Defunct brewery companies of the United States

Question

This piglix contains articles or sub-piglix about Defunct brewery companies of the United States

Answer 1

G. Heileman Brewing Company

G. Heileman Brewing Company

The G. Heileman Brewing Company of La Crosse, Wisconsin, United States, was a brewery firm that operated from 1858 to 1996. It was ultimately acquired by Stroh's, and its independent existence ceased. From 1872 until its acquisition, the brewery bore the family name of its co-founder, brewer Gottlieb Heileman.

In 1858, Gottlieb Heileman, an immigrant from Württemberg, joined in a business venture with John Gund, an immigrant from Baden. Together, the pair of German expatriates founded The City Brewery in La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1858. The City Brewery produced beer at a modest rate, sticking to just local and regional production. The beer produced at the City Brewery primarily went to local hotels and bars. Because hotels and bars were their primary target, Heileman and Gund collaborated on the International Hotel, formerly the Augusta Hotel, which the pair bought and rebuilt after a fire in 1862. The hotel provided them additional income.

In 1872, however, the pair had a falling out due to several factors, foremost among them being Gund’s desire to expand the brewery and Heileman’s desire to stay local. Following the dissolution of the partnership, Gund bought Heileman’s shares of the International Hotel and Heileman bought Gund’s shares of the City Brewery. Gund went on to found the Gund Brewing Company whereas Heileman renamed the City Brewery the G. Heileman’s City Brewery.

The G. Heileman Brewery came to exist after the dissolution of the Gund/Heileman partnership in 1872. Still under Heileman’s direction, the company remained a local brewery, producing only 3,000 barrels of beer a year for La Crosse and the surrounding community. Heileman died in 1878.

Because the company was family held, following Heileman's death, ownership passed on to his widow, Johanna, who was to control the company until their nine-year-old son, Henry, was ready to take over. Along with her brother-in-law, who was Johanna’s foreman in the brewery, the Heileman Brewery finally started expanding. By 1880 they were producing more than 7,000 barrels of beer. Eventually, Johanna’s son-in-law, Emil T. Mueller, joined the family business. The three of them incorporated the company in 1890, calling it the G. Heileman Brewing Company – the name it held until its closing in 1991.

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Answer 2

Goebel Brewing Company

Goebel Brewing Company was a brewing company in Detroit, Michigan from 1873 to 1964 eventually acquired late in its existence by Stroh Brewery Company. The beer was locally popular in Detroit from the company's inception, but grew in popularity and was eventually available in many states for a brief period in the 1940s, with an ad campaign in Life magazine that featured restaurant ads from many famous eateries around the country using Goebel beer as an ingredient. The beer, billed as a "light lager", was golden in color, and was noticeably drier than most everyday beers of the era. Their longtime mascot was a bantam, called Brewster Rooster, who wore attire with Goebel's logo, and the beer was a long-time sponsor of Detroit Tigers baseball broadcasts on radio.

Prohibition forced the closure of the brewery in 1920 though the space was rented out to various industries. In 1932 the company was reorganized. Though Prohibition was repealed in 1933 the brewery would not begin new production until the Spring of 1934. Otto Rosenbusch, the retired brewmaster from Stroh Brewery Company, was brought on to help Goebel compete against his old employer at Stroh's and his son Herman who was the head brewer there. Upon the elder Rosenbusch's passing in 1935, Charles Elich, the brewmaster at the Pabst Brewing Company agreed to become both the brewmaster and superintendent at Goebel.

In the John Bellairs book The Trolley to Yesterday and its eventual sequel The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost, the character of Brewster (really Horus, a god of Upper and Lower Egypt) is given his name because he bears a resemblance to Brewster Rooster.

In the mid 1960s, Goebel began advertising that their beer was "real" (unpasteurized) draft beer. Normally, bottled and canned beer had to be pasteurized to kill the active yeast left in the beer after brewing was completed, otherwise the buildup of gasses in the bottle would explode them on store shelves or ruin the taste of the beer even if the bottles stayed intact. This does not affect draft beer, which is kept at refrigerator temperatures from brewery to tap. Goebel's method of achieving this was a bacterium cultivated by the company's chemists that acted specifically on the yeast in the beer, then died harmlessly when the yeast was all consumed. Sales spiked, as people liked the "draft-like" flavor of the beer, but the technique was short-lived, as the bacteria became prevalent everywhere in the brewery, affecting other aspects of the brewing process negatively, and it had to be discontinued. The beer never regained its previous popularity after that point, exacerbated by the gradual changing of tastes in a new generation of beer drinkers who preferred a lighter, sweeter beer. Comedian George Gobel became a spokesman for Goebel Beer for obvious reasons.

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Answer 3

Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company

The Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company was a brewery in Newark, New Jersey founded by Gottfried Krueger and John Laible (Gottfried's Uncle) in 1858.

