in detail in chapter 10.)

Huber was successful with its own brands, but was also an important brewer of beer for other companies. Some of these, like Vienna Brewing Co.’s Vienna Style lager, were critically acclaimed and fairly successful. After first being brewed at Hibernia in Eau Claire, Vienna shifted production to Huber in 1986, and shortly thereafter was available in eight states, including craft beer hotspots Colorado and Oregon as well as several in the Upper Midwest.1595 Not all contract brews were as noteworthy. The typical store brands were undistinguished, and one label caused several headaches. The brewery had been in discussions with Wilde’s Brewing Co. of Sacramento, California, to brew a brand called Wilde’s that was to be marketed to homosexual men. When negotiations broke down in early 1986, Wilde’s claimed that Huber backed out of the agreement fearing backlash from conservative heterosexual male drinkers, and hired renowned California attorney Melvin Belli to recover damages. Huber countersued, claiming there had never been a contract and therefore the company had no liability.1596

Berghoff beer emerged as the salvation of the business after a very 1980s-style financial deal soured. In 1985, Fred Huber was burned out and looking for relief. The answer appeared to be a sale to MTX Co., Inc., a holding company founded by former Pabst executives William Smith and R. Craig Werle. For a couple years, all went well. But the brewery had been purchased through a leveraged buyout, and as was the case with many similar deals, the load of debt forced the new owners to sell off assets to meet obligations. The most important asset of Huber Brewing was the Augsburger label, and in 1988 it was sold to Stroh Brewing Co. of Detroit (and was subsequently brewed at the former Hamm Brewing Co. plant in St. Paul, Minnesota). At the same time, Smith and Werle wound down operations at the Monroe brewery, ceasing production in November. (The return of Fred Huber and the eventual sale to the Minhas family is covered in chapter 10.)

• Leuenberger & Co. (1867–1879)
• G. Leuenberger (1879–1880)
• G. Leuenberger & Co. (1880–83)
• Jefferson & Racine Streets

Civil War veteran Gottlieb Leuenberger started the second brewery in Monroe sometime in 1867, since his first appearance in the excise records was in September of that year.1597 During 1868 Leuenberger had a partner named Schuler, and starting in 1872 the “Co.” was John Somer. The brewery grew gradually from over 800 barrels per year in 1871 to 1,365 in 1879. While a few hundred barrels smaller than neighbor Jacob Hefty’s brewery, Leuenberger still had one of the larger small-town breweries in the state. Leuenberger did not suffer as heavily from fire as Monroe’s other brewery, though small fires hit both the brewery and his residence in the late 1870s.

Despite the promising growth, the brewery had underlying financial problems. In 1883 the brewery failed, and the R. G. Dun & Co. reported “[t]he failure was a surprise to everyone.” Many investors in the business lost their entire stake. Leuenberger later moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1891.1598

Montello (Marquette County)

• H. Wild (1856?–1858?)
• Joseph Boreshcake? (1859?–1860?)

H. Wild was included as a brewer in the 1857 and 1858 Wisconsin state business directories. Joseph Boreshcake, a Hungarian immigrant, was listed as a brewer in the 1860 population census, though not in the industrial census. He owned $300 of real property, which suggests that the brewery was a small one.

Mount Calvary (Fond du Lac County)

• Matthias Bourgeois (1875–1883?)
• Henry Michels (1883?–1887)
• John A. Wirth, Mount Calvary Brewing Co. (1887–1890)
• John A. Wirth & Co. (1890–1900)
• Neis Bros., Mt. Calvary Brewery (1900–1914)
• Mt. Calvary Brewing Co. (1914–16)

Matthias (Mathew) Bourgeois moved to Mount Calvary (often listed as Marshfield Township) in 1875, and soon after started a brewery. Some sources suggest that Bourgeois purchased the brewery from an unnamed previous brewer.1599 He also kept a general store and owned sixty acres of land in the city. During the late 1870s he produced over 900 barrels of beer each year. While some sources indicate that he kept the brewery until 1884, the R. G. Dun & Co. records report that he had sold the brewery to Henry Michels by February 1883 (and the sale was probably earlier). Michels (spelled Michel later in Eau Claire) made the Mount Calvary brewery one of the shorter stops in his career that started with Phillip Best and ended at the Eagle Brewery in Eau Claire. He built the business quickly and doubled production from his first year to his second.1600

In 1887 Michels purchased the Ehrgott brewery in Neenah, and the Mount Calvary brewery was acquired by John Wirth with the support of the Neis brothers, John and Mathias.1601 Wirth remained with the firm until 1900 when he retired to his farm, and the Neis (Neiss) brothers took over. The 1900 census lists the older brother Mathias as a beer peddlar [sic] and John as a beer brewer. As of 1910, the brewery included three buildings, was powered by a relatively small twenty-horsepower boiler, and employed three men. The brothers continued the brewery until 1916, when it was sold to Plymouth Brewing Co. and used as a depot.

Mount Horeb (Dane County)

• Mount Horeb Pub & Brewery (1998–2000)
• Grumpy Troll (2000–present)
• 105 South Second Street

Mount Horeb Creamery and Cheese Company built a creamery in 1916, and later added another building to manufacture Swiss cheese. Starting in 1945, Ryser Brothers Cheese Company operated the plant for more that forty years. After it closed, the building remained vacant until Pat and Gail Proposom purchased it in 1996 and undertook a two-year remodeling project and opened Mount Horeb Pub & Brewery. They sold it two years later to a group of local businessmen who wanted to make sure the city still had a destination restaurant. After additional remodeling in 2000, the brewpub reopened as Grumpy Troll, to emphasize Mount Horeb’s reputation as “Troll Capital of the World.”1602

The brewpub has been through multiple ownership changes and multiple brewmasters, but has maintained a solid reputation for both food and beer. It is a very rare brewpub that considers its flagship to be a Russian imperial stout, as was the case for many years with Spetsnaz Stout. In recent years, Grumpy Troll has added some sour beers. Grumpy Troll was also among the first Wisconsin brewpubs to develop a relationship with local homebrewers. Winners of the Grumpy Troll Challenge (co-sponsored by the Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild) were given the opportunity to brew their beer at Grumpy Troll.1603

Mukwonago (Waukesha County)

• J. K. Silver Brewing Co. (1996–99)
• 621 Baxter Drive

J. K. Silver Brewing Co. was a short-lived microbrewery located in Mukwonago, just southwest of Waukesha. The first beer to be released was an amber ale, followed by a premium lager and a wheat beer. J. K. Silver products were available on draught and in bottles in a seven-county area.1604

Muscoda (Grant County)

• Joseph Roggy & Co. (1856?–1865)
• John D. Pfiester (1865–67?)

• Meyer & Pfiester (1867?–69)
• Meyer & Postel (1869–1870)
• Postel & Hüppeler (1870–1884?)
• John Postel (1874?–1886)
• Phillip Geiser (1886–1894)
• Lampe & Kaiser (1894–98)
• William Lampe, Muscoda Brewery (1898–1904)
• George Lampe, Muscoda Brewery (1904–6)
• Muscoda Brewing Co. (1906–7)
• West of Wisconsin Avenue on the Wisconsin River

In 1851, Bavarian brewer Joseph Roggy arrived in Muscoda and several years later built a brewery along the Wisconsin River. By 1857, Roggy’s brewery had a reputation for being “a good and quietly conducted brewery”—apparently referring to the lack of incidents on the premises.1605

In the 1860 census the only brewer listed appeared to be (in very poor handwriting) Frederick Fouty, a native of Wurtenberg. While he had no property, he owned $1,000 of personal property, which may well have included brewing equipment. Since Roggy was not included in that year’s census, he may have leased the brewery to Fouty for a time.

Excise taxes record several ownership changes in the late 1860s and early 1870s. John D. Pfiester (Pfleisterer) left the Muscoda brewery for the St. Charles Hotel in the same city.1606 John Postel was the one common figure—remaining at the brewery from 1869 through 1886 (though he was given several middle initials, probably due to transcription errors). In 1870 the brewery employed three men year-round to make 500 barrels of beer (which sold for $8.00 per barrel). Production advanced from 605 barrels in 1871 to 834 the following year. In 1874 Postel & Hüppeler (various spellings) “made valuable improvements” which increased capacity. The partnership dissolved in December 1874: Hüppeler sold his share to Postel for $6,000 who continued alone.1607 The enlarged brewery was struck by fire in May 1877, but rebuilding began immediately.1608 By the end of the decade the firm was well established, with production approaching 1,600 barrels per year. Hüppeler apparently returned to the business at least once and maybe twice, since the R. G. Dun & Co. records report the partnership dissolving again in 1880, and some accounts report another split after the 1884 fire.

Phillip Geiser purchased the brewery in late 1886 or early 1887. He apparently ran into financial trouble within a few years, and in January 1894 attempted to take his own life over these concerns and family matters. Milwaukee brewery supplier Emil Kiewert purchased the brewery, and Lampe & Kaiser took a mortgage and prepared to operate it. The brewery was scheduled to be sold a few days later. It burned in July of the same year, causing between $10,000 and $15,000 of damage, but was rebuilt with improvements.1609

Between 1899 and 1904, George Lampe built a small bottling house on the property. But once again, the brewery fell victim to fire, this time in August 1907.1610 While Lampe and his partners filed articles of incorporation that year, they did not rebuild and the brewery remained vacant for several years before being torn down.

Namur (Door County)

• Charles Marchant (Mexime) (1872?–1876?)

During the early 1870s, Charles Marchant (though his first initial often appeared to be something else in some records) ran a very small brewery in Namur, in Union Township. He first appeared in the excise records in 1872, and Schade reported his production in 1874 and 1875 as forty and twenty-five barrels, respectively. This brewery is sometimes listed under the name Charles Mexime, who may have been the same person with a garbled spelling.1611 While Marchant is still in the 1876 state business directory, he may have closed either earlier or later. It is not clear when he stopped brewing.

Neenah (Winnebago County)

• Loyal (Harvey?) Jones (1846?)
• “Bank of River”

The origins of the first brewery in Neenah are colorful but unclear. (They are also somewhat complicated by the tendency of accounts to blend or confuse Neenah and Menasha.) According to a 1908 history of Winnebago County drawing on the account of early missionary Rev. O. P. Clinton:

In an early day one Jones, of Welsh extraction, or some other honorable nationality, dropped into our settlement and proposed to start a respectable brewery. Some questions arose between the proprietors of the soil and the would-be brewer, as to the site of such an institution. John Kimberly, Esq., [a founder of the company that would later become the paper giant Kimberly-Clark] had chosen Neenah as his home and he was thought to be a competent adviser in this grave matter. The question was therefore proposed in a business-like manner: “Mr. Kimberly, where do you think would be the best site for a brewery?” The characteristic reply was, “In h—l, sir!” But this opinion of Mr. Kimberly’s was overruled by other counsel, who thought the machine could be run more successful [sic] in Neenah. And so it was erected upon the beautiful banks of the Fox river, in full view of Mr. Kimberly’s residence.1612

This Jones was most likely Loyal Jones, brother of one of the early investors in the city. (A different account claimed that Kimberly said “In Hades, sir, in Hades,” and that the brewery was not built.)1613 There were no further reports of Jones’ brewery, and he was not listed as a brewer in the 1850 census.

• Jacob Lachmann (1856–1872)
• Frank Ehrgott (1872–74)
• Ehrgott Bros. (1874?–79)
• Adam W. Ehrgott, Neenah Brewery (1879–1901)
• Henry Angermeyer, Neenah Brewery (1901–5)
• Estate of Henry Angermeyer, Neenah Brewery (1905–6)
• Neenah Brewery, Oscar Doerr (1906–1910)
• Neenah Brewing Co. (Louis Sorenson) (1910–11)
• 129 North Lake Street

Traditional sources recount that Jacob Lachmann may have started brewing in Neenah as early as 1856, though the R. G. Dun credit report from 1868 claimed he had been in business for eight years to that point.1614 Research by Lee Reiherzer found that Lachmann purchased the property in 1856 and by the next January the brewery was already present.1615 In 1870 he appears to have had a junior partner, Christian Ernst, and the industrial census reported their production at 400 barrels, sold at the prevailing local price of $8.00. Lachmann remained in charge of the brewery until 1872, when he sold the brewery to Frank and Adam Ehrgott.

While Adam’s name is most commonly associated with the business, it appears that Frank made the original purchase. According to Dun, Frank came from Titusville, Pennsylvania, and “invested pretty much his pile in this purchase. [He was] [p]retty sharp but lacks experience.” In late 1874 he deeded part of the brewery to Adam and the firm was then known as Ehrgott Brothers. Adam left the business for a time in 1877 after he “got in a ‘scrape’ with a woman,” but eventually returned. In 1879 he took over the brewery from Frank.1616 Production seems to have remained around 400 barrels, though several industry directories listed Ehrgott’s capacity as between 500 and 1,000 barrels. Henry Michel purchased the brewery in 1887 for $10,000, leaving his brewery at Mount Calvary to be in a larger market.1617 However, he soon left for Eau Claire, and Ehrgott resumed operation of the brewery. Ehrgott improved the brewery over the years: building a new brewhouse in the mid-1880s and adding icehouses as needed. While the brewery had malting facilities, according to Sanborn insurance maps they were out of use by the 1890s (though they were still listed in industry directories). In addition, insurance maps and industry directories differ on whether the brewery bottled beer. The maps do not show any bottling plant, though the directories indicate they offered bottled beer (possibly packaged by an independent bottler).

Very little is known about the operations during the last years of the brewery. The company did little that made the newspapers or industry journals and appears to have produced only a limited quantity for a local audience. Henry Angermeyer purchased the brewery in November 1901, but drowned in Neenah Slough, near the brewery, in 1905. Oscar Doerr, former brewmaster at White Eagle Brewery in Chicago, bought the brewery from the estate in 1906. He operated it until 1910 when he sold it to Louis Sorenson. Sorenson was in possession for just over a year before selling it to Walter Bros. Brewing Co. of Menasha. The new owners apparently had no interest in the brewery itself because they soon replaced it with the Lakeside Hotel.1618

• Lion’s Tail Brewing Co. (2015–present)
• 116 South Commercial Street

Alex Wenzel left chemical engineering for brewing and opened Lion’s Tail Brewing Co. in November 2015. It is housed in the former Equitable Reserve Association Building, and the old vault once used for cash and securities is now available for small private parties. The building presented some difficulties in the build out—because there was no cargo entrance, all the brewing equipment had to be designed to fit through a large window opening.1619

Wenzel’s beers include traditional ale and lager styles, as well as a few rarities. In 2016, he offered Custom Pale Ale, which was an American Pale Ale which customers could dry-hop themselves at the bar using a French coffee press and hops they selected.1620

Neillsville (Clark County)

• Neillsville Brewery
• William Neverman & Co. (Lewis Sontag) (1869–1880)
• William Neverman (1880–82)
• John Forster (1882–85)
• Ernest (Ernst) Eilert (1885–1898)
• Kurt Listemann (1898)
• Neillsville Brewing Co. (1898–1920)
• State and Second (modern Sixth) Streets

Like several other brewers of his generation, William Neverman was a veteran of the Civil War, having served in the 14th Wisconsin regiment. He had a wide-ranging business in the late 1860s: he operated a grocery store and a saloon, was a carpenter and joiner, and, in 1869 opened the first brewery in Clark County. He and his partner, Lewis Sontag (the 1870 census erred by two days and called him Freitag), gave up the carpentry part of the business in 1873 to focus on the brewery in what was then sometimes called Pine Valley.1621

Neverman and Sontag made steady improvements to their property during the 1870s, boosting production from about 250 in 1870 to over 600 barrels five years later. The partnership dissolved in 1880 (some sources say 1879) and Neverman carried on alone. However, the next owner of the brewery was already employed there—John Forster, who took over after Neverman suffered financial setbacks in 1882. Forster ran the brewery until 1885.

