Brooklyn celebrates long brewing history

Modern Brewery Age, May 24, 2004

AP -- Raise a glass to Brooklyn, once home to more than 100 breweries, former producer of more beer than Milwaukee, the borough where Prohibition was greeted with a wink ... and an ice-cold draft.

Make a toast to William Johnson, who opened Brooklyn's first brewery back in 1822. Lift a mug for John F. Trommer, a 19th-century German immigrant renowned for his all-malt Brooklyn brew.

Strange as it seems, Brooklyn--famed for its churches, cemeteries and Coney Island's Cyclone--was once America's brewing capital. Business finally went flat in the 1950s, but the legacy remains.

"Brewing was one of the most important industries in borough history," Jessie McClintock Kelly, president of the Brooklyn Historical Society, said last week in unveiling a new exhibit on the borough and its beer.

"100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" offers a "case study" of the borough's long history in the suds business. Long before the market was dominated by brewing giants such as Anheuser-Busch and Miller, breweries in Brooklyn were cranking out their own neighborhood brews.

In the 19th century, one section of the borough was known simply as "Brewers' Row"--a 12-block stretch that was home to 58 breweries, in what is now parts of Bushwick and Williamsburg. Many of the breakthroughs in brewing taken for granted today were conjured up right there.

* The Piels brothers were the first to introduce dark colored bottles, which kept the beer from spoiling in sunlight.

* The Rheingold brewery pioneered refrigeration technology.

* The Consumers Park brewery was the nation's first all-electric brewery. As a bonus, it also provided electricity to the neighboring homes.

And then there was Dr. Joseph Owades, a Brooklynite who developed the first light beer in 1967. He was a terrific brewmaster, but a lousy marketer. "He named it Gablinger's, which doesn't exactly roll off the tongue," said Steve Hindy, current keeper of the Brooklyn brewing flame. "'He didn't come up with 'tastes great, less filling.' And the beer ended up flopping."

Hindy, a former reporter, is president of the Brooklyn Brewery. He says the position carries a responsibility to the borough's long-closed breweries: Meltzer Brothers, Interboro, Otto Huber, Hittleman-Goldenrod, Joseph Fallet.

"The history of brewing in Brooklyn inspired me," Hindy said. Among his favorite Brooklyn tales: During Prohibition, the Excelsior Brewery was pumping bootleg beer through a pipe buried 20 feet underground into a neighboring garage.

The tap was eventually shut down, but federal officials never convicted the scheme's reputed mastermind--legendary gangster Legs Diamond.

The exhibit runs through Oct. 15 at the Brooklyn Historical Society, in two of its third-floor galleries. The Museum said "The exhibition delves into the important and largely unexplored cultural and economic role of Brooklyn as one of the nation's largest beer producers from 1870 until 1976."

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Historical Society will hold a musical "beer garden" gathering on Friday evenings, May 14 through August 27, featuring beer from the Brooklyn Brewery.

According to the Society, the rapid growth of the brewing industry in Brooklyn was due mainly to the large number of German immigrants, who brought with them a taste for good quality beer and strong brewing traditions, as well as to the quality of the region's water which was gravity-fed into Brooklyn from Long Island. Many breweries were located in Brooklyn's neighborhoods with the highest concentration of German immigrants: Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Ridgewood.

At the industry's height just prior to Prohibition, Brooklyn had joined other major brewing cities such as Milwaukee and St. Louis as one of the nation's central brewing centers.

Drawing on the Historical Society's eclectic collection of beer memorabilia, 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall traces six historical periods of the beer brewing industry. The exhibition includes advertising posters and other graphic materials, early porcelain tops, prohibition bottles, maps, business records, photographs, and of course 100 bottles of beer. It also focuses on the unique characteristics of Brooklyn brewing, with a special section on specific formulations.

Steve Hindy offered an explanation for the lack of respect accorded to Brooklyn's breweries. "They called Schlitz the beer that made Milwaukee famous," he said. "New York was already famous. It doesn't need a beer to make it famous."