The company produced Krueger Beer, which was the first beer to be produced in cans on January 24, 1935.

The brewery was ultimately purchased by Ballantine and Sons. The Krueger brand was sold and was produced by Narragansett in Rhode Island. Narragansett was then bought by Falstaff Brewing Company.

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Answer 4

Green River Brewery

Green River Brewery

The Sweetwater Brewery, also known as the Green River Brewery, was built in 1900 in Green River, Wyoming. The present structure is the surviving remnant of a three-building complex comprising an office/saloon, engine house, and the present brewery building. It was the first brewery in Wyoming, with operations dating to 1872 when Adam Braun began the business, the first of a series of ethnic German brewers. The brewery was further developed by Otto Rauch and Karl Spinner. The present structure was built by the fourth proprietor, Hugo Gaensslen, a Chicagoan who decorated the building with turrets reminiscent of the Chicago Water Tower.

The two story building is composed of rock-faced ashlar sandstone, mostly quarried 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away. The fanciful turrets feature mock-medieval features such as merlons and crenels. The largest tower is on the southwest corner and features a flagpole topped by a large ball.

Gaensslen concentrated on brewing, leasing the adjacent saloon to an operator. With the passage of the Volstead Act, brewing stopped and the company's name changed to the Sweetwater Beverage Company, making a non-alcoholic drink named Green River and a near-beer called "Wyoming Beverage". The business did not prosper and failed with the death of Gaensslen in 1931, two years before the end of Prohibition.

In 1936 the closed business was bought by a con man named Tom Flaherty, who made some poor beer and skipped town to Canada. Since that time, no beer has been made in the building, which has housed various commercial businesses. It currently is a local bar, known as "The Brewery".

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Answer 5

Haffen Brewing Company

Haffen Brewery, later J&M Haffen Brewing Company, and incorporated as Haffen Brewing Company in 1900, operated in Bronx, New York from 1856 until 1917. Owned by Matthias Haffen, (1814 – 1891), who came to the United States Ffom Bavaria in 1831, it was a "landmark" on old Melrose Avenue between 151st Street and 152nd Street. The Haffen Building, a seven-story Beaux-Arts architecture style office building by architect Michael J. Garvin was built for him in 1901 to 1902. He married Catherine (Hays) Haffen (1823 – 1888), an emigrant from Limerick, Ireland, in 1840. They had six children.

Matthias's German-Irish sons included John Haffen (1847–1910), two term Bronx Borough President Louis M. Haffen and Henry (1852-1932), who served on the New York Board of Aldermen. John Haffen took over the brewery and was involved in banking, including as a founding of Dollar Savings Bank. He was also involved in a funding deal for Wakefield Park, in return for a beer concession, but blue laws kept the park and its planned Sunday Iriash athletic events from happening.

The third generation of Haffens in the Bronx included John Matthias Haffen (born in 1872), a bank executive and president of the Bronx Board of Trade.

The brewery business was sold to Jacob Ruppert, Sr. (1842–1915) in 1914 for $700,000. Ruppert died soon after and left the business to Jacob Ruppert, Jr. The plan was to close the brewery down and develop the property; it was in a rapidly growing area known as the Hub.

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Answer 6

Haffenreffer Brewery

Haffenreffer Brewery

The Haffenreffer Brewery, established in 1870, was a former brewer in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. The first Haffenreffer bottles were plate mold bottles and were produced by Karl Hutter of New York and had the traditional lightning stop tops. According to Haffenreffer company records later in 1876 the Haffenreffer Brewery contracted with Dean Foster and Company of Boston to aid in the production of bottles for the brewery and the growing demand. Starting in 1893 all Haffenreffer bottles were produced with Karl Hutter stoppers. Haffenreffer Private Stock, a legacy of the original Haffenreffer & Co. product line, is a brand of malt liquor still manufactured by Haffenreffer & Co. today.

The Haffenreffer Brewery was founded by Rudolph Frederick Haffenreffer, a German immigrant who arrived in Boston after the Civil War. Following his death on March 8, 1929, the business was turned over to his sons, Rudolf F. Haffenreffer Jr. (1874-1954) and Theodore Carl Haffenreffer (1880-1956). The brewery was subsequently run by other members of the Haffenreffer family, including Rudolph Frederick Haffenreffer III (1902-1991), his brother Carl W. Haffenreffer (1906-1999), and their first cousin, Theodore Carl Haffenreffer III (1917-2008). The brewery closed in 1965, having survived Prohibition and operating for nearly a century, leaving Massachusetts without a brewery for the first time in 300 years.

The entire Haffenreffer complex was redeveloped by the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation, which owns and operates it today. The Boston Beer Company, brewer of Samuel Adams beer, has been an anchor tenant and investor since the mid-1980s, and offers tours of the brewery there.