Since at least 1883, there had been rumors that Ernest Eilert, the brewer in nearby Humbird, was interested in the Neillsville property. 1622 In 1885, Eilert moved from Humbird to Neillsville to take over the smaller brewery in the bigger city. Eilert quickly moved to expand the plant, and by 1887 the Sanborn insurance map claimed the capacity of the brewery was 5,000 barrels. Throughout the next decade he continue to improve his brewery so that by 1897 the brewery was powered by steam, was hooked up to the city water supply, and the old cooper shop was converted into a bottle house.

In 1898 Kurt Listemann became the new brewmaster and one of the incorporators of the Neillsville Brewing Co. The brewery had a strong local trade but remained modest in size, employing only four men in 1908. The brewery remained in production until Prohibition, when it closed. The plant was converted to the Clark County Canning Co., and while there was discussion of bringing brewing back after Prohibition, these plans did not materialize.

Neosho (Dodge County)

• Frank Keoline (1869–1875)
• Jacob Binder, Neosho Brewery (1875–1912)
• Neosho Brewing Co. (1912–14)
• Sebastian Niedermair, Neosho Brewing Co. (1914–16)
• Neosho Brewing Co. (1934–37)

Frank Keoline (spelled various ways) first appears in the excise records in March 1869. He appears to have run the brewery until about 1875, when he sold it to Jacob Binder. Binder came to Neosho from Theresa, where he had been employed in the brewery of his late uncle, Benedict Weber.1623 Binder operated the brewery for nearly forty years, mostly by himself until the 1890s when his son Joseph was old enough to help. Binder’s brewery usually produced less than 500 barrels per year, though excise records reveal that during a few years in the early 1900s he produced more than that amount and had his tax reassessed.

Sebastian Niedermair (or Niedermaier) acquired the Neosho Brewing Co. in 1914 and operated it for a short time before encountering financial difficulties. The pre-Prohibition story of the Neosho brewery is difficult to research since the business appeared only rarely if at all in the usual sources such as industry journals, newspapers or maps.

During Prohibition, Milwaukee resident Henry Bully purchased the brewery with the intent of making malt syrup.1624 After the return of beer, Bully incorporated a new Neosho Brewing Co. with his wife Margaret and Paul Floss.1625 By 1934 beer was flowing, but not very fast. Production was usually around 200 barrels per month, and only occasionally exceeded 300 barrels. Neosho Brewing bottled mostly in 12-ounce containers, though they occasionally packaged a few cases of 64-ounce picnic bottles. By mid-1937 production dipped below 200 barrels, and brewing ceased in October. In the meantime, the company was in trouble with both state and federal officials for failure to file required documents or to pay taxes. Ultimately the U.S. Attorney decided not to prosecute since the disposition of the case could not possibly cover the time and expense it would take.1626

Newburg (Washington County)

• Robert Schwalbach (1871–1893)
• Henry Schwalbach (1893–99)
• 315 Main Street

Robert Schwalbach (spelled various ways) probably started brewing sometime in 1871, though he first appears in the excise records in May 1872. He had prior experience in the hospitality industry, since the 1870 census lists him as a hotel keeper in nearby Trenton. In the early years, Schwalbach’s brewery brewed less than many early twenty-first century nanobreweries and even some dedicated homebrewers: only seventeen barrels in 1874 and thirty-six barrels in 1875. He boosted production to 132 barrels in 1879, but does not appear to have ever produced much more than 200 barrels per year. (An incomplete record in the 1895 Wisconsin industrial census suggests he brewed between 150 and 200 barrels at that point.)

It is likely that most of the beer he brewed was served at his own saloon, and in many records the saloon and brewery were mentioned together. According to the R. G. Dun & Co. records, Schwalbach had a good reputation as a businessman in the late 1870s and early 1880s.1627 In 1880 he had one employee, John B. Mayer. The excise reference in 1872 noted that Schwalbach was manufacturing weiss beer, but later industry directories listed him as a brewer of lager beer. Surprisingly for a brewery of this size, he not only bottled beer but also malted his own barley (according to industry directory listings). In later years, Robert’s son Henry took over the business and operated it for a few more years.

New Cassel (Auburn) (Fond du Lac County)

• John J. Langenbach (1865?–1870)
• John P. Husting (1870–1890)
• Hill and River Streets

John J. Langenbach appears to have begun brewing in New Cassel sometime in the mid-1860s. The 1865 state gazetteer lists the firm of Langenbosh [sic] and Bro. in Auburn, and he first appeared in the Dun & Co. reports in 1867 and the excise records in 1868. The 1868 Fond du Lac county gazetteer lists the business as Langenbach and Co., with John P. (Jean Pierre) Husting as Langenbach’s partner. (The same directory also listed F. Hochgrasle as a brewer with the firm.) The Dun reports indicated business was good, but by 1870 Langenbach had left the area and Husting was now proprietor.1628 The 1870 census lists fifty-four year-old brewer Thedor [sic] Husting as the owner of the property, but John’s name is in all other records.

Husting’s brewery appears to have remained below the 500-barrel threshold for small breweries throughout his ownership. The high points were in the early 1870s, when he approached 500 barrels, and in 1885, when the Wisconsin state industrial census reported his production at 450 barrels. The lowest recorded figures were in the late 1870s, when he made just over 200 barrels. Husting does not appear to have malted his own barley.

In February, 1890, Husting’s brewery was destroyed by fire. Newspaper accounts noted that the village had no fire department beyond a volunteer bucket brigade, making it difficult to fight the fire effectively. Husting’s loss was more than twice his insurance, so he did not rebuild the brewery. Some sources suggest he remained in business as a beer distributor for a time after the fire.1629

New Fane (Auburn Township) (Fond du Lac County)

• Benedict Mayer (1852?–1868?)

Benedict Mayer left his position with Ulrich Oberle’s brewery in Theresa to start a brewery in New Fane. Dodge County brewing historian Michael D. Benter states that Mayer only stayed in New Fane for about a year before moving to Mayville and starting a brewery there. He then sold that brewery to Martin Bachhuber.1630 Mayer appears to have returned to New Fane at some point, since he was included in the 1857 state business directory as a brewer at this location. He was listed as a brewer residing in Auburn Township in the 1860 census, and as a brewer and a butcher in an 1868 county directory.1631 By the 1870 census, Mayer had moved to Williamstown (Mayville) in Dodge County, had given up brewing and become a full-time butcher.

The 1860 census also lists H. A. Hebner as a brewer and owner of $1,500 worth of property in Auburn Township, in a reference eight pages from Mayer. This is the only reference to Hebner (or Heberer) as a brewer, but hints at the tantalizing possibility of another brewery in the area.

New Glarus (Green County)

• H. Temperlie?/Dr. Samuel Blumer? (1867–68)
• Hefty & Elmer (1869–1870)
• Jacob Hefty (1870?–1894)
• Gabriel Zweifel, New Glarus Brewery (1894–1913)
• New Glarus Brewing Co. (1913–17)
• Northeast Corner of Mollis & Diesback (Modern Third Street and Fifth Avenue)

While most sources claim that brewing in New Glarus began at various dates with Jacob Hefty, the excise records suggest the first brewer in the village was actually H. Temperlie, who first appeared in December 1867. It is possible that this is simply a really poor rendering of Hefty, and Temperlie does not appear in any other records. The county history of 1884 makes matters no better. At one point it claims that Dr. Samuel Blumer built the brewery, at another point it says the brewery was built by Blumer and Hefty, and gives several different dates for the arrival of the proprietors in the same volume.1632 Hefty was certainly on the scene in the late 1860s: one R. G. Dun & Co. report places him there as early as 1866, though another dates his business to 1870 (though this may have been the beginning of his sole proprietorship).1633 Dr. Blumer left New Glarus in 1868 or before, so his role in the operation of the brewery was minimal. In the 1870 census, Jacob Hefty and Werner Elmer were both listed as brewers owning $2,000 worth of property, so Elmer may have been brought on board to replace the capital previously provided by Blumer.

By early 1871, Hefty was on his own, and was one of two brewers in Green County of that name (the other was at Monroe). His business grew steadily from 147 barrels in 1871 to 800 barrels by the mid 1880s.

In 1894, Gabriel Zweifel purchased the brewery and began to expand it with the addition of a malt house and a bottling plant. The company was incorporated in 1913, with mostly Zweifel family members as officers. The company generally stayed out of the newspapers, though in 1914 a driver for the brewery was arrested and fined for selling beer in Dane County in violation of excise laws.1634

New Glarus stopped brewing in 1917, and the corporation dissolved effective 1 January 1918.1635 The brewery lay idle through Prohibition, though the plant was sold in 1924 to a Kenosha company that hoped to manufacture cereal products.1636 As with many other pre-Prohibition breweries, 1933 brought rumors that the brewery would be restarted. The Wisconsin State Journal reported “Chicago interests now owning the brewery plant plan to rehabilitate it and start the manufacture of 3.2 beer. Employment for a number of local people is foreseen.”1637 It appears that remodeling was started, because the new company was sued in 1934 for payment for some of the work.1638 The plans were soon abandoned, and brewing would not return to New Glarus for six decades.

• New Glarus Brewing Co. (1993–present)
• 119 Elmer Road (County Road W and State Highway 69)

Entrepreneur Deb Carey wanted to start her own brewery as a present for her husband Dan, an experienced brewmaster and brewery engineer. They decided on New Glarus over several other locations, and began to brew in 1993. During the first year of operation, New Glarus Brewing sold 2,446 barrels in a market limited to Green and Dane counties.1639

Within three years of opening, Dan Carey had given full vent to the creativity that had been bottled up while a production supervisor at Anheuser-Busch’s Fort Collins brewery. New Glarus had up to ten beers on the market at any given time, ranging from traditional Bavarian styles to Belgian-inspired fruit beers that earned international accolades. They purchased a set of used brewing equipment from a defunct Bavarian brewery to keep up with production without burning out the employees. By 1996 their Wisconsin Belgian Red had won gold at the Brewing Industry International Awards, and the next year they introduced Spotted Cow, which soon became a fixture in Wisconsin taverns. Soon, Spotted Cow became the prized acquisition for beer seekers traveling through Wisconsin. A short experiment with exporting to the Chicago, Rockford, and Peoria areas was not satisfactory for the Careys, so they returned to Wisconsin and thereafter limited their market to their home state. (This has not stopped people from trying to sell the beer elsewhere: in 2015 a Minnesota bar was fined for illegally serving Spotted Cow on draught, and Deb Carey cited two earlier occurrences in Illinois and New York.)1640

(Additional information about the early years of New Glarus Brewing Co. is found in chapter 10.)

Production grew slowly and steadily at first, but by the mid-2000s growth became almost exponential. In 2002, Deb Carey joked in 2002 that she would quit if New Glarus brewed more than 30,000 barrels in a year. In three years the company was already over 40,000, but Carey found “nobody will accept my resignation.”1641 In 2008, New Glarus shipped over 75,000 barrels, they passed the 100,000 mark in 2011, and in 2015 was just six thousand barrels short of 200,000—making it the eighteenth largest regional brewery in the country and the only one that distributed exclusively in its home state.

The success of the company was (and is) a combination of good management, creative yet understated marketing, and outstanding beers. In March 2011 Deb Carey was named Wisconsin Small Business Person of the Year, and that summer she was honored as first runner-up for National Small Business Person of the Year as well as being named an Upper Midwest Entrepreneur of the Year. She also met with President Obama and Vice President Biden as a member of the White House Business Council and was invited to sit in the First Lady’s box during the 2013 State of the Union address.1642 Later in 2013, she was a recipient of the Wisconsin Women of Achievement award.1643 Deb has been active in Wisconsin Brewers Guild Activities including lobbying and political contributions (to both parties).1644 Deb’s management of the brewery included overseeing numerous large expansions—all of which required working with the municipal government to remain a good corporate citizen. The Hilltop Brewery, completed in 2008, included a wastewater treatment system that reduced the pressure on the local sewer system. Both Deb and Dan have spoken about the importance of fostering a talented and dedicated workforce who sense that the management believes in them and are willing to embrace the mission of the company. The Careys were among the earliest craft brewers to offer full health care coverage to their employees, and a statement about the company’s support for universal health care has been a fixture on the company website FAQ section—right next to more typical questions about beer prices and merchandise.1645 The company is especially proud of their employment record, and takes satisfaction from the fact that employees have stayed with the company long enough to have retired from there—a rare occurrence in the early decades of craft brewing.1646

New Glarus Brewing has opted for a more subtle marketing strategy. The company has not made any neon signs, and most of the signs they have are small and simple in design.

Dan Carey’s path to brewing was different from many of the Wisconsin craft brewers who followed him—rather than starting as a homebrewer and turning professional he earned a degree from University of California, Davis, was valedictorian of his class at Siebel Institute in Chicago and worked as a production supervisor for Anheuser-Busch in Fort Collins, Colorado. He apprenticed at the world-renowned Ayinger brewery outside Munich and was the first American in more than a decade to pass the Master Brewer examination of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling in London.1647 While his background is deeply rooted in the brewing traditions of Europe and America, he has little interest in recreating old recipes. Rather, his goal is to take inspiration from classic styles and brew the best version that modern equipment and raw materials (especially Wisconsin-sourced where possible) will produce. One example of this was the Old English Porter, brewed in the early 2010s. The beer featured the “intense vinegar-like sourness” that was typical of this style in the 1870s, without being based on any particular recipe. (Many drinkers were expecting a porter with more pronounced malt sweetness, so it did not sell particularly well at retail outlets. The company recalled it and sold it at the brewery gift shop with a special notation that it was a sour beer. It sold out in a few weeks.) Dan has taken inspiration from photographs of old brewhouses, figuring out why brewers of the past set up their equipment as they did and what characteristics these brewhouses would produce in the beers.1648

Dan strives for a marriage of drinkability and complexity, but insists on incorporating passion into the beer. He has often compared making beer to making music—where the brewmaster is the conductor who directs all of the elements from raw materials to equipment to the brewing team. But Dan argues that in some ways we know less about brewing and its results than did brewers of some earlier generations because brewing often now uses techniques like dry-hopping and barrel-aging, as well as new varieties of grain, hops and all sorts of yeast strains.

