Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer (48 page)

I must give extra thanks to Jim Koch, Charlie Papazian, and Fritz Maytag. Jim read part of the manuscript and then took the time (when he could have been sitting on the beach!) to phone me and provide a cogent and thoughtful critique. Charlie Papazian answered what surely felt like five million questions and did so with good humor. He made sure his staff provided the photographs that I needed, and has proved unfailingly generous in ensuring that people both in and out of the industry know about the book. Fritz Maytag, arguably one of the busiest people on the planet, made time for me and the book. He invited me to dinner (and he no doubt agrees it was one of the weirdest meals ever), found the time for a long interview, tracked down photographs, and offered up the brewery for a book signing event.

None of the interviews would have happened without the extraordinary generosity of Daniel Bradford. From the first moment he learned of this project, he threw himself into it with passion and enthusiasm that rivaled my own. He introduced me to brewers; leaned on them when they ignored my emails, phone calls, and letters; answered enough questions to last a lifetime, and did all of this with humor, wit, and intelligence. In the process we became friends—and for that I am even more thankful. Daniel, you may not be able to see it, but this paragraph is engraved, embossed, and framed in gold leaf.

I likely would not have written this book or any others had it not been for Phil Metzidakis, who prodded me to envision a life centered on writing and ideas. My agent, Anna Ghosh, sold the proposal from which this book came. She has more character and dignity in her little finger than most humans can even imagine having during a lifetime. My armor gleams brighter for having her by my side.

I am incredibly lucky that she sold it to Harcourt, where everyone I met greeted me with respect and enthusiasm. I thank Patty A. Berg, Mike Harrigan, Jennifer Gilmore, and Paul Von Drasek for taking the time to sit down with me and for marshalling their troops to support this project. My publicist Jodie Hockensmith came to her task with genuine excitement for my work. David Hough shepherded the manuscript through production with kind words and care. I thank publisher André Bernard for taking on this book and for having the good sense to hire such terrific people.

Janine Kozanda appointed herself as my personal cheering squad. Her determination and dedication to her own work inspire me daily; her friendship brings me great joy.

The Trollops provided the kind of sustenance and support that words cannot describe. Without them, I long since would have descended into the slough of despair: Karen Abbott, Maggie Dana, Elizabeth Graham, Sara Gruen, Colleen Holt, Carrie Kabak, Jill Morrow,Yvonne Oots, Marina Richards, Kristina Ringstrom, and Danielle Schaaf.

Karen Abbott read and commented on key portions of the manuscript, cheered me on, made me laugh, and deepened my understanding of the word “friend.” I thank her, the lovely Chuck, and, of course, Poe and Dex.

Maggie Dana was always there with a big shoulder, lots of Kleenex, and an ocean of love and understanding.

Sara Gruen is a friend tried and true—always ready to lend support and encouragement and, more importantly, never too busy with her own writing to join me in a grouse-fest, of which there were many. Now if only I can figure out how to stop losing bets to her.

I thank Carrie Kabak and the inimitable Mark Kabak for the fabulous food, warm hearts, and loving support.

My family is small but their love is large: my mother, Carmen Ogle; my step-daughters Alys Robinson and Jen Robinson; and my son-in-law, Trevor Barnes, all encouraged and supported this venture.

If this book has any merit, it is thanks to my editor at Harcourt, Andrea Schulz, a woman of tenacity, generosity, patience, and immense talent. She found a story amid the clutter of a disjointed proposal and taught me how to make a book. I am grateful for that—and honored to call her “friend.”

Finally, the most important thanks of all: to my husband, Bill Robinson. I am humbled by his loyalty and friendship, his devotion and love.

Endnotes

CHAPTER ONE

German Beer, American Dreams

[>]
“I [am] familiar”: Quoted in Thomas C. Cochran,
The Pabst Brewing Company: The History of an American Business
(New York: New York University Press, 1948), 20.

[>]
“music of riveting”: Quoted in ibid., 20.

[>]
“love for dramatic speech”: Ibid., 19.

[>]
“was filled with great joy”: Quoted in ibid., 21.

