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Local News

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Cincinnati beer landmarks risk being erased
By LISA BERNARD-KUHN

The Cincinnati Enquirer

CINCINNATI -- More than a century ago, streets in the city's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood were lined with hundreds of saloons, teeming with lager-drinking Germans who were immersed in a beer brewing culture.

Vine Street alone was home to more than 135 saloons where beer barons like Christian Moerlein mingled with laborers. Today, that deep-rooted brewing heritage has been nearly erased from the city's landscape -- the breweries demolished or left to decay.

Now preservationists are racing to save the remaining crumbling relics -- considered the largest collection of their kind nationally.

"What we have is fantastic," said Mike Morgan, executive director of the Over-the-Rhine Foundation. "But these buildings are dying the death of a thousand cuts. When you look at how many of these buildings are in short-term peril of being lost, you quickly realize that this could be the decade that we fall out of touch with our heritage and lose this neighborhood as a catalyst for change."

Bringing momentum to efforts to reclaim the city's past are modern beer barons like Cincinnati native Greg Hardman.

Since purchasing the Christian Moerlein brand in 2004, Hardman has worked to revive iconic Cincinnati beer brands of the past including Burger, Hauck, Hudepohl, Hudy Delight, Hudy 14-K, Little Kings, Red Top and Windisch-Muhlhauser.

A former president of Warsteiner Importers Agency in suburban West Chester, Hardman has a long view of Cincinnati's brewing heritage.

"I was on the front lines literally, watching our last great regional breweries close down and watching the life blood of our brewing heritage get sucked right out of us," he said. "When we lost the local ownership of our breweries, we lost something very dear to our community. I've been striving to bring back that heritage."

Hardman and Morgan are among a growing group of beer-loving Cincinnatians who share a grand vision: Revive Cincinnati's deep-rooted brewing heritage to such a scale that it becomes a source of local pride and a destination for beer enthusiasts and history buffs.

The foundation for their dream is slowly being laid.

In September, Hardman announced plans to build Moerlein Lager House -- a 500-seat restaurant and 600-seat outdoor beer garden -- at the upcoming Cincinnati Riverfront Park. He also said he's working on plans to open a brewery in Over-the-Rhine.

Hardman won't share details about the progress of either venture, but said he's committed to seeing the projects through.

"I haven't disappointed yet," he said. "There's a big void, and we need to fill that void in a grand way that helps us be proud as a city of our past and to celebrate it."

On Friday, the 18th annual Bockfest will officially kick off -- offering up craft and bock beers and tours of the city's rediscovered historic breweries.

It's one of several annual fundraisers hosted by the foundation and the Brewery District Community Urban Redevelopment Corp. in an effort to raise awareness and money to help preserve historic buildings like the city's aging breweries.

"The biggest thing we try to do is show that this heritage can be such an important part of the redevelopment of this neighborhood," said Steve Hampton, president of the Brewery District. "No other city can claim this history."

All told, roughly 40 buildings remain standing in Over-the-Rhine and West End that were used in the operations of about a dozen 19th century breweries.

"This is a huge part of Cincinnati's history, but most people have no clue what we have here," said Sarah Stephens, author of the new book "Cincinnati's Brewing History." "It's an incredible, amazing history that people literally walk over every day."

As masses of German immigrants arrived in Cincinnati in the 1800s, they brought with them their strong appetite for lager beer.

"In German tradition, beer is considered a dietary ingredient that was a regular part of meals," said Don Heinrich Tolzmann, president of the German American Citizens League and local author. "It's not a luxury item like champagne or something to be had only on specials occasions. It was part of the daily diet."

At its peak, Cincinnati's brewing industry was home in the late 1800s to more than 30 operating breweries, including the Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. on Elm Street, John Hauck Brewing Co. on Dayton Street and the Windisch-Muhlhauser Brewing Co. on Central Parkway.

"The sheer volume of breweries that existed here made us one of the main brewing centers in the country," Stephens said. "Production and consumption of beer here was more than twice the national average."

Economically, the brewing industry was huge.

In 1872, according to an annual report of Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, 32 operating breweries in Cincinnati produced more than 436,000 barrels of beer and contributed to a labor payroll of $1.2 million.

"Some of these breweries would employ well over 100 people," Tolzmann said. "They were a vital part of the economic fiber of this community."