New Glarus has been among the leaders of developing the craft beer movement, but has earned somewhat less credit because their beer is not distributed outside Wisconsin. This also informs how New Glarus views collaboration brews. Deb explained that collaboration beers are often inspired by brewing partnerships, but also with a goal of introducing a brewery to a new market, which was not a concern for New Glarus. The ability for Dan to work with skilled brewers like Randy Thiel, who came to New Glarus in 2008 after several years at Brewery Ommegang in New York, is a collaboration in its own way. Another beer that the Careys consider a collaboration is Two Women, which represents the productive relationship between New Glarus Brewing Co. and Weyermann Malting of Bamberg, Germany (the two women are Deb Carey and Sabine Weyermann, head of the German firm). In 2014 New Glarus finally worked with Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. of Chico, California on a multi-brewery collaboration—an English-style bitter called There and Back, created for Sierra Nevada’s Beer Camp Across America program. More recently, New Glarus teamed with Dirk Naudts of De ‘Proef Brouwerij in Lochristi, Belgium, to brew a dark Belgian ale called Abtsolution. Since it was sold through the Belgian firms importer, it was the first New Glarus beer many fans were able to buy without traveling to Wisconsin.1649

While best known among casual beer lovers for Spotted Cow or the fruit beers, over more than two decades New Glarus has offered nearly one hundred different brands of all types. Many of these beers were limited seasonal offerings, since Dan points out “beer is food, and you don’t eat the same things in February as you do in August.” A large number of these beers were inspired by Belgian styles and brewing processes. Production of these beers, which typically involve organisms that could contaminate the brewing equipment, became much less risky after the building of the Hilltop Brewery in 2008. The old brewery, now known as the Riverside Brewery, was dedicated to fruit beers and sour styles. The sour beer area is often referred to as “the ebola room” because of the need to decontaminate everything (and everyone) that comes out of the facility. In order to increase production of these unique beers (which despite their fame only amounted to about 4 percent of output in 2013) New Glarus built a new “wild fruit cave” in 2014, designed by the Careys’ architect daughter Katherine. The cave features a coolship, which is an open cooling vessel which chills the wort slowly and allows wild yeasts to enter. The aging beer is stored in large foeders—oak tanks more commonly used in wineries with a capacity of approximately 90 barrels each (2,800 gallons). New Glarus was the first U.S. brewery to use foeders in the 1990s, so this program was more of an expansion than an innovation. The first beers released from the cave were an Oud Bruin (old brown) and a gueze—both of which were used as base beers for other products such as Cran-bic.1650

As of this writing, the most recent development for New Glarus Brewing was the introduction of canned beer to the lineup. The first brand in cans was Moon Man pale ale, followed by Spotted Cow. The canned product exemplified the New Glarus commitment to locally sourced inputs with the cans themselves being made in Fort Atkinson and the 12-pack boxes made in Menasha.1651

(Additional photographs of the New Glarus Brewing Co. and its products are found in Chapters 1 and 10.)

New Lisbon (Juneau County)

• Joseph Hausmann (1857–59)
• Bierbauer & Fauerbach (1859–1862)
• Henry Bierbauer (1862–1902)
• Henry Bierbauer Estate (1902–1911)
• Bierbauer Brewery (1911–14)
• H. Bierbauer Brewing Co. (1914–16)
• Christmann Brewery (1933–37)
• Million Brewery, Inc. (1937–1941)
• 8 Monroe Street

The precise point at which Joseph Hausmann started brewing in New Lisbon is not clear, though it could not have been much before 1857 since he was in Portage for several years. He is included in the 1857 state business directory at New Lisbon, and ads that began in the Juneau County Argus in August 1858 proclaimed that Hausman (sic) was “Manufacturing the well known excellent New Lisbon Beer, [a]t his brewery near the Depot.”1652

At some point in 1859, Hausmann transferred control of the New Lisbon brewery to Peter Fauerbach and Henry Bierbauer (who was married to Barbara Fauerbach). The date the new partners took over is confused by advertisements in the Argus, which first feature their names in August, but revert to Hausmann in October for some reason. By the time of the 1860 census, Hausmann was in Madison working as foreman of the Sprecher brewery. Bierbauer came from a formidable brewing family: he worked for a time at the brewery of his brother Charles in Utica, New York, brother Louis operated a brewery in Canajoharie, New York, for many decades, and brother William operated a brewery in Mankato, Minnesota (in which brother Jacob was interested for a short time). In July 1862, Fauerbach sold his share in the brewery, and purchased a hotel in New Lisbon (though he later took over for Hausmann at the Sprecher brewery in Madison).1653 An 1892 county history lauded Bierbauer’s “prophetic eye seeing the future of New Lisbon,” but claimed “the building purchased of Mr. Hausmann was an unpretentious structure,” though it was large enough to produce nearly 800 barrels in 1871. Bierbauer built a substantial new brewery in 1878 and by 1885 the property also featured a barn, a shed and a wagon house. Bierbauer also had a saloon associated with the brewery, and he advertised that “[G]entlemen will find my brewery open at all lawful hours and are cordially invited to give me a call when in New Lisbon.” The county history account claimed that by 1892 he had expanded capacity to 10,000 barrels, but the 1895 industrial census showed production of only 150 barrels.1654 A bottling house was added between 1900 and 1902.

In 1894, a proposal to adjust the tariffs on certain imports resulted in a unique glimpse into Bierbauer’s operations (as well as those of several dozen other breweries around the country). In response to request for comment by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, a number of brewers sent in revealing responses to the circulated questions. Bierbauer was among the most complete, providing full production figures from 1874 through 1893 (while noting that “the books before 1874 were destroyed”). While production remained below 1,000 barrels from 1875 to 1882, average production in the following decade averaged about 1,200 barrels per year (it had been over 1,300 in 1874). Bierbauer also commented on the beer market, noting that “[w]e are not doing as much business [in 1894] as in 1892 on account of the competition of large breweries.” Bierbauer was politically active (including time as mayor of New Lisbon) and also offered his theory about the “present depression” (the Panic of 1893), which he attributed to “the Sherman silver bill and the present tariff law.” He also reported that the brewery employed three skilled workers at $1.50 to $2.00 per day for skilled labor and two unskilled laborers at $1.00 to $1.25 per day. The work week at his brewery in 1894 was sixty hours.1655

Bierbauer continued to prosper, and later partnered with Enoch Smart in a flour mill. Bierbauer died in March 1903, but the brewery continued to operate under the direction of Henry’s son Carl, first under the title Henry Bierbauer Estate, but starting in 1914 as the H. Bierbauer Brewing Co.1656 (Industry publications used these names interchangeably for several years.) The business did not survive to the start of Prohibition, closing near the end of 1916.1657

During Prohibition, the Christmann family bought the brewery and made near beer (as Christmann & Sauer), and later made brewers’ wort under the Juneau Products Co. name. The New Lisbon brewery was at the center of a local bootlegging ring with ties to Chicago during the later years of Prohibition. District Attorney Clinton G. Price and Sheriff Lyall T. Wright were both accused in 1930 of operating a protection racket that had involved both small local moonshiners and the New Lisbon brewery, which was employed to produce beer for shipment to Chicago. (Some newspaper accounts held that the beer was only distributed locally, but Chicago and Milwaukee residents were also indicted.) Price was acquitted, but was murdered a month later in what was believed to be a mob-related killing.1658

After Prohibition, the Christmanns changed the name of the company to Christmann Brewing Co., but in a move unusual for a small Wisconsin brewery, incorporated the business in Delaware rather than Wisconsin.1659 The company had some initial success with Wisconsin Select Lager Beer, which was available in La Crosse and even shipped to other states. Wisconsin Select was a draught-only product at first, but in 1934 Christmann installed equipment to package the beer in 64-ounce “picnic” bottles.1660 The brewery averaged about 7,000 barrels per year but was not a financial success, and in 1936 a federal judge appointed temporary trustees to manage the firm though the bankruptcy. At that point, the plant had capacity for about 30,000 barrels more than it was selling each year, and parties on all sides of the reorganization accused the other of bad management.1661

In 1937, the brewery was acquired by B. M. Million and renamed Million Brewery, Inc. The new ownership wanted to host a party to celebrate their new bottling plant (which could fill 12-ounce bottles) in March 1938 and give away a free lunch, but was told by state officials that they could only give away beer, and nothing else.1662 The new company kept the Wisconsin Select brand, but they produced only a few hundred barrels each month, and sales showed no sign of increasing. The company went bankrupt in early 1941, and production ceased.

(The Henry Bierbauer mansion still stands in New Lisbon, and was rehabilitated in the 2010s by its new owners.)

New London (Waupaca County)

• Joseph Lechner (1860?–1870)
• Becker, Beyer & Knapstein (1870–75)
• Theodore Knapstein & Co. (1875–1908)
• Knapstein Brewing Co. (1908–1920)
• New London Products Co. (1927–1933)
• Knapstein Brewing Co. (1933–1959)
• 505–511 East Cook Street

Sometime prior to 1860 Joseph Lechner began brewing in Hortonia Township, with the nearest post office at New London. He operated the small frame brewery for about a decade, though it is not clear how much or how often he brewed since he does not appear in the excise records. In the 1870 census of industry he reported producing 110 barrels of beer, which sold locally for $9 per barrel.

In 1871, Lechner sold the business to two brewers from Appleton, Edward Becker and Anton Beyer, and Theodore Knapstein, a farmer’s son from Greenville Township. (Some later accounts have Knapstein taking over in 1869 or even as early as 1861, but in 1861 he would have been twelve years old.)1663 The brewery cost the partners $5,000, of which Knapstein contributed $1,500 borrowed from his father. The partners expanded production to nearly 500 barrels in 1872. In 1875 Anton Beyer died and Knapstein bought out Becker’s share. The business was renamed Theodore Knapstein and Co., though according to the R. G. Dun & Co. reports, Beyer’s widow Mary retained a share in the business. Theodore Knapstein brought his brother Henry into the business, and the two continued as partners until 1908, when Henry sold his shares and Theodore brought his son Mathias into the firm.1664 The Knapsteins pushed production to 900 barrels a year by the end of the 1870s, with the aid of extensive improvements. The brewery malted its own barley for many years, and built a new malt house in 1892 to take advantage of new technology and to meet increased demand. The company did a steady business through the turn of the twentieth century. They built a new brewery in 1902 and added their own bottling works in 1908 (their beer had been bottled previously by City [later New London] Bottling Works, which was right across the corner from the brewery [and operated by Edward Becker, son of the former brewery partner]). The brewery employed a dozen men in 1910 and contributed almost as much to New London as the Knapstein family, several of whom served in the State Assembly, as mayor, or as other civic officials.

Knapstein Brewing Co. ceased brewing when Prohibition arrived, and the company went bankrupt in the mid-1920s. The bottling plant was sold to the Wolf River Ice Cream Co. (later Verifine Dairy Products) in 1922, and in 1928 the malt house was converted to a wort manufacturing plant under the ownership of Theodore’s son William M. Knapstein, William’s cousin William H. Knapstein of Greenville, and John Haug. One later account reports that no beer was brewed, but while that was true for the brewery, the family’s brewing career continued. In October 1927, William M. was arrested for operating “an alleged home brewery” in New London. One account reported “. . . federal officers declare that the Knapstein establishment was one of the largest home-brewery establishments ever raided, and that it was also one of the cleanest, everything being in immaculate condition. A complete brewery equipment was discovered [sic] including an eighteen-pint bottle washer . . .” Four men were working at the Knapstein home (not the old brewery plant), though the raid occurred while Mr. And Mrs. Knapstein were on a trip to Milwaukee. Knapstein was subsequently fined $250 and sentenced to six months in the workhouse, and his four employees were each fined $100.1665

As Prohibition drew to an end, Knapstein announced plans to invest $40,000 in renovating the building and sold its first beer in July 1933.1666 It also moved to re-establish its position in the crowded central Wisconsin market by sponsoring and participating in community events. In 1937, the brewery won the prize for the best commercial float in the New London Labor Day parade.1667 Knapstein advertised regularly in area newspapers, though the early ungrammatical slogan “The Beer for Select” eventually became the awkward though more plausible “The Beer Select” (Select Beer was a brand name prior to Prohibition).1668 The brewery generally gave the beers easily identifiable names such as Knapp’s, though they also revived the old pre-Prohibition Red Band brand for a time. Like many other small breweries, Knapstein offered a wide array of promotional items, including signs, trays, thermometers, coasters and other small items. One of the most striking was a mirror produced during the 1950s featuring President Eisenhower and advertisements for Knapstein’s Old Lager and Bohemian Style brands with the slogan “Let’s Keep America Great!”1669

Knapstein Brewing Co. benefitted from the same World War II-era surge as many other Wisconsin breweries, though the company also had problems adjusting to new regulations. In 1947, William Knapstein was fined $1,000 for using 25,294 pounds of grain above their brewing quota in 1946. In 1951, Knapstein Brewing Co. was ordered to change its waste disposal practices to avoid polluting the Wolf River.1670 While Knapstein continued to upgrade his equipment and was still able to exceed 10,000 barrels per year a few times even after these setbacks, increasing competition from larger breweries resulted in decreasing sales and profits. In 1957, sales dropped to about 5,000 barrels, and in 1958, William M. Knapstein died. His son Paul took over the brewery, but was only able to continue brewing for about two more years. The company ceased brewing in 1959 and the buildings were sold for other purposes. Berlin Brewing Co. bought the Knapstein labels, some of the equipment and a delivery truck.1671 The brewery was razed in 1970, though the former bottling house/dairy still stood as of 2016.1672 An obituary for Paul Knapstein reported that the brewing company was sold to Anheuser-Busch in the 1960s, and that Knapstein took a job with that company in Miami, but these stories had no basis in fact.1673

• Edward Becker, City Brewery (1875–1898)
• Main & South Water Streets (modern Algoma & Wolf River Streets)

In 1875, Edward Becker left the partnership with Anton Beyer and Theodore Knapstein, and started his own brewery in New London. The R. G. Dun & Co. reports noted that he was “making money” and “Stands well here,” and the approving reports continued through 1883 (when Dun & Co. abandoned this reporting method).1674 Becker got off to a fairly quick start, and was brewing over 500 barrels by 1878 (which qualified him as a “large” brewer by the standards of the era). Industry directories indicate that he did not malt his own barley, but between 1884 and 1887 he began to sell bottled beer, even though Sanborn insurance maps show no bottling works on the premises. (It is likely that his beer was bottled by City Bottling works, which the Becker family owned for several years.)

In general, local accounts generally ignored Becker’s brewery in favor of Knapstein’s, likely because the latter were more active in the community. In 1898 Becker sold the brewery to Knapstein Brewing, which used the premises for storage and keg pitching for a few years, before razing them.

Newport (Sauk County)

• Theo. Hoffman (1854?–1862?)

Theo. Hoffman operated a thriving brewery in the boomtown of Newport, though the accounts are piecemeal at best. According to the reminiscences of W. S. Marshall, who visited Newport in 1854, “. . . Hoffman was building what was, in those days, a mammoth brewery. . . .”1675 An article in the Daily State Journal from September 1858 describing the rivalry between the settlements of Kilbourn and Newport noted that while Newport was generally still on the decline, it still had a brewery.1676 The 1860 census of industry includes Hoffman, locating him in New Buffalo Township, and reports that he made a very respectable 1,000 barrels during the previous twelve months. The R. G. Dun & Co. credit reports locate Hoffman at Newport through early 1862 and indicate that he was doing a good business there.1677 However, Newport was doomed when the railroad went through Kilbourn instead, and most residents and businesses either moved to Kilbourn (later Wisconsin Dells) or went somewhere else altogether. The brewery cave remained for many years, rechristened the “Robbers’ Den,” but Hoffman was among those who moved to Kilbourn (covered under Wisconsin Dells).1678

New Richmond (St. Croix County)

• Brady’s Brewhouse (2011–15)
• 230 South Knowles Road

Chris Polfus founded Brady’s Brewhouse in 2010, but the brewery did not receive its brewing license until March 2011. Industry veteran Rick Sauer was the first brewer, and his assistant Luke Nirmaier took over when Sauer left. The brewpub featured a range of house beers, most of which were sessionable styles.1679

• Barley John’s Brewing Company (2015–present)
• 1280 Madison Avenue

John Moore had been running a successful brewpub in the Minneapolis suburb of New Brighton for nearly fifteen years when he decided he wanted to open a production brewery and sell his beers at retail establishments. Unfortunately, Minnesota law did not permit him to operate both a brewery and a brewpub within the state, so he looked across the river to New Richmond.

