1

The First Pour

I’ll have another, please.

—Delegate, Moonshiners Convention of Bald Headed Men, Neumueller’s Park, June 30, 1889¹

Historically speaking, the first chapter of Wisconsin’s brewing and distilling industries in Wisconsin actually began with the French. Etienne Brule is credited with having reached northern Wisconsin in the 1620s during his explorations of Lake Superior, and he probably had a bottle or two of cognac stashed in his canoe. Following Jean Nicolet’s landing near Green Bay in 1634, French merchants sought beaver skins from the territory’s Native Americans, exchanging metal knives, kettles, steel flints, guns and ammunition, woolen blankets and other goods for the valuable pelts. Alcohol, however, was officially prohibited but still easily obtained. All these trade goods were shipped though Mackinac at the head of Lake Michigan and then on to posts in Green Bay, Prairie du Chien and LaPointe.²

Over the next generations, most new colonists departed Europe in early March for the six- to eight-week ocean voyage to Canada or New York. From there, the typical immigrant traveled by boat up the St. Lawrence or Hudson Rivers, often through Albany and on to the Erie Canal, across Lake Erie and sailing to Lake Michigan ports such as Milwaukee. Others landed in New Orleans and came up the Mississippi River. The extended journey was enough for a traveler to work up a good thirst. Once settled, the newcomers went to work. For farmers, hops were among the first crops planted in frontier Wisconsin. The hardy vine was common in settler gardens, being used for animal fodder, human consumption, making dye, basket weaving and a multitude of other purposes—such as brewing beer.³

James Weaver is credited with being one of the first growers to bring hop roots to the frontier of southern Wisconsin in 1837. He raised the plant on his farm in Sussex, near Milwaukee. A native of Peasmarsh, Sussex County, England, Weaver had lived in New York State, where he grew hops prior to coming to Wisconsin. Also in the spring of 1837, Weaver’s brother-in-law, David Bonham, opened a small “public house,” making his own malt beverages in small batches. Since Weaver’s crops had not yet been harvested, Bonham most likely used English or Eastern hops, which he probably purchased from lake freighters at harbor in Milwaukee.⁴

The 1840s saw the advent of the beer business in the burgeoning village of Milwaukee, since it was the beverage of choice preferred by the growing numbers of immigrants. While their Yankee neighbors drank whiskey, the latest arrivals—or at least the Germans—gathered in their neighborhood taverns. They’d sit around the stammtisch, the “table of regulars,” to drink beer and discuss the latest news. Of course, it helped that the savviest saloonkeepers laid out a goodly supply of free blutwurst (blood sausage), pickled pigs’ feet, headcheese and slabs of rye bread to go along with the froth.⁵

According to early newspapers, Welsh natives Owens, Pawlett and Davis erected the city’s first brewery on the south side of the foot of Huron Street in the spring of 1840. The men opened their Lake Brewery, a small frame building that “furnished a sufficient quantity of ale and beer to quench the thirst of all lovers of malt liquor in Eastern Wisconsin. In 1845, the proprietors were obliged to enlarge the premises and during the past year a large brick addition has been built. Richard Owens, Esq., one of the original owners is now sole proprietor, the lesser being Messrs. Powell & Co.”⁶

The second brewery in the city was opened in 1841 by German émigré Hermann Reuthlisberger (or Reutelshofer), located at the corner of Hanover and Virginia Streets (now South Third and West Virginia) in Walker’s Point. Reuthlisberger’s brew was popular, but he was underfinanced, soon selling his operations to baker John B. Meyer. In 1844, Meyer unloaded the business to his father-in-law, Francis Neukirch, who carried on the brewery under the Neukirch name. After the Lake Brewery opening, Levi Blossom started his Eagle Brewery, a finely appointed establishment tucked under a hill south of Chestnut Street. About that time, young Phillip Best launched another beer-making operation in the same neighborhood.⁷

In 1849, Wisconsin hosted 22 breweries. By 1856, Milwaukee alone had 20 breweries. In 1859, the number of beer manufacturers across the state had risen to 166. By 1860, nearly 200 breweries operated in Wisconsin, with more than 40 in Milwaukee, although most were quite small. But who cared about size as long as they made beer? Almost every town had a brewery, and some towns formed around breweries.⁸ Milwaukee was certainly a place where the phrase “roll out the barrel” was taken seriously.