The largest concentration of breweries were found in Over-the-Rhine and West End where brewers like John Kauffman set up shop in the 1600 block of Vine Street in 1859 to be near the Miami and Erie Canal that ran along the route of Central Parkway today.

"The canal was a central vehicle to their business," Tolzmann said. "A lot of breweries like Moerlein had farms up in West Chester, where they grew their barley and grain, and from Over-the-Rhine they could easily ship their items up and down the canal."

Beneath their brew houses, brewers dug deep, wide caverns that were used to store and keep the lager cool while it fermented. A federal law at the time prohibited brewers from making their beer and bottling it in the same location, which led many brewers to build underground tunnels to cart and pipe their beer from one side of the brewery operation to an adjacent side -- often just across the street.

The cellars at Kauffman brewery on Vine Street can still be explored today, two stories below ground. And on McMicken Avenue at the former Crown Brewery property owner recently worked to uncover a tunnel -- one story underground -- that connected their two buildings.

"We really have no idea how many of these cellars and tunnels may still exist," said the Brewery District's Hampton. "After the breweries closed, many were sealed off or used as trash pits."

As the breweries prospered, they supported cafe owners, machinists and others businesses that fed off their success.

"You had the coopers who made the barrels, the farmers of the barley, the saloons and the beer gardens," Stephens said. "It really was a way of life for this city."

By the late 19th century, local saloons had become the premier gathering spot for German immigrants across all social ranks.

"From the brewery owners to the general labors," residents of all walks of life mingled in the saloons, bonded by their German heritage, said Timothy Holian, a German professor at the University of Wisconsin and author of "Over-The-Barrel: The Brewing History and Beer Culture of Cincinnati."

Politicians were no strangers to Over-the-Rhine's saloons. "In fact, if you were in engaged in any business transaction of that day that mattered, you were in a saloon," Holian said.

As the fortunes of the breweries grew, beer barons became community leaders and active philanthropists. They built up their dynasties as they handed off their breweries to their sons and daughters.

Among them was John Hauck, who founded the Dayton Street Brewery in 1866. In 1893, his son Louis Hauck became president of the firm and oversaw its expansion into the John Hauck Beer Bottling Co. At one time, the family owned the Cincinnati Zoo. Louis Hauck also was president of the German National Bank and president of the Cincinnati Reds in 1886.

Prohibition began in 1920 and delivered a devastating blow to Cincinnati's brewing industry. By 1925, only eight Cincinnati brewers continued to operate, producing non-alcoholic malt beverages, according to Holian's book.

Following the end of Prohibition in 1933, Cincinnati brewers attempted to rally back, but few survived the increasing competition from national brewers. By the late 1950s, only Burger Brewing Co., Hudepohl Brewing Co. and Schoenling Brewing Co. were carrying on Cincinnati's heritage.

Burger closed in its operations at 1550 Central Parkway in 1973, and in 1986 Hudepohl and Schoenling combined, eventually ending its local operations here in the late 1990s.

As historians and preservationists work to reclaim the city's faded brewing heritage, other trends are building that bode well for the efforts.

The popularity of craft brewers like Boston Beer Co.'s Samuel Adams -- which is brewed locally on Central Avenue in the former Hudepohl-Schoenling plant -- has led to surprising successes despite the recession and struggles facing national beer brands. Although U.S. beer shipments dropped by 2.2 percent in 2009, the Boston Beer Co. saw a 1.7 percent gain in deliveries.

James Koch, a Cincinnati native and president of the Boston Beer Co., attributed part of the success to the growing interest in craft beer among younger generations.

"The 20-somethings are adapting to craft beer and developing a taste for the finer beers in a similar way that the last generations became interested in finer wines."

Koch's local brewery in the West End cranks out 700,000 barrels of Samuel Adams a year, and has about 110 employees.


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2 Comments

Latest comments listed first.
Marty Modrowski wrote:
Time to erase
“ "Cincinnati beer landmarks risk being erased." I think we should erase BEER itself! It does nothing except create a bunch of drunks, mostly behind the wheel and has ruined MANY familes. But the worst offenders are those that call themselves "Christian". Don't try to Biblically justify your drunkeness Mr. Christian...it can't be done. ”
Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:26:42 AM
Printed koozies wrote:
Great !
“ I admire what you have done here. I like the part where you say you are doing this to give back but I would assume by all the comments that this is working for you as well.
 ”
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 9:48:40 PM
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