Ground was broken for the new brewery in September 2014, and brewing commenced the next year. Bob McKenzie, an experienced brewer and native of Scotland, was the brewmaster. The brewery is a separate company from the Minnesota brewpub, and while the regular lineup is the same at both establishments, the brewers at each location create their own seasonals and experimental beers.1680

North Lake (Waukesha County)

• Frederickson & Hanson (1866–67)
• Rasmus Frederickson, North Lake Brewery (1867–1910)
• Carl Hanson (1910–18?)
• N76W31364 Highway VV (Main Street)

Rasmus Frederickson was one of the rare immigrants from Denmark to own a brewery in Wisconsin. Family accounts hold that Frederickson was on his way west to start a brewery when he passed through North Lake, whose residents prevailed upon him to remain and start his brewery there. He founded the brewery with fellow Dane Christian Hanson in 1866, but in 1867 Frederickson bought out his partner and continued to operate the brewery until his death in 1910.1681

In the early 1870s, Frederickson only produced about seventy barrels per year, though by the end of the decade production averaged about 100 barrels per year. (Several local accounts suggest he produced 500 barrels a year, but this is most likely drawn from industry journal indications of capacity rather than production.) Entries in industry journals indicate several unusual features of Frederickson’s brewery. Around 1882 he was producing weiss beer in addition to lager, and as early as 1884 he was malting his own barley as well as bottling his beer. He may have had a malt house considerably earlier, since some accounts suggest that part of the reason he located the brewery in North Lake was to provide a more convenient market for area barley farmers. In the early twentieth century, Frederickson began to produce porter, which was not common for rural Wisconsin breweries, but was popular in Denmark. Being a producer of porter may have given Frederickson access to one unusual export market. According to local tradition, some of the porter was shipped to Chicago hospitals because of its healthy properties, and even as far as Florida. Several local accounts claim that one of Fredrickson’s beers (probably a version of the porter) reached 12 percent alcohol, which would have made it one of the strongest of its era.1682

Running a small brewery and saloon may seem like a romantic way to live, but it was not always lucrative. The credit reports of R. G. Dun & Co. from 1871 to 1883 indicate that Frederickson was generally in financial trouble, though not from any particular shortcomings on his part.1683 As owner of one of the few businesses in the small community, Frederickson had to wear multiple hats, including that of postmaster from 1872 until 1908. Local tradition holds that many wives were not pleased that the post office was in the brewery saloon, since their husbands went to check the mail much more often than they would have otherwise, and felt an obligation to drink a beer while there. As one of the few public facilities in town, the building also served multiple purposes, and Frederickson built a dance hall behind the brewery (and two others in the area around North Lake). Another section of the brewery was a small hotel, the Angler’s Inn.1684

As Frederickson aged he needed help running the brewery, but had no children to take over. He wrote back home to Denmark and invited his nephew, Carl Hanson, to come to North Lake and take over the brewery. Hanson’s eldest son Fred recalled bottling beer by hand during the last few years before Prohibition arrived and the brewery closed.1685

During and after Prohibition, the Hanson family engaged in a number of businesses in the old brewery to make a living. They installed gas pumps, sold soft drinks, and provided minnows for any anglers visiting the area. After Prohibition ended, the Hansons reopened the tavern, and Fred and Albert continued it after Carl’s death in 1936. Photos of the tavern show the changing brands advertised for sale: Weber Waukesha for a while, later Pabst Blue Ribbon. The tavern is still open as of this writing—owned by descendants of the Hansons—and has many artifacts from the brewery on display.1686

Oak Creek (Milwaukee County)

• Titus T. Luin (1855–57)

Titus T. Luin brewed at a number of breweries in the Milwaukee area during his career, including the pioneering Lake Brewery. For a short time in the late 1850s he was proprietor of his own brewery near the railroad station in Oak Creek, just south of Milwaukee. A public notice of the sheriff’s sale of the property indicated that Luin had purchased the property in February 1855. The brewery was advertised for sale in 1857, it also indicates that the business was “in working order with 200 barrels on hand.” It appears that the business was not sold to another brewer, since this brewery disappears from the records after the 1858 state business directory (likely compiled in 1857).1687

• Water Street Brewery (2015–17)
• 140 West Town Square Way

The fourth location of Water Street Brewery opened in 2015. The restaurant was designed to resemble the industrial buildings that once occupied the neighborhood. (See also under the Milwaukee location.)

Oakfield Township (Fond du Lac County)

• John Cooper (?)

Historian Wayne Kroll discovered that John Cooper had a short-lived farm brewery in Oakfield Township.1688

Oak Grove (Dodge County)

• Dexter S. Woodworth (1857?–1858?)

Dexter S. Woodworth moved to Dodge County in 1853 and purchased a farm in Lowell Township. Two years later he traded his farm for a hop yard with which he had only limited success, and traded this in for a parcel of land in the village of Oak Grove. A county history stated: “. . . he began the manufacture of small beer and soda water, which he peddled in the villages of the surrounding county. He later became a very prosperous merchant. . . .” It does not say if he became prosperous from these beverages or another product.1689 He was listed in the 1860 population census as a grocer, though he may have continued brewing on a small way in his store.

Oconomowoc (Waukesha County)

• City Brewery
• Peter Binzel (1868–1912)
• Philip Binzel (1912–18)
• Oconomowoc Brewing Co. (1933–36)
• Binzel Brewing Co. (1936–1942)
• 219 Fowler Street

During the early 1860s John Philip and Peter Binzel had a brewery in Waupun, but after it burned they moved to Beaver Dam. Peter then left for Oconomowoc to open his own brewery. A notice published upon his retirement reported that he sold the first barrel of beer made in Oconomowoc in November 1868.1690 Business was good for the Milwaukee-trained brewer, and he increased production from just under 500 barrels in 1871 to over 1,300 barrels by 1878, with the help of a new brewery built in 1877. The 1884 Sanborn insurance map listed the plant’s capacity at 150 barrels per month. Binzel leased a local farm to grow barley and he purchased at least some of his hops from local growers.1691 Binzel improved the brewery bit by bit over the years. In the late 1880s he built a new ice run to Lake Fowler, and in the early 1890s he converted from horsepower to steam. While Binzel had been bottling for many years, he built a new bottling works around the turn of the twentieth century, and built a new tile bottling facility about ten years later.

Binzel retired from brewing in 1912 and turned the operation over to his son Philip, who continued the program of careful expansion. In August 1917 the brewery was damaged badly by fire, causing about $30,000 of damage with only partial insurance.1692 This financial setback was compounded by the approach of prohibition, and Philip ceased production in August 1918 and sold the business to Andrew Fischer, a former brewmaster for Leinenkugel Brewing of Chippewa Falls.1693

The Oconomowoc brewery had one of the most colorful Prohibition-era stories of any Wisconsin brewery. Fischer got in trouble with state authorities almost immediately, and was ordered closed in 1921 for violating the dry laws. Fischer’s political connections resulted in the brewery being reopened the next year, and he sold it shortly afterward to George Sipple of Chicago. (Fischer would later serve as mayor of Oconomowoc from 1932-4.)1694

In 1924, Sipple sold the brewery to Chicago racketeer Walter A. Ross, who was quoted in the local newspaper gloating that he could “make a killing in this rinkey-dink town.” He advertised malt extract and near beer, but authorities began investigating Ross in February 1925, after a truck carrying real beer overturned. Ross avoided prison for a while through fancy legal footwork and such techniques as using kegs that were divided so that the top half had near beer for the inspectors to sample, while the real beer was in the bottom of the barrel. Ross was arrested in 1930 for operating a distillery at the brewery, and was eventually captured and sentenced to eighteen months at Leavenworth Prison.1695 (Labels from the Prohibition-era business are found in chapter 6.)

After Prohibition ended, Ross’s old foreman, George Bucher, restarted the brewery as Oconomowoc Brewing Co. In the years immediately after repeal, the company introduced several brands including Piccolo, Kellermeister (advertised as “Wisconsin’s Finest Beer”), and Old Hollander Lager—A Health Beer. Company letterhead of 1936 proclaimed that the company’s products were “The Beers that Contain Vitamins for Your Health.” Despite the burst of activity and early production that sometimes approached 1,000 barrels per month, the brewery was in financial difficulty more often than not, and sales declined significantly after the summer of 1935. Attempts to build a market in Illinois, Iowa, and even North Dakota were to no avail. The company was reduced to imploring the Wisconsin Beverage Tax Division to lend them $49.10 of tax stamps so they could sell enough beer to pay existing tax arrears. Their plea, “We do not think that the State of Wisconsin intends to force anybody out of business,” was not persuasive. Oconomowoc Brewing Co. sold its last beer in November 1936, and the company went bankrupt.1696

Following the collapse of Oconomowoc Brewing, the Binzel family took one last shot at operating the brewery. Peter Binzel Jr. took over the brewery in 1937, sold his first beer in July, and moved to update the brewery. Unfortunately, Peter Jr. died in 1939, and Clarence Binzel took his place. (Andrew Fischer returned as brewmaster for a time.) While Peter Binzel was able to boost production back over 1,000 barrels per month in the summer of 1938 with new brands such as Esquire, sales slipped again and Binzel Brewing Co. made its last beer on 18 April 1942, ending more than seventy years of brewing on the family land. The buildings were used for cold storage until the 1960s, when they were razed and replaced with apartments.1697

• LaBelle Brewing Co. (1994–96)
• Oconomowoc Brewing Co. (1998–2006)
• 750 East Wisconsin Avenue

LaBelle Brewing Co. opened in late 1994 in a location not far from Binzel’s former brewery. Their beers were available both in bottles and on draught and they participated in several beer festivals in the area. La Belle Brewing closed after a couple of years, but in 1998 homebrewer Tom “Julio” Miller purchased the location and some of the equipment and redesigned the brewery. Miller produced several well-regarded beers, including his German-Style Alt and chocolate cherry porter Winter Brew, and distributed them mostly on draught to area establishments. Miller began bottling in 2004, first offering Black Forest Gold and Amber Rye Lager. Oconomowoc Brewing Co. closed in 2006.1698

• Sweet Mullets Brewing Co. (2012–18)
• Brewfinity Brewing Co. (2018–present)
• N58W39800 Industrial Road Suite D

Longtime brewer at Grumpy Troll (and other locations) Mark Duchow founded Sweet Mullets on the outskirts of Oconomowoc in 2012. The name came from the fact that Mark “. . . had a really sweet mullet [haircut] back in the 80s. . . .” The brewpub building was once an auto body repair shop, but Duchow and partner Barbara Jones remodeled the space using about 90 percent reused or “upcycled” materials. Duchow used his new brewery to create unusual beers such as a buckwheat ale, a medieval gruit beer, and a steinbeer, in which the wort is heated and caramelized by immersing hot stones in the liquid.1699

In January 2016, Chad Ostram bought the brewery and took over as brewmaster. He continued some of the popular beers of previous years, but also introduced new recipes from his twenty years of homebrewing experience. In 2017, Sweet Mullets made the transition from brewpub to brewery. This meant they had to surrender their Class B liquor license, so they could no longer serve anything other than beer.1700 This business changed its name to Brewfinity Brewing Co. in March 2018.

Oconto (Oconto County)

• Anton Link & Co. (1858–1863)
• Louis P. Pahl, Oconto Brewery (1863–1890)
• Oconto Brewing Co. (1890–1920, 1933–1966)
• Van Merritt Brewing Co. (1966–67)
• 1009–1023 Superior Avenue

Louis Pahl’s story was like many German immigrants of his era. Upon arriving in America in 1854, he spent time in New York City, Albany, Milwaukee (where he worked briefly for Schlitz and Blatz), Green Bay and Two Rivers (also employed in breweries in those cities), and Chicago. In the middle of all this, he worked in the lumber business for about fifteen months. Finally, in 1858, he arrived in Oconto where he joined Anton Link in founding a brewery.1701 Link and Pahl were advertising in the Oconto Pioneer by 1859 that they were prepared to furnish the citizens of the county “with some excellent Lager Beer, which, for a healthy beverage, can’t be beat.”1702 By 1860 they had already pushed their output to 800 barrels a year, making it one of the largest breweries in northern Wisconsin. Production appears to have remained fairly steady, with the next reported totals in 1870 being 700 barrels. (This census reported that Pahl had three employees, one of whom was female—a rarity at that time, though it is likely that this was Pahl’s domestic servant who may have helped in the brewery, rather than a female brewery laborer.) During the dry autumn of 1871 Pahl’s plant was damaged by fire—nine days before the historic Peshtigo fire, and Pahl was injured after being thrown from his wagon while driving to get help.1703

Pahl continued to improve and expand his business after recovering from the fire and his injuries. He had become an important member of the community as well, and a newspaper report sang his praises:

Our enterprising German friend, Lewis P. Pahl, not only keeps the funds in the city treasury all right, but he also sells piles of lager beer, and makes large sums of money from the sale thereof, and what is still better for our city, spends the money in our midst. He is now building extensive improvements to his brewery—having place there in [sic] an engine and boiler, and now operates the same by steam.1704

Pahl’s local market was limited, so he began seeking customers elsewhere. He was shipping beer to Green Bay by 1873 if not earlier, since his bock beer was being praised in the Green Bay State Gazette that year.1705 However, he appears to have moved in and out of prosperity, like many small business owners. The R. G. Dun & Co. credit reports on Pahl’s business varied from year to year, sometimes praising his creditworthiness, but in early 1883 going so far as to report “Makes poor beer + [doing] a poor bus[iness].”1706 Pahl was bottling beer by the mid-1880s, and possibly earlier. The year 1887 was unfortunate for Pahl and his business: in April burglars broke into his saloon, and in November his brewery burned as a result of a fire in the pitch heater. Pahl had just installed new vats and lost a large stock of beer as well as the building. He rebuilt almost immediately, and the new building was completed in the autumn of the following year.1707 Pahl was active in local politics, serving as city treasurer, township and county supervisor, and in 1876 as a member of the State Assembly (as a member of the Reform Party).1708

Louis Pahl died in 1891, but a few months before he had sold the brewery to George Vager, Gregor Ruth, and several other investors, who incorporated the business in December 1890 as Oconto Brewing Co. In 1893, the new firm was the intended beneficiary of a short-lived ordinance of the Oconto city council prohibiting brewers located outside of Oconto from selling beer in the city. Outside observers suspected this move was to boost the fortunes of the company and the profits of some councilmen who were stockholders, but the law was ultimately deemed unenforceable.1709

Jacob Spies purchased the brewery in the mid-1890s, but he soon sold to the Lingelbach family, who would manage the operation until Prohibition.1710 In 1901 Oconto Brewing was rumored to be part of the large brewing trust in Northern Wisconsin that never came to pass. The Lingelbachs continued to add to the brewery with a new bottling house and office, and by 1910 all of the machinery was operated by electric power.1711 They also continued to expand their market for its Eagle beer during the early twentieth century: Charles Lingelbach opened a branch office in Sheboygan and Oconto beer was sold in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Despite this success, World War I fuel restrictions created difficulties for Oconto Brewing. In 1918, Oconto ceased brewing, and consolidated their operations with Rahr Brewing of Green Bay.1712

During Prohibition, the Lingelbachs reincorporated the business to manufacture soft drinks, and operated through 1925, but went out of business the next year. In 1927, H. F. Muehrske, a prominent Republican politician, purchased Oconto Brewing “expressing the belief that the sale of real beer is coming back soon.”1713 However, his move was several years premature, and he made no attempt to restart the business.