[>]
“[O]ne cannot describe”: Nicholas Frest to Marhoffer, Chicago, August 30, 1841; Letter 70, Box 1; Germans in the United States Collection, Archives, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

[>]
“We sing”: Hermes to his brother, Milwaukee, January 1846; Letter 325, Box 2; Germans in the United States Collection,Archives, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

[>]
“A fellow”: Quoted in Earl'S. Pomeroy, ed.,“Wisconsin in 1847: Notes of John Q. Roods,”
Wisconsin Magazine of History
33 (1949): 217.

[>]
“The public houses and streets”: Quoted in John Gurda,
The Making of Milwaukee
(Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee County Historical Society, 1999), 68.

[>]
“One hundred persons”: Quoted in Bayrd Still,
Milwaukee: The History of a City
(Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1965), 73.

[>]
“Best & Company, Beer Brewery”: Quoted in Cochran,
Pabst Brewing Company,
33.

[>]
“then and there with divers”: Quoted in Harry H. Anderson, “The Women Who Helped Make Milwaukee Breweries Famous,”
Milwaukee History
4 (1981): 68.

[>]
“the most delicious lager”: Memoir of C. T. Wettstein; quoted in Albert Schnabel, “History of Milwaukee Breweries,” History of Brewing in Milwaukee Folder, Milwaukee County Historical Society.

[>]
“Something must be done”: “Lager Bier,”
Milwaukee Sentinel,
September 12, 1854, p. 2.

[>]
“I could never have imagined”: Quoted in Cochran,
Pabst Brewing Company,
25.

[>]
“In Germany”: Quoted in ibid., 24.

[>]
“[N]obody has any idea”: Fredrika Bremer,
The Homes of the New World; Impressions of America,
trans. Mary Howitt (1853; reprint New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1968), 616.

[>]
“like an animal”: Quoted in Frederic Trautmann, “Missouri Through a German’s Eyes: Franz von Löher on St. Louis and Hermann,”
Missouri Historical Review
77 (July 1983): 375.

[>]
“neither bench nor chair”: Quoted in Kathleen Neils Conzen,
Immigrant Milwaukee 1836—1860: Accommodation and Community in a Frontier City
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), 157.

[>]
“bubbles as fresh and clear”: Quoted in Cochran,
Pabst Brewing Company,
34.

[>]
“a good creature of God”: Quoted in Ian R. Tyrrell,
Sobering Up: From Temperance to Prohibition in Antebellum America, 1800–1860
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979), 16.

[>]
“I am sure”: Quoted in Allan M. Winkler, “Drinking on the American Frontier,”
Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol
29 (June 1968): 419.

[>]
“[I]f I did not drink”: Quoted in ibid., 421.

[>]
“Intemperance”: Quoted in Thomas R. Pegram,
Battling Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800–1933
(Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1998), 18.

[>]
“gangerous excrescence”: Quoted in W. J. Rorabaugh,
The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 198.

[>]
“Capital,—Enterprise”: Quoted in Tyrrell,
Sobering Up,
130.

[>]
“liquor power”: Quoted in Jed Dannenbaum,
Drink and Disorder: Temperance Reform in Cincinnati from the Washingtonian Revival to the WCTU
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 84.

[>]
“they [would] earn”: Quoted in Tyrrell,
Sobering Up,
274.

[>]
“pestilent”: Quoted in Thomas P. Baldwin, “The Public Image of Germans in Louisville and in Jefferson County, Kentucky, 1840–72,”
Yearbook of German-American Studies
29 (1994): 86.

[>]
“[N]early all the Germans”:
Milwaukee Sentinel,
August 11, 1854, p. 2.

[>]
“veto pen”: “A Barleycorn Edict,”
Milwaukee Sentinel,
March 30, 1855, p. 2.

[>]
“And yet”: “Beer Business at St. Louis,”
Milwaukee Sentinel,
September 25, 1854, p. 2.

[>]
“liver-eating gin”: Quoted in David A. Gerber, “‘The Germans Take Care of Our Celebrations’: Middle-class Americans Appropriate German Ethnic Culture in Buffalo in the 1850s,” in
Hard at Play: Leisure in America, 1840–1940,
ed. Kathryn Grover (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press for