The main brewery building is included on the National Register of Historic Places.

The top of the smokestack from the old Haffenreffer Brewery crumbled and had been partially restored to current building codes- so the letters on its side read FENREFFER BREWERS for more than 30 years. In late 2016, a local artist installed a circular steel frame to the top with the letters HAF, which restored the smokestack to its full name.

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Answer 7

Independent Brewing Company of Pittsburgh

Independent Brewing
Company of Pittsburgh

The Independent Brewing Company of Pittsburgh (IBC) was a conglomerate of breweries, formed by the merger of fifteen Pittsburgh breweries in 1905.

Around the turn of the century, there were a total of fifty-eight breweries involved in mergers across Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Central Brewing Company accounted for twelve breweries in Luzerne and Lackawana Counties, the Consumers Brewing Company in Philadelphia accounted for six, and the Erie Brewing Company for four. Most breweries in the western Pennsylvania area coalesced into two competing groups, forming either the Pittsburgh Brewing Company (twenty-one breweries) or the Independent Brewing Company of Pittsburgh (fifteen breweries).

The company was incorporated on January 7, 1905, with capital of $10,000. Unlike the Pittsburgh Brewing Company, whose breweries were located primarily in the city itself, the Independent Brewing Company of Pittsburgh's breweries were in towns surrounding the city.

By 1907, the company had capital of $13,500,000. In 1916, the company claimed a capacity of 1,200,000 barrels. After Prohibition, however, only five branches of IBC and three of the PBC remained. The Duquesne Brewery, which had always been the foremost of the IBC's branches, was the only to return in 1933, operating under the Independent Brewing Company's name. It had already obtained a permit to brew the new 3.2-percent beer allowed by the Cullen–Harrison Act by March 1933; the company sent a case of the beer to President Franklin Roosevelt on April 5, 1933, as a gift. A crowd of 25,000 jubilant people gathered at the IBC's plant in Pittsburgh's South Side as legal beer was allowed to flow "unlicensed and uncontrolled" at 12:01 a.m. on April 7.

Before 1934 would arrive, the name was changed back to the Duquesne Brewing Company of Pittsburgh, and the IBC would be no more until 2013, when the Kurzweg brothers revitalized the name. Matthew Kurzweg purchased an independent bar in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh, and his brother Peter runs the establishment, where they are devoted to the service of western Pennsylvanian craft beers. As of February 15, 2014, the "Indy" opened its doors with a music pairing of James Brown, an untraditional happy hour based on the duration of the album, and Four Season's Get Down Brown ale. The Independent Brewing Company is reinvigorating the focus on small batch, local beers, to off-set the usual big brewery conglomerates that can be found in just about any bar.

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Answer 8

Hamm%27s Brewery

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Answer 9

James Page Brewing Company

James Page Brewing Company

James Page Brewing Company is a microbrewery that packages its beer in cans. The brand is produced at the Stevens Point Brewery in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

The brewery was founded by Minneapolis attorney James Page in 1986. It was located on Quincy Street in Northeast Minneapolis, in an aging industrial warehouse building. The brewery's infrastructure was cobbled together from secondhand equipment. Page never exceeded more than about 1500 barrels per year of production until it was sold to new owners in the mid 1990s.

In addition to operating a brewery, James Page was also a home brewing retailer. It operated a retail store out of the company's tap room and had a mail order shipping/catalog operation.

In October 1995, James Page sold the brewery to a group of investors with a background in food marketing. Page continued to operate a home brew supply company until 1998 under the name "James Page Brewing", although there was no longer any tie to the brewery.

The new owners of the brewery, led by President David Anderson, thoroughly re-invented the brand. They created a fictional character to personify "James Page", who bore little resemblance to the founder of the company; he was a rugged American frontiersman. They also stopped the practice of trucking the beer to distant bottling lines. Instead, they produced the bottled product as a contract brew at regional breweries (Minnesota Brewing Company in St. Paul, and then Stroh's in St. Paul). The draught product continued to be brewed at the Quincy Street brewery.

In 1998, Page became one of the first American craft breweries to package its beer in cans. The canned product was brewed and packaged under contract at the August Schell Brewing Company in New Ulm, Minnesota. It won a contract with Northwest Airlines to feature the canned beer on certain domestic flights.

Despite a more aggressive marketing push, the brewery's new management was not able to turn a profit. The James Page Brewing Company suffered from an identity crisis: although the Quincy Street brewery produced beer for its draught accounts, the bottled product was a contract brew. The beer in the bottles was not the same product as the beer in the kegs, and this did not help its reputation among beer aficionados. As a result, Page management made the acquisition of a bottling line a top priority during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

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Answer 10

John F. Betz %26 Sons Brewery

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