In 1933, when real beer actually returned, the Lingelbachs again took control of the brewery, and proposed to spend $10,000 modernizing the brewery with hopes of employing fifty men.1714 But financial troubles forced them to dissolve and reform the company in June 1933 while already in receivership. They were insolvent and in receivership again in 1935, and the company was finally sold in 1938. The sale notice painted a desperate picture:

All assets of the Oconto Brewing company, including good will, will be sold, or leased with option to purchase on terms, at a sale to be held on the premises at 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 19 . . . Creditors were warned that sale on this date is imperative, and that unless an advantageous bid is offered there can be no hope of anything being realized except taxes and administration expense. . . .1715

The firm was first sold to R. E. Evrard of Green Bay, who then sold it to the Kolocheski family of Green Bay. George Kolocheski had been a shareholder in an earlier version of the corporation, and was prepared to make the business a success.1716

By April 1939, Oconto Brewing Co. was ready with a new brand called Arrowhead Beer, which replaced the revived Eagle Beer. Kolocheski sought to make Green Bay the primary market for Oconto beer and ran full page ads linking Oconto to the Green Bay Packers, which was a fortuitous choice since the Don Hutson–led team won the NFL championship that season.1717 By 1941 the Arrowhead brand was dropped in favor of Oconto Pilsener, which remained the flagship beer for nearly two decades. Oconto Pilsener was advertised on tap in numerous area establishments, and in late 1941 was also available in the new 8-ounce “Buddy” bottle. However, wartime material shortages required the brewery to emphasize their “Full Quart Victory Size” package, which would save on crowns and therefore tinplate. At one point, Oconto proposed offering reusable rubber stoppers on their half-gallon bottles, but the Wisconsin Supervisor of Food Inspection shot the idea down because of the potential for contamination of the stoppers (to say nothing of the need to conserve rubber as well as tinplate).1718 The brewery also limited its distribution area to northeastern Wisconsin and upper Michigan to make sure they could provide their regular customers with enough beer.

After the war ended, Oconto Brewing began a remodeling and expansion program including replacement of all kettles, vats, and the mash tun as well as new storage cellars which was intended to double the brewery’s capacity to 60,000 barrels per year. By 1948 Oconto products could be found in over 2,500 establishments in their territory, though over 60 percent of sales were in the Green Bay area.1719 During this period the company also made changes to the packaging: the “Buddy Bottle” was reduced from 8 ounces to 7 ounces, and in 1949 Oconto shifted from wooden to cardboard cases.

As the 1950s progressed, Oconto Brewing solidified their claim to be the one of the most important breweries in the northeast part of the state. In 1953 the company was fortunate to be able to hire Adolph Grahammer as brewmaster. Grahammer’s path to Oconto was at least as complicated as Louis Pahl’s. Grahammer apprenticed in northern Germany, but his career was interrupted by service in World War I. After that he worked for Löwenbrauerei in Munich, than for either Pschorr Brau or Spaten Brau (depending on the account), but after hearing Adolf Hitler speak in 1924 and seeing the swell of support for him in Bavaria, Grahammer decided to move to America. He worked at Berghoff Brewing Co. in Fort Wayne, Indiana, then at Vernon Brewing Co. in Los Angeles, and finally made it to Wisconsin where he worked at Gettelman in Milwaukee for twelve years before relocating to Oconto. Grahammer provided Oconto with a link to the upper echelons of the brewing world, and he routinely toured the hop yards of Hallertau and the Pacific Northwest to personally select hops for his beer.1720 Production in his first year was 26,927 barrels, about 15,000 behind Rahr-Green Bay. Grahammer introduced Oconto Premium in flat top cans in August 1954. The company earned a Gold Award at the Brewers’ Association of America convention in 1956 for their increased sales, quality, and industry service. By 1957, they claimed to be the seventh-largest brewery in Wisconsin and continued to update the brewery and their fleet of trucks. Oconto Brewing also purchased the first color page ever in the Green Bay Press-Gazette, an ad featuring their bright blue cans.1721 The brewery continued to sponsor community events (for example, sponsoring a float in Sheboygan’s Bratwurst Day parade in 1957) and radio programs (like “Melody Inn” Sunday afternoon on WOMT of Manitowoc.)1722 Oconto employed sixty-five people, all of whom were offered Asiatic flu serum in 1957 in an early example of employer-provided health care.1723

Unfortunately, the 1960s were not as favorable to Oconto Brewing as the previous decade had been. The company built a new bottle house in 1960, which was said to be the largest facility north of Milwaukee and which increased capacity to 240 bottles per minute.1724 However, more than thirty workers of Local 299 went on strike in May 1961, demanding higher wages and increased benefits. During the strike, an Oconto truck required a police escort all the way to Beloit after the driver reported his brake lines had been slashed during a confrontation at a filling station just south of Oconto in Pensaukee. The strike lasted just over two weeks, and the employees settled for an increase of 20¢ per hour and paid insurance and health plan.1725 Even after the strike, the brewery continued to expand its territory, moving into northern Minnesota. In 1963, Oconto became one of the first “regional” breweries to adopt the “tab-top” can, which was primarily used by national brands.1726 Oconto had acquired some of the labels of the defunct Menominee-Marinette Brewing Co. and was packaging beer for Fox Head of Waukesha and Monarch Brewing of Chicago.1727 But the biggest development came in April 1966, when Oconto Brewing merged with Van Merritt Brewing Co. of Chicago. All production was to be moved to Oconto, and “additional supervisors and production employees are being hired and trained to place the plant on an around-the-clock production basis.” The new brewery had distribution in ten states, up from Oconto’s four. Originally the business was supposed to remain the Oconto Brewing Co., but the name was changed to Van Merritt later in 1966. The new firm was unable to overcome underlying financial problems in both companies, and in February 1967 Van Merritt Brewing Co. closed its doors for good. Unlike some breweries that maintained hope of restarting, the receivers started selling equipment within the year—such as the tanks which were sold to Freeman Industries in Minneapolis for use in making soaps and detergents. The remainder of the brewery assets were sold in 1970 and the building was razed.1728

• Oconoto Brewing Company (1994–98)
• 1200 West Main Street

Oconto Brewing Co. was a very small brewpub established in 1994 in the Main Event Sports Bar & Grill. They brewed once a week (in 1995, on Thursdays) in a half-barrel system.1729

Oconto Falls (Oconto County)

• Falls Brewing Co. (2004–9)
• 782 North Main Street

Falls Brewing Co. opened in 2004, using a self-fabricated seven-barrel system in a former restaurant property. The brewery switched from labels with a drawing of a waterfall and style names for the brands to photographs of women and more provocative names such as Dirty Blonde.

Onalaska (La Crosse County)

• Gabriel Knecht (1856?–1866?)
• Mrs. W. Knecht (1867?)
• Milford G. Moore (1867–1881)
• Adolph Knecht, Onalaska Brewery (1881–84)
• Onalaska Brewing Co., Adolph Knecht (1885–1891?)
• Second Street (Modern Rose Street) South of Modern Oak Forest Drive

According to one county history, Gabriel Knecht, an immigrant from Baden, started building his brewery in Onalaska as early as 1856.1730 By the time of the 1860 census, Knecht owned $2,000 of property, which could represent an established brewery. In October 1865, the weight of grain in the loft caused the brewery to collapse (which included Knecht’s home). Two were killed and seven injured in the disaster.1731 Knecht rebuilt soon after, and records from 1867 and after indicated that there was a hotel connected with the brewery. Knecht died in 1867, and his widow soon married Milford G. Moore, a native of Maine who carried on the brewery and hotel.

The Onalaska brewery seemed disaster prone regardless of who owned it. In 1879, robbers removed the safe, blew it up outside, and escaped with about $1,000 in cash.1732 In 1881, Adolph Knecht, son of Gabriel, took over management of the brewery but Moore’s name still was used to identify the brewery. In 1884 the complex caught fire and both the brewery and hotel were destroyed, along with the contents of the buildings. The malt house was saved, but the loss was between $15,000 and $20,000 with no insurance.1733 Moore rebuilt the brewery, but only operated it for a few years before abandoning the brewing business. Local accounts indicate that the brewery lay idle for many years, but not exactly how long, and the last appearance in a state business directory was in 1891 (though these were often out of date).

In 1894, a group of La Crosse citizens attempted to reopen the brewery. Some early accounts indicated that the purchasers were “reported to be Knights of Labor from La Crosse,” though no additional information links those who incorporated the brewery to the Knights. (Emil Kohn was an employee of Gund Brewing, and William Wudtke was employed by Heileman, though the city directories do not indicate in what capacity.) The new investors were not able to restart the brewery, so it remained dormant.1734 To add further confusion, on the May 1894 Sanborn map, the brewery was listed as being owned by Mrs. Fruber.

In 1899, brewer Franz Bartl of La Crosse purchased the property, but it was sold again in 1901 to John Gedney of Prairie du Chein and was converted into a pickle factory. One local newspaper joked, making a comparison to the old metal growlers which were often called “cans”: “We notice that a brewery at Onalaska is being converted to a canning factory. Isn’t this rushing the can on rather a large scale?”1735

• Two Beagles Brewpub (2016–present)
• 910 Second Avenue North

Despite all the discussion of reopening the Onalaska brewery in the 1890s, it took until 2016 for Onalaska to have a functioning brewery again. Steve Peters was a long-time homebrewer and a former supervisor and manager at City Brewing in La Crosse who always wanted to have his own brewery. Peters and his wife Christie purchased the former Seasons by the Lake restaurant which, as its name suggested, had panoramic views of Lake Onalaska and the Mississippi River valley. The view persuaded the Peters to put the brewhouse in back, where it could still be seen, but would not block the view of the valley. The beers tend toward lighter styles, but there is also a barrel-aged version of the Chocolate Beagle Amber. They have also brewed a Belgian dubbel with maple syrup and Caramel Apple Bock, which is aged on local Honeycrisp apples.1736

• Skeleton Crew Brew (2016–present)
• 570 Theater Road Suite 100

Skeleton Crew Brew is the beer division of Lost Island Winery. They obtained their federal brewery permit in February 2016 and tapped their first beers in May. Since then, they have increased the number of beers on draught at the taproom to eight.

Osceola (Osceola Mills) (Polk County)

• Veit Geiger (1867–1884?)

According to E. D. Neill’s 1881 history of the St. Croix Valley, Veit Geiger, a native of Wurtemburg, established his small farm brewery in 1867, a year confirmed by excise records indicating production in November of that year. The first brewery was a small frame building of 20 x 30 feet, but in 1872 he built a two-story stone structure 23 x 50 feet. Geiger also had small cellars excavated into the rock behind the brewery. Neill claims that Geiger produced between 150 and 200 barrels per year, but the known production figures are substantially lower—usually less than one hundred barrels per year.1737 Excise records suggest capacity was likely no more than ten barrels per month. In the 1880s (and possibly earlier) he had a small saloon that probably sold the majority of his beer.

Despite the size of his operation, Geiger was listed as a brewer rather than a farmer in the 1870 census, and the R. G. Dun & Co. reports indicate that he was at least a modest success. He had generally good credit ratings and was described as a “Good honest Dutchman” (Dutchman was a common corruption of Deutschman or German) who was “making money slowly, does but little bus[iness] but makes it pay.”1738 These positive reports continue through the end of 1883, and Geiger appeared in the 1884 reports of Dun’s then-rival Bradstreet, but he was not listed in Wing’s 1884 brewers’ directory or thereafter, so he likely retired from brewing around that time.

Oshkosh (Winnebago County)

• Lake Brewery
• Jacob Konrad (1849–1854)
• Anton Andrea (1854–1862)
• Leonhardt Schwalm (1862–65)
• Gottlieb Ecke (1865–69)
• South of Ceape Avenue and Lake Street

Jacob Konrad earned the distinction of brewing the first beer in Oshkosh by a matter of a few months. He leased the land for his brewery in July, and soon after constructed his brewery. Ron Akin and Lee Reiherzer, the leading historians of Oshkosh brewing, suggest that Konrad may have left Oshkosh in 1854 because of a provision in the new city charter that allowed for a tax on alcohol sales. He moved to Weyauwega and established a new brewery there.

“Major” Anton Andrea (sometimes misspelled Andrae), who purchased the brewery from Konrad, had an adventurous life both in Europe and in Oshkosh. A veteran of the Hungarian Hussars, he fled in 1848, served a partial term on the Oshkosh city council, and went through several business failures. While the Lake Brewery was not a failure, he was not a brewer and hired Casper Haberbusch and Louis Keller to run the brewery for him. Apparently unable to focus on any business too long, Andrea leased the business to Leonhardt Schwalm, who remained for three years before starting his own brewery. The new brewer, Gottlieb Ecke, remained at this location for about three years, until demand compelled him to build a new brewery just to the west.1739 (That new location is covered under the Gambrinus Brewery)

• Schussler & Freund, Oshkosh Brewery (1850?–51)
• Schussler & Tillmans, Oshkosh Brewery (1851–52)
• South Side of River (modern Bay Shore) between Frankfort and Bowen

In March 1850, newspapers in Wisconsin reported that Oshkosh was to erect a second brewery during the next building season.1740 This brewery became the Oshkosh Brewery of Joseph Schussler and John Freund. (Oshkosh historians Akin and Reiherzer date this brewery to November 1849 when Schussler purchased the land, but it is unlikely that they were in production before 1 January 1850.) Schussler was the experienced brewer (with a stop in Milwaukee as well as training in his home of Baden) and Freund was the financial backer. By September, they advertised that they were

. . . prepared to supply Taven [sic], Grocery, and Saloon keepers of the surrounding country with good ale and beer. From a long experience in the business, they feel confident in warranting a superior article—better than is obtained from abroad under the title of “Detroit Ale,” “Milwaukee Beer, &c.”1741

In addition to ads offering their beer for sale, they typically had nearby advertisements offering to buy barley from local farmers. Even before 1850 was over, Freund was experiencing financial difficulties and backed out of the partnership. At the beginning of 1851, Schussler brought in Francis Tillmans as a new partner, but this new venture was no more successful than the first, and by June 1852, Schussler was out of business. Schussler returned to brewing as an employee of one of the Oshkosh firms in the late 1850s, went to the Frey brewery in Fond du Lac in 1861 (after the death of his son who had been apprenticed there) and ultimately opened the West Hill Brewery in Fond du Lac.1742

• George Loescher, Oshkosh Brewery (1852–1880)
• Ruety and Walter (1880)
• George Loescher, Oshkosh Brewery (second location) (1880–84)
• William M. Loescher, Oshkosh Brewery (1884–88?)
• 90 River (modern Bay Shore) between Frankfort and Eveline (1852–1880); Northeast Corner of Frankfort and Bay Shore (1880–88)

The second business to be named Oshkosh Brewery was established by brothers George and Frederick Loescher in autumn 1852. Frederick left in 1853 to start a brewery in Menasha, and George continued on his own.

Loescher’s Oshkosh Brewery was unusual among the breweries of Winnebago County in that it produced ale and lager and advertised both equally. Akin and Reiherzer contend that this had the dual purpose of allowing Loescher to continue brewing during the summer months when lager could not be aged properly, and also to supply the increasing numbers of Yankee, English and Irish settlers who were used to ale. Loescher (which was spelled a number of different ways in various sources) was also a malster (as it was spelled in some ads), which provided area farmers with a local market for their barley.1743

While his business seems to have done well, the investigators for R. G. Dun & Co. were wary of George Loescher, who apparently enjoyed the fruits of his labors to a great extent throughout his career. However, they reported that “his wife and boys run the concern . . . [and] watch him close,” so the business was considered perfectly safe.1744

The Oshkosh brewery was destroyed by fire in October 1871, though about half of the $7,000 loss was covered through East Coast insurance companies. Early in the rebuilding process he apparently partnered with Andrew Ackerman, perhaps to obtain help with funding, since the company is referred to as Ackerman & Co. in excise records and an 1873 industry directory. Unfortunately, the rebuilt brewery was burnt out again in April 1878.1745 At this point, he appears to have abandoned the site at 90 River, which was landlocked and did not allow for expansion to meet the increasing competition in Oshkosh. Newspaper accounts suggest that another firm tried to revive the business in 1880. The Daily Northwestern reported in August that John Walther [sic] and Bernard Reidel of New London had purchased the Luscher [sic] brewery and planned to move in the next month. However, in October the paper followed up the story:

John Walter, of the firm of Ruety & Walter, proprietors of the brewery in the Second Ward, has been missing since last Friday and no trace of him can be found. The only explanation now entertained for his unexpected absence is that he has absconded. Ruety & Walter bought out Loescher’s brewery some three months ago, and since running the brewery have quarreled among themselves, each trying to sell out to the other. A few days ago they mortgaged the personal property in the brewery for $300 and Ruety now claims that Walter has run away with this $300 and with all the money he could collect from saloon keepers to whom the firm had sold beer. At least Walter has not been seen since Friday and this is the explanation given. Herman Scherck has taken possession of the brewery by virtue of the chattel mortgage of $300 he holds against the personal property in the building and it is now in charge of an officer.

While the newspaper does not confirm his identity, it is most likely that this is the same John Walter who had recently dissolved his partnership with Lorenz Kuenzl.1746

By 1880, the Loeschers were established at their new site a block away on the other side of River (Bay Shore). The new horse-powered brewery was not much larger than the previous facility, and was still smaller than the local competition (but no longer brewed ale). George Loescher died in 1884, and his widow Regina took over the business while son William ran the brewhouse. The brewery closed sometime between 1888 and 1890. About a decade after the Loeschers closed the brewery, a group of saloon owners proposed reopening the brewery, in hopes that they could produce beer for about $4 per barrel, which would undercut Chicago ($6), Milwaukee (up to $9) and other Oshkosh beer ($7.40). While this plan came to nought, a similar scheme would bear fruit some years later with the establishment of Peoples Brewing Co.1747

• Fischer & Weist (1856–57)
• Near Southwest Corner of High and New York Avenues

Tobias Fischer & August Weist purchased land for a new brewery in the Fifth Ward in October 1856. Both were experienced brewers, but this partnership lasted for less than a year. Weist moved to Princeton and started a brewery there, and Fischer entered a partnership with Christian Kaehler to develop another brewery in the Fifth Ward.1748

• Fischer & Kaehler, Busch Brewery (1857–58)
• Christian Kaehler, Fifth Ward Brewery (1858–1880?)
• 166 Algoma Street (Southeast corner of Algoma and Vine)

After Tobias Fischer and August Weist dissolved their partnership, Fischer joined with another newly landed brewer, Christian Kaehler, to build a new brewery in the Fifth Ward on Algoma Street. They brewed lager beer, and at least one batch of Salvator, which was sometimes used as a generic name for a doppelbock. Their partnership in the Busch Brewery was brief, since Fischer left for St. Louis in 1858, leaving Kaehler as sole proprietor.1749

Kaehler did a good business for nearly two decades, and invested his profits in lucrative real estate. In 1870 he produced 500 barrels, and peaked at 749 barrels in 1872. However the next recorded figures (from 1878 and 1879) were 140 and 178 barrels, respectively, so it is possible that Kaehler was either paying little attention to the brewery in favor of other enterprises, or he may have been in financial trouble. The R. G. Dun & Co. credit reports state that foreclosure proceedings began in 1880, and the Daily Northwestern reported that the sheriff’s sale was in June 1881. The property ended up in the hands of C. W. Davis, who planned to move the buildings and erect a large house. The site of the building is now part of the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.1750

• Leonhardt Schwalm (1858–1862)
• Brooklyn neighborhood

Prior to building the much larger Brooklyn Brewery (later Horn & Schwalm) Leonhardt Schwalm operated a lager beer saloon that offered both food and his “excellent Lagerbier.” In 1862 he leased the Lake Brewery from Anton Andrea to gain more brewing capacity.1751 (Schwalm’s other breweries are covered separately.)

• Rudolph Otten (1865?)
• Oxford Street

Rudolph Otten’s brewery is known only from a stray page of the 1865 excise tax records uncovered by Akin and Reiherzer in their research. It is most likely that Otten’s brewery was a slightly larger homebrewing system designed to brew for a few local accounts.1752

• City Brewery
• Charles Rahr & Bro. (August Rahr) (1865–1883)
• Charles Rahr (1883–1897)
• Charles Rahr, Jr. (1897–1904)
• Rahr Brewing Co. (1904–1920)
• The Rahr Company (1920–1933)
• Rahr Brewing Co. (1933–1956)
• 91–103 Rahr Avenue

City Brewery/Rahr Brewing Co. had one of the longest tenures of family ownership of any brewery in Wisconsin. Charles Rahr was a nephew of William Rahr, brewer of Manitowoc, and younger brother of Henry, brewer of Green Bay. Charles worked at both of his kinsmen’s breweries prior to his service with the 9th Wisconsin Infantry in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and neighboring states during the Civil War. He returned to Green Bay in December 1864, and married Caroline Hochgreve, daughter of his brother’s business partner, in an unusual midnight wedding at the turn of the new year of 1865. The new couple moved to Oshkosh and joined with Charles’ brother August to start the Charles Rahr & Brother brewery that same year.1753

Rahr’s new brewery had the advantage of being built on the edge of the city, which meant it had more room to expand than his pre-Civil War rivals. It briefly would be the largest brewery in Oshkosh, though several of the other postwar breweries would soon pass it. By the end of the 1870s, the Rahrs’ brewery had settled into fourth place in Oshkosh, behind Glatz & Elser, Horn & Schwalm and Kuenzl & Walter. The Rahrs appear to have settled comfortably into their status as a small local brewery and did not engage in the expansion wars which ultimately led the three larger breweries to merge. The City Brewery had a taproom that was a popular destination for local residents, though it sometimes got the brewery in the news for unsavory reasons. In 1872, Charles Rahr and his brewery (called the Washington Street Brewery in one newspaper story) were sued by a woman for serving beer to her drunken and abusive husband. In 1878, he was apparently offering more than just his beer, since he was fined for selling liquor at the brewery without a license. Rivals Horn & Schwalm also accused Rahr of holding on to two of their kegs, and went so far as to demand a search warrant.1754

While Charles was in charge of brewing, August was the sales manager of the brewery, and the firm was sometimes referred to as the August Rahr Brewery. In 1883, August left the brewing partnership and formed his own company, which bottled the beer of his brother at a location next to the brewery. (Newspaper accounts suggest that the brothers had already been bottling beer for some time.)1755 While the City Brewery did steady business, it was still small, and when Oshkosh Brewing Co. was formed in 1894, City was dwarfed by the new concern. However, the Rahrs had a devoted local following, and the elevation of Charles Jr. (Charlie) to brewmaster and proprietor kept the quality high. The cautious Charles Sr. finally bowed to the inevitable and approved construction of a new brewery in 1896. The new facility had twice the capacity of the original brewery, but even that was not enough. After Charlie took full control of the company in 1908, he began another modernization program which cost about $50,000 and rebuilt or expanded everything in the factory. Despite the expanded plant, Rahr still did not bottle his own beer, even well into the 1900s. After August left the business, Neumueller Bros. took over bottling for several years. Rahr brought bottling back to the brewery itself in 1915, apparently because of problems with their contractor. An ad announcing the change admitted:

In connection with this announcement we wish to say that we realize that this department of our business has not delivered the service that the public has the right to expect, but we assure those who wish Rahr’s bottling that in the future strict attention will be paid to this department and that every order received will be delivered promptly to any part of the city. Our brewery phone number is 2394. A call will bring our wagon at once.

Despite the move to in-house packaging, Fred Neumueller was hired to work at the new bottling house. Perhaps to emphasize the change, in mid-1916 Rahr changed the name of its major bottled beer from Special Brew to Elk’s Head.

Rahr continued to support their beers with heavy newspaper advertising, sometimes using patriotic imagery, other times touting the health-giving purity of the product. In one 1913 campaign, Rahr responded directly to the Schlitz campaign of the time which criticized other breweries for using clear bottles (see La Crosse—C. & J. Michel Brewing Co.) Rahr ads acknowledged the truth about brown bottles “that this certain Brewing Co. has evidently just discovered” and noted that Rahr had used brown bottles for forty years. However, they continued: “But when you get down to brass tacks the bottle plays a mighty small part in the production of good beer,” which was an attack on the perceived cheapening of Schlitz, a major rival in Oshkosh. Rahr continued the brown bottle references in advertisements until Prohibition. Rahr was also one of the very rare brewers to encourage customers to obtain their beer from a tavern in a growler—a different 1913 ad urged patrons to “[A]sk for Rahr’s in any kind of bottle, tin pail or keg. . . .”1756

Unlike his fiscally conservative father, Charlie was willing to spend some of his increasing earnings on luxury goods. He bought a new car and enjoyed sailing—including ice sailing on his ice yacht Blanche, named for his eldest daughter (who would soon be running the brewery office). The biggest decision Charlie had to make, however, was whether or not to sell his brewery in 1912 to the newly formed Peoples Brewing Co. The new company was not willing to meet Rahr’s asking price, so the brewery stayed in the family. Charlie himself turned the brewery over to his three children, Blanche, Carl, and Lucille, though he stayed on to advise them and help guide them through the difficult transition to Prohibition.1757

While Rahr Brewing Co. still applied for renewal of its liquor license in August 1919, it was already evident that they would not get a full year’s use of it. To stay in business, the Rahrs switched to a line of soft drinks with more variety than other converted breweries. In addition to standard flavors like grape, ginger ale, and root beer, they offered wild cherry and loganberry sodas as well. As in the beer era, households could call for delivery of any of these products. Later on, they made the unusual decision to attach the name of the former flagship beer to a non-near beer product: Elk’s Head Chocolate Malted Milk. While the value of the company declined during the dry years and Charlie died in 1925, the family was able to persevere and return to brewing beer when it became legal in 1933.1758

Because it had stayed in business throughout the dry years, it was relatively easy for Rahr Brewing Co. to convert back to beer. It already had a near beer permit, and making real beer was the essential first step to making near beer. All they had to do was skip the dealcoholizing step and start aging beer in their cellars. Rahr started doing so as soon as it was clear that beer was coming back, and a company spokesman said in March 1933 “’We’re not saying how much we’ve got, but we’ve got all we can legally have stored, under our near-beer permit.’” Rahr also ceased production of near beer, which would have been a “’no sale’ product when real beer [returned].”1759 An article in late March proclaimed that Rahr was to hire twelve to fifteen men and would purchase 50,000 bushels of grain per year—both major boons to the local economy.1760

Rahr continued to advertise in local newspapers after the return of beer, and continued the emphasis on quality and traditional process. While some limited modernizations were adopted after Prohibition, Rahr Brewing never made significant additions to its capacity and remained a small local brewery. Other than a brief wartime boom, production was typically less than 10,000 barrels per year. Rahr’s reputation for quality remained high, and new brewmaster Charles (Chuck) Rahr III insisted on an old-fashioned hands-on approach to brewing. In 1952 Rahr introduced their own version of the 7-ounce bottle, making special note in advertisements that the company had “no connection with any outside firms”—emphasizing the local nature of the business.1761 Even this new package did not help sales, and Rahr could not survive as a draught-beer oriented business in a bottled (and canned) beer world. The brewery survived long enough to brew and bottle a special all-malt pilsner in 1953 for Oshkosh’s centennial celebration, but after a brief surge during the Milwaukee brewers strike later that year, sales plummeted over the next two years. Matters were made worse for Rahr by a one-day strike by Oshkosh brewery workers of CIO Local 90 in June 1955. Output in 1955 was 3,660 barrels and the family decided to close the brewery in June 1956. Customers were warned that the deposit would not be refunded on any cases returned after 1 August, though the brewery was in sufficient financial health to actually refund the deposits. The old brewery building was razed in 1964.

• Leonard & Andrew Schiffman (1865?–1870s)
• Leonard Schiffman (1870s–1880?)
• Main Street (1865–1870s)
• 79 Doty Street (1870s–1882?)

Leonard and Andrew Schiffman operated a saloon and apparently brewed weiss beer at their Main Street location during the 1860s and 1870s. They are seldom included in government or industry publications, so they may have brewed only intermittently, and certainly not in any large volume.

Leonard Schiffman appears to have brewed more seriously at his Doty Street location during the late 1870s and early 1880s, since he was listed as a brewer in the 1880 census (he was listed as a carpenter in 1870), was included in the 1879 city directory and was evaluated in R. G. Dun & Co.’s credit reports in the early 1880s. By early 1883 his brewery was out of business, and he appears to have focused on other lines of work after this time.1762

• Brooklyn Brewery, Horn & Schwalm (1866–1894)
• Oshkosh Brewing Co. (1894–1912)
• 1631–1642 Doty Street

In 1865, Leonhardt Schwalm purchased land in the Brooklyn neighborhood and built a new brewery that would allow him the ability to expand that his previous Lake Brewery lacked. Shortly after getting underway, he sold half a share to August Horn for $4,500 and brought him into the firm to handle the business side. Horn had joined Schwalm in a previous investment in a farm, and had married Schwalm’s sister Amelia. Early accounts sometimes listed the brewery under Schwalm’s name alone, though eventually the Brooklyn Brewery name became the popular title.

The Brooklyn Brewery quickly pushed to the front of the Oshkosh brewing community. It appears to have been the first brewery to produce more than 1,000 barrels in a year, a total reached in 1872. Like many proprietors, Horn & Schwalm offered room and board to their employees in a room above the brewery, though the conditions were crowded with the eight Horn children and seven Schwalm offspring. Unfortunately, one of the employees died from injuries suffered when he fell into a vat of near-boiling wort while attempting to cross over the vat on a plank in a dimly-lit room. Leonhardt Schwalm himself died just over a year later, and the brewery began to prepare the next generation for management.1763

August Horn sought to keep the Brooklyn Brewery among the local leaders by the force of his engaging personality. However, Akin and Reiherzer contend that two tragedies actually helped Horn move the brewery forward. The first was the passing of Leonhardt Schwalm who, while an experienced brewer, was definitely of the old school and may not have been prepared to follow the rapidly improving technology of brewing. The other was a catastrophic fire in March 1879 that destroyed the entire brewery complex except for part of the icehouse. The fire started around the brewing kettles, and the employees put out the flames with a bucket of water. However, the embers smoldered and reignited later that night and the conflagration soon enveloped the brewery. Workers who still lived upstairs were barely able to escape with their lives. The loss was a rather heavy $18,000, only half of which was covered by insurance. (It was typical of the times that even this amount of insurance was divided among nine different companies, including several foreign firms.) Akin and Reiherzer suggest that the fire forced the Schwalm family to agree to a risky but necessary expansion program. Whatever the case, August Horn embarked on a rebuilding project that resulted in a brewery that rose to three stories of brick, with a stone cellar and foundation. The brewery was as fireproof as Horn could make it, and equipped with a new steam engine and other modern equipment. The next generation—Theodore Schwalm and Henry, Otto and Charles Schwalm—moved into positions of responsibility at the brewery, even though they were either teenagers or in their early 20s.1764

The brewery continued to grow over the next two decades, and so did the business. The R. G. Dun & Co. credit report of 1883 noted that Horn & Schwalm were “[doing] the best bus[iness] in their line here” and were making money. However, the report also warned that “on [account] of the high price of hops and Barley will prob[ably] not make much $ this year.”1765 This success came despite the alcoholism of Theodore Schwalm, who was made a ward of the court in 1883 at age twenty-five, and who died of liver disease only five years later. The brewery also withstood a major tornado in July 1885, which caused $2,000 worth of damage but left the new brewery unscathed. The company also had to deal with smaller accidents such as an incident in January 1884 when a brewery sled (used during the winter instead of the standard brewery roll) collided with a streetcar with such force that it knocked the streetcar off its tracks and spun it around. Fortunately, August Horn was still present to guide the business, this time with the help of Sophia Schwalm, Theodore’s widow.1766

The brewery continued to grow into the 1890s, and was the largest brewery in Oshkosh at the time of the formation of Oshkosh Brewing Co. in 1894 (which is covered below). The plant on Doty Street continued to brew until the construction of the new brewery in 1912.

• Lake Brewery
• Gottlieb Ecke (1869–1871)
• Ecke & Neumann, (1871–75)
• Gambrinus Brewery
• Kuenzl & Louis Ecke (1875–76)
• Kuenzl & Walter (1876–1880)
• Lorenz Kuenzl (1880–1894)
• Oshkosh Brewing Co. (1894–1902?)
• 1200 Block of Harney Avenue

Gottlieb Ecke moved from his first Lake Brewery location and built a new brewery one block west. The new brewery suffered a significant fire in August 1869, but most of the loss was covered by insurance. Ecke produced 600 barrels in 1870—below the capacity of 3,000 but a respectable amount nonetheless. This start was marred by the death of Gottlieb Ecke in November 1871, from what circumstantial evidence suggests was suicide. His widow, Charlotte, boldly took up the business with the help of businessman Phillip Neumann. There may have been some delay in restarting production, since the American Brewers’ Guide of 1873 lists no production for 1871 or 1872 (though it may have been referring to production under that business name). Ecke lost the brewery to foreclosure in 1874, but her brother, Henry Timm, purchased the brewery for her. Oshkosh historians Akin and Reiherzer suggest that running the brewery and managing her family was too difficult for Ecke, and she dissolved her partnership with Neumann and closed the brewery, though Timm remained owner of the property in trust for his sister.1767

While Ecke offered to sell the brewery, she was content to lease it, and in September 1875 she found a suitable occupant in Lorenz Kuenzl (Kuenzel), a trained brewer from Bohemia. Kuenzl first partnered with Louis Ecke, a brother of Gottlieb who likely called the availability of the brewery to Kuenzl’s attention. However, Ecke returned to his previous career as a butcher in Stevens Point less than a year later, and Kuenzl brought in his brother-in-law, John Walter, as his new partner.1768 The ownership of the brewery remained fluid for a few more years: John Walter left the partnership in 1880, and Kuenzl was finally able to purchase the brewery in 1883 from Henry Timm after considerable difficulty and an eviction notice.1769

Akin and Reiherzer described noteworthy features of the Gambrinus brewery in The Breweries of Oshkosh. Kuenzl’s brewery appeared to be significantly overstaffed for its size and equipment—perhaps because he was committed to employing members of his family and some Ecke descendants as well. In addition, Kuenzl seems to have kept brewing traditional German and Bohemian recipes longer than most of his rivals, rather than converting to Americanized versions. Ultimately, he began to revise his recipes to reflect the reality of American-grown ingredients and American tastes, but he was unusual in his choice of rice as an adjunct grain rather than corn.1770

After Kuenzl purchased the brewery, he made some minor improvements and added bottled beer in the late 1880s. (Their beer had been bottled previously by John Sitter.) But for the most part, he settled into the second tier of Oshkosh breweries—behind Glatz and Horn & Schwalm, but larger than Rahr and the other rapidly disappearing competitors. When Oshkosh Brewing Company was formed in 1894, the Gambrinus plant brewed weiss beer for a couple of years, but the building was used mostly as a bottling plant for the new combination. Beer was brought in barrels from the Horn & Schwalm division to be bottled. Lorenz Kuenzl was named director of brewing operations for the new company, but died in 1897 of complications from edema. The Gambrinus brewery was torn down after the completion of the new Oshkosh Brewing plant.1771

• Franz (Frank) Wahle (1867?–1869)
• Union Brewery
• Glatz & Elser (1869–1879)
• John Glatz (1879–1888)
• John Glatz & Son (1888–1894)
• Oshkosh Brewing Co., Glatz & Son/Union Brewery (1894–1912)
• 31–34 Doty Street

Franz Wahle moved to Oshkosh in 1867, ten years after starting the Stevens Point Brewery. He started a small brewery on his new farm, but appears to have done little brewing before he leased it to John Glatz and Christian Elser in September 1869.1772

Glatz and Elser could hardly have been better prepared to run a brewery. Glatz had served twelve years at Charles Melms’ South Side Brewery in Milwaukee, rising to the level of foreman/brewmaster. Elser worked for Franz Falk in Milwaukee, and his sister Louise married John Glatz in 1861. Both had experience with modern industrial brewing, which they would soon bring to Oshkosh. The conversion came about more abruptly than they may have planned—Glatz and Elser were among the many proprietors to have the fortunate misfortune of having their brewery burn down at a propitious moment. The fire in December 1871 enabled the partners to build a new modern brewery, which, by the end of the decade, passed the 1,600-barrel mark and was the largest brewery in the city.1773 Oshkosh historians Akin and Reiherzer described the new Union Brewery as “the first truly American-style” modern brewery in the region. It was the first steam-powered brewery in Oshkosh and incorporated an efficient design for handling materials that drew on the layout of large breweries of Milwaukee. Glatz & Elser, in their limited advertising, claimed their beer was “as good as Milwaukee beer and much cheaper.”1774

Glatz & Elser also took advantage of other modern innovations, including bottled beer. They appear to have been bottling by 1878 if not before, at least in part to fend off competition from Milwaukee. They sold at least some of their beer through Dichmann’s Grocery Store, which enabled them to reach customers unwilling to patronize area saloons. While this tactic was used elsewhere in Wisconsin, it was not particularly common in the 1870s. In 1879, the partnership dissolved and Christian Elser specialized in beer bottling while Glatz stayed with the brewery. To replace Elser, John Glatz gave his son William increased responsibility and authority in the brewery, and in 1886 turned over management of the business to him. In May 1888, the firm was renamed J. Glatz & Son, and continued in business under that name until the formation of Oshkosh Brewing Co. in 1894. The Glatz brewery remained in production until the new plant was built, and was razed in 1915. The site today is the Glatz Nature Preserve.1775

• Leonard Arnold (1875?–1876?)
• Corner of Sixteenth and Kansas

Leonard Arnold was primarily a manufacturer of vinegar, but he also brewed some beer at his vinegar works. He appeared in the 1876 city directory (one of the few extant from the era) but was no longer in the 1879 edition.1776

• Frederick Voelkel (1876?–1882?)
• Doty Street neighborhood

Frederick Voelkel was a butcher who also owned a beer hall and occasionally manufactured weiss beer during the late 1870s and early 1880s. While his brewing business is included in the R. G. Dun & Co. credit reports, they were not always specific about his various ventures. It appears that he was brewing at least on and off from about 1876 to 1882. His other businesses were clearly more important, since he was not listed in city directories or the census as a brewer.1777

• Oshkosh Brewing Co. (1894–1971)
• 1631 Doty Street

In May 1893, John Glatz, August Horn and Lorenz Kuenzl met to formulate a response to the combined perils of increased temperance agitation in Oshkosh and growing competition from outside breweries. At first, their agreement was limited to setting the terms upon which they would compete. But they quickly realized that this was not enough to save their breweries from the decrease in demand and their combined overcapacity. In March 1894, they merged into a new corporation called Oshkosh Brewing Co. The new business remained very much a family affair: August Horn and Sophia Schwalm controlled forty-four percent of the new concern, John and William Glatz thirty-one percent, and Lorenz Kuenzl twenty-four percent. (Horn & Schwalm bookkeeper Frank Schneider held the other share, and he was brother to Sophia Schwalm and related to the Glatz family by marriage.)1778

Oshkosh brewing historians Ron Akin and Lee Reiherzer have argued that the first few years showed little increase in efficiency and a substantial amount of independence by the proud members of the company. Only one brewery was closed, Kuenzl’s Gambrinus Brewery, and that was used for bottling—which necessitated transporting the beer from plants on the other side of the Fox River. Some efficiency was forced on the company when William Glatz took over his father’s position upon the latter’s death and applied his strict business methods to the firm (mostly to the detriment of the free-spending August Horn, who in one week bought more than 300 beers for patrons during saloon visits).1779

Oshkosh Brewing Co. began using the image of Chief Oshkosh in advertising almost immediately. Chief Oshkosh was “ruler and hero of the Menominee Indians” and was one of those who ceded the territory to the U.S. government. The famous image of him in a “’plug hat’” was taken in 1855, but at that point, myth overwhelms discernable fact. A century later, it was claimed that the chief was a frequent visitor to the brewery, that the hat had been given him by August Horn, even that the picture was taken at the brewery—all either unlikely or impossible since Chief Oshkosh died in 1858.1780

After a few years, the brewery began to increase sales and profits. Upon the death of Lorenz Kuenzl in 1897, the company hired Frank Menzel as the new brewmaster—one of the few non-family members in a key position. The next year, the company found itself between a rock and a hard place after the U.S. government increased the excise tax on beer by $1 per barrel to help fund the war against Spain. While customers may have sympathized with the plight, the article in the Daily Northwestern referred to Oshkosh Brewing as “controlling all the breweries in this city,” treating it more like a trust or holding company rather than a single business. Since the company controlled more than 75 percent of the beer trade in Oshkosh, it may have seemed like a combination in restraint of trade rather than a simple hometown brewery.1781 The competitive nature of the market forced occasional cooperation from the brewers and major bottlers. They made a joint statement about the rise in prices in 1898, and in 1904 all agreed on a standard deposit for eighth-barrel kegs (and a joint discontinuation of giving beer as Christmas presents).1782

Oshkosh Brewing did little newspaper advertising during its first decade, confining notices to a listing among the city’s manufacturing enterprises and an occasional announcement that bock beer was available. A typical notice of the latter appeared in March 1902 and indicated that the seasonal specialty would be on draught only on the coming Saturday, Sunday and Monday, but that it also would be for sale by the case. (This schedule also indicates the failure of earlier attempts to close saloons on Sundays.)1783 Some later advertisements are interesting indicators of the position of the brewery in the community. In 1906 the company advertised for boys to work at the bottling department (at the former Kuenzl plant) and urged them to “Apply at once.” The next year, the company placed ads in the spring seeking 3,000 bushels of choice barley and in the fall seeking any amount. Such ads were ever-present decades earlier, but very rare in the twentieth century. One advertisement for Oshkosh beer claimed: “Doctors declare that the great prevalence of typhoid fever in the city at present is due to impure water. We therefore recommend you to drink beer.”1784 This was the beginning of a series of ads touting the health-giving properties of Oshkosh beer, which may have been at least in part a response to the federal Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. The level of advertisement in 1907 seems less directed at local competitors and more of a bulwark against Miller, Pabst and Schlitz, who continued to pursue the lucrative Oshkosh market. One hint of this was a short ad that proclaimed “Beer may have made some cities famous, but, THE OSHKOSH BREWING CO. makes famous Beer. Try it.”1785 While touting their scientific brewing processes in some ads, others made an appeal to simple traditions. The 1908 ads for bock beer simply read “Nothing New. Same Old Reliable Bock Beer You Have Always Called For.” Later ads in 1908 included the invitation “You are invited to inspect our brewery,” which was designed to show off the purity of the brewing process as much as it was to build goodwill through free beer samples.1786

The growth of the company from 1905 to 1909 provided the capital necessary to build the first all-new brewery in the city in more than three decades. Ads soliciting bids from contractors appeared in newspapers in April 1911, and the brewing press announced that the new plant “will represent the most advanced ideas of brewery construction, the result of years of labor on the part of Mr. [William] Glatz.”1787 The new brewery was designed by Chicago brewery architect Richard Griesser, and was typical of the grand designs of the first years of the twentieth century. An unusual ad in 1913 explained the benefits of the new brewery and also gave rare insight into ingredients and other inputs:

A year ago, realizing the fact that some of the old ways and methods of brewing could be vastly improved by the application of later scientific principles and that for perfect sanitation and for other reasons, a new plant was necessary, we abandoned our old brewery and at the cost of many thousands of dollars built an entirely new plant on the latest and most scientific principles know to the brewers art.

All vats, kettles and tanks are new. The storage rooms are built on the most sanitary principles, in place of the wooden tanks of our old brewery we use glass enameled steel tanks for storing our beer; the good housewife will appreciate this when she considers her granite and earthen ware as against the old time wooden household utensils. . . . Another sanita[r]y process we have adopted—one that no other brewer in this vicinity uses—is what is called the Government Cellar for bottled beer. By this process the beer does not come in contact with the air. . . . thus avoiding the contaminating influences of the air, such as dust, insects, odors, etc.

The same advertisement also addressed the fraught topic of brown versus clear bottles:

Regarding brown bottles, we will say we have used brown bottles for years, because it is a recognized fact that light has a damaging influence on beer, as it has on all beverages that contain any organic matter. We also use light bottles where they are demanded but always they, [sic] are wrapped to protect their contents from the rays of light.

It is noteworthy that a brewery of this size would make an effort to offer multiple colors of bottles, but also interesting that they believed the color of bottle was a matter of consumer or distributor demand rather than a simple scientific question (and one which would continue through the twenty-first century). While in many ways the plant utilized the newest technology, the company still hired temporary workers to “put up ice” during the winter.

Oshkosh Brewing also provided information on the inputs:

. . . we have a purchasing agent of 29 years’ experience who selects and buys everything that goes into our brew. None but the best Wisconsin barley is used in our plant. German hops, the best hops grown in the world, are used in making our bottled beer. Oregon hops, the choicest hops grown in the United States, are used for our keg beer. West India Rice, the finest rice in the world, the kind that mother serves on the family table, is also used in connection with barley malt in the brewing of our bottled beer.

Why different hops were used in the draught and bottled versions is not clear, though it is likely that the bottled version had more hop flavor and aroma, similar to the difference between a modern German pilsner and lager. While a few brewers, including Anheuser-Busch, have made a virtue of their use of rice, few went so far as Oshkosh as to link it to mother’s cooking. Throughout the full-page advertisement, there were several appeals to the housewife, who was not just an icon of purity but increasingly often in charge of ordering beer for the household.1788 The customer had two choices: Oshkosh beer at 80¢ per case or Oshkosh Old Special Lager at $1.40 per case. Bock beer was available for a week in late February, also at 80¢. In order to ward off the competition, in 1914 the company had a promotion in which customers could try three bottles from a case free and return the rest for a full refund if not satisfied.

While the brewery made an initial splash, profits fell for the next several years, partially because of the appearance of a new rival, Peoples Brewing Co., and partially because of increased temperance agitation. In an attempt to answer prohibitionists, Oshkosh Brewing conducted an essay contest in 1915 in which entrants could receive $50 in gold for the best essay on the value of beer.1789 Sales and profits declined through the late 1910s, until Prohibition finally shut down the brewery in 1919.1790

Oshkosh made several products to get through Prohibition. The first beverage was Pep, “A Temperance Drink with SOME Pep to it.” This was sold both in bottles and on draught, but Akin and Reiherzer suggest that it is likely that some of the saloon owners injected alcohol into the kegs to give it even more pep.1791 They also brewed root beer and manufactured malt syrup. The ads for Pep and root beer still made many of the same claims for sanitation and health that the 1910s beer ads contained.1792 The brewery was still producing a significant amount of spent grain, since even during the midst of Prohibition it was offering grain as feed to farmers at a low price.1793 Oshkosh Brewing tried to kick start the near beer market again in 1928 with Chief Oshkosh Brew, but this fared little better and the company continued to lose money until beer was relegalized in 1933.1794

Oshkosh Brewing Co. had beer for sale on the first day beer was legal again, but it was later developments that helped Oshkosh prosper during the 1930s. The next generation of owners, led by Arthur Schwalm, Earl Horn and Lorenz “Shorty” Kuenzl decided to put more emphasis into the bottle trade, even if this was less popular with local tavern owners. It helped improve sales for a time, but sales started to fall again in 1938, a condition exacerbated by shortages during World War II.1795

The 1950s proved to be a much better decade for Oshkosh Brewing. The flagship beer was reformulated, and Chief Oshkosh Supreme Pilsner turned out to be a hit. However, the first attempts at canned beer were underwhelming. The crowntainer and conetop cans had both technical and marketing problems, and even the launch of flattop cans in 1955 did little to excite the public. Despite this, sales were increasing overall, driven in part by aggressive marketing by the brewery. When the city of Oshkosh first installed parking meters downtown in 1952, Oshkosh Brewing Co. gave away key ring coin holders complete with a new penny to the first 750 “customers” of the city’s new meters (1¢ bought twelve minutes of parking time).1796 In 1953, the brewery urged local residents to “look for these lovely girls in Indian Headdress! They’ll have a Valuable Gift for you!” from the makers of Chief Oshkosh.1797 The company produced a wide range of branded items and sponsored events and programs as did most other breweries of the period. Oshkosh Brewing threw a large party to commemorate its 90th anniversary in 1956 (counting from the founding of Horn & Schwalm in 1866 rather than Kuenzl’s brewery in 1864). The Daily Northwestern ran a special supplement that included stories about the brewery and congratulations from Wisconsin dignitaries, including controversial senator Joseph McCarthy.1798 The brewery produced over 60,000 barrels of beer in 1958, which would prove to be the most ever in a year.

However, the third generation of leaders was ageing, and the next generation of children were not interested in taking over the company. In August 1961, David V. Uihelin purchased the brewery from the founding families. While Uihlein was a member of the family that owned Schlitz, he was not at that time directly involved in brewing but instead devoted most of his effort to running Banner Welding in Milwaukee. He was, however, a graduate of the U.S. Brewers’ Academy in New York, and had worked in many capacities at the family brewery. To counter falling sales and profits, Uihlein attempted to cut costs by replacing corn grits with a corn syrup, but the reformulated beer went over poorly. Uihlein then redesigned the label in the summer of 1962 to capture the Northwoods imagery, but this was no more successful. Uihlein tried to generate interest in the brewery through his interest in antique vehicles: first adding a vintage 1930 Ford delivery truck named “Old Hank” to the brewery fleet, and later made the term fleet literal when he had a replica riverboat built for occasional deliveries up the river. The boat proved unworkable, and eventually it was donated to the city.1799

Uihlein also tried to boost sales by shipping beer to Ohio and Pennsylvania and expanding the Wisconsin market beyond the traditional one hundred mile radius. He also acquired brands from the defunct Two Rivers, Effinger, and Rahr of Green Bay breweries, but these brands were only available because they were not able to command their home markets. It is not clear whether Uihlein’s management accelerated the decline of Oshkosh Brewing Co., or if the market forces that struck most small breweries caused a slide that Uihlein could not stop. Production dropped from 55,000 barrels in 1961 to 41,000 in 1969, though the latter number was still respectable among Wisconsin’s smaller breweries. In 1969, Uihlein sold the brewery to a group of local investors led by Harold Kriz and Roger Zilleges. Several former employees, including secretary Audrey Ackerman and John Vandermolen joined with them to create Hometown Brewery, Inc., which operated the brewery at a loss until September 1971. In that year production had dropped below 20,000 barrels—less than half of the total two years before. The brewery and its labels were sold to Theodore Mack of Peoples Brewing Co. The brewery building was razed in 1987, though the large terra cotta emblem was salvaged and later moved to the Oshkosh Public Museum.1800

• Peoples Brewing Co. (1913–1972)
• 1506–1513 South Main Street

Peoples Brewing Co. in Oshkosh was one of several breweries around Wisconsin to have been founded by a group of tavern keepers fighting back against what they saw as abuses by monopolistic breweries. Joseph Nigl, first president of the brewery, and Rheinhold Thom both had been retailers of Oshkosh Brewing Co. beer, but objected to the company’s attempts to make tied houses of all saloons in the city and drive independent operators such as themselves out of business.

While plans to create a rival to Oshkosh Brewing years earlier had fizzled, the group that met in May 1911 was in deadly earnest. They had the advantage of an associate with experience in actually operating a brewery: William C. Kargus, who had fallen out with William Glatz after more than a decade in the front office at Oshkosh Brewing Co. The public announcement of the proposed brewery, made provocatively soon after the announcement of the plans for the new Oshkosh Brewing plant, argued that a cooperative brewery could be profitable and pointed to a large brewery in Duluth, Minnesota and nearly sixty others around the country as proof. By the end of 1911 the Oshkosh concern had taken the same name as the older Duluth business—Peoples Brewing Co.1801

The new company originally sought to purchase the Charles Rahr brewery, but Rahr refused to sell on terms agreeable to the cooperative. At one point in December 1911, there were rumors that Peoples and Oshkosh Brewing were to merge, but these were denied immediately by Kargus.1802

The next year, the company broke ground for its new brewery at a location less than a block south of Oshkosh Brewing Co. across Main Street. Whether intentional or not, Glatz and Oshkosh Brewing Co. took the formation and location of Peoples as a personal attack as well as an attack on the beer business of Oshkosh. In a large advertisement celebrating the opening of the new Oshkosh Brewing plant, the management could not resist taking a shot at the “so-called People’s Brewing Company,” alleging that it “has brought into this city an outside beer which is offered for sale for less money than the actual cost of producing high grade beer, so do not be deceived.” In fact, Peoples was not yet in production at this point. Oshkosh Brewing also claimed that the city could not support multiple breweries, though it would do so for almost sixty years. Peoples Brewing Co. announced its opening just over a year later, but with a more celebratory, less defensive ad. It introduced its two brands: Standard, available in bottles or on draught, and Asterweiss, which was a premium bottled product.1803

Most of Peoples’ early newspaper advertisements followed the same pattern as those of its neighborhood rival: touting the health benefits of the beer and the sanitary conditions under which it was brewed. Despite the prominent advertisements for bottled beer, Oshkosh brewing historians Ron Akin and Lee Reiherzer have argued that Peoples depended for its reputation and success on its draught beer business with saloons.1804 The company suffered a setback in October 1915 when William Kargus died of cancer at age 38, but brewmaster Joseph Stier added management to his brewing duties. The company continued to manufacture beer until November 1918, when it ceased operations and sold off its remaining stock of real beer.1805

Peoples stayed in operation throughout Prohibition, attempting many product lines to pay the bills. Nigl and Stier wandered farther from beer than some of their compatriots—engaging in businesses ranging from dehydrated fruit to oleomargarine. None of these had any success, and they returned to bottled goods. Various near beers were placed on the market, but with little luck, even with attempts to expand the market beyond Winnebago County.1806 In 1927 the company reinvigorated its line of soft drinks with new equipment and a new ad campaign. One ad touted no less than thirteen different products, including regular and premium ginger ales. Another ad devoted to Royal Aster, the premium ginger ale, contained the unfortunate phrase: “In connection with our complete line of Sodas and Soft Drinks our Pale Dry Royal Aster Ginger Ale stands out like a sore thumb.” Peoples Malt Tonic was also marketed throughout the period, but with much less advertising splash.1807

When beer returned in 1933, Peoples wasted no time in getting real beer back on the market. In addition, when many other breweries waited to test the market for specialty products they brought back Holiday Beer right away in 1933 and bock in 1934. Holiday Beer came out after Prohibition was fully repealed, so it could exceed the 3.2 percent alcohol limit, and was advertised as “high test.” Even higher test was Old Derby Ale, brewed first by Ripon Brewing Co. and distributed by Peoples, which reached an astounding 12 percent alcohol. After Ripon closed, Peoples acquired the brand and brewed it into the 1950s, though at a much lower alcohol content. The brewery went so far in 1935 as to offer a free case of Special Holiday Brew (note the name change) to the mother of the first baby born in Oshkosh that year.1808

Unlike many breweries that increased production during the war years only to see it shrink in the 1950s, Peoples continued to grow. Akin & Reiherzer attribute some of this to the diffuse leadership structure that the original cooperative model established, meaning that Peoples was not as dependent on any one individual as many of their rivals. In addition, Peoples continued to sell more than fifty percent of its beer on draught in loyal local taverns, giving it a market that proved harder for outside beers to crack. Credit is also due to the leadership of Richard Haidlinger, a noted local baseball player and bowler who took over as general manager and added the sales and advertising portfolio in 1951. Haidlinger was responsible for the new arrow and target logo, which broke from the traditions of agricultural scenes and script names and created a modern new look. Peoples was able to control losses in sales throughout the 1960s, dropping just 16 percent in a difficult market for small breweries compared to about 50 percent for Oshkosh Brewing Co.1809

The final chapter of Peoples Brewing Co. was even more historically significant than its cooperative origins. Theodore (Ted) Mack, an African American who was a former employee of Pabst, purchased the brewery in April 1970, making it one of the first Black-owned breweries in the nation—second only to Sunshine Brewing Co. of Reading, Pennsylvania.1810 (The story of the purchase and last years of Peoples is covered in more detail in chapter 8.) When it closed, Peoples was distributed in Wisconsin, Indiana and California, but was not able to compete against larger national brands.

• Fox River Brewing Co./Fratello’s Waterfront Brewery & Restaurant (1995–2015)
• Fox River Brewing Company & Taproom (2015–present)
• 1501 Arboretum Drive

The Supple brothers, Jay, Joe, and John, had been restaurateurs in Oshkosh for nearly three decades prior to opening Fox River Brewing Co in 1995. They decided they wanted a location on the water, and selected a site near Congress Avenue on the banks of the Fox River. The Supples consulted with Rob LoBreglio of Great Dane to help establish the brewing side of the operation, and LoBreglio recommended Al Bunde as the first brewmaster. The Supples and Bunde elected to challenge local taste preferences right away with a roster of full-flavored beers right from the start rather than changing tastes gradually. Oshkosh brewing historian Lee Reiherzer credits the presence of a growing group of craft beer lovers in Oshkosh, particularly the Society of Oshkosh Brewers homebrew club, with providing a good reception for Bunde’s beers.

The Supples looked to expand beyond their walls in Oshkosh right from the beginning. In 1997, they contracted with Green Bay Brewing Co. (later Hinterland) to bottle their Golden Ale for sale in stores. They also built another Fox River brewpub in Appleton (see Appleton). In 1998, Al Bunde left to take over brewing at Stout Brothers in Milwaukee, and Steve Lonsway, who had been in charge of brewing at the Appleton location, assumed duties at Oshkosh as well. Both locations brewed the same beers—a practice which continued for many years, through Brian Allen and Kevin Bowen’s terms as brewmaster.

In 2007, the Supples decided to emphasize the Fratello’s restaurant brand at the expense of the brewery, so they cut back on distribution of Fox River beer. However, in 2012 they refocused on the brewery and brewed beers under contract for Appleton’s Old Bavarian Brewing Co. Seeking to reassert their presence on the shelves, Fox River returned to the wholesale market in 2014 featuring a series of draught beers under the Bago Brew name, which by the end of the year were also available in bottles. In 2015 they installed a bottling line at the Appleton location, and to further focus on the beer, the Oshkosh location dropped the Fratello’s name and became Fox River Brewing Company & Taproom. In recent years, Fox River has continued to brew imaginative beers—such as a brandy-barrel-aged Belgian abbey ale (Abbey Normal—a reference to the Mel Brooks classic Young Frankenstein) which earned a silver medal at the 2012 World Beer Cup. Bowen also worked with Lee Reiherzer to create a reproduction of 1950s era Chief Oshkosh beer to celebrate the release of The Breweries of Oshkosh by Reiherzer and Ron Akin.1811

• Bare Bones Brewery (2015–present)
• 4362 County Road S

Despite the size of Oshkosh and its importance in Wisconsin brewing history, nearly twenty years elapsed between the opening of the city’s first new brewery since before Prohibition and its second. Bare Bones Brewery opened for business in 2015 after Dan and Patti Dringoli decided that a brewery and taproom would be a more exciting business to operate at their location near the Wiouwash Recreational Trail than their previous business, PuroClean (a water and fire damage clean up business).

Many of the beers’ names have some sort of canine reference. Bare Bones developed a mix of classic styles and experimental beers, including one of the first fresh hop beers to be brewed in the area. In 2017, Bare Bones began canning some of its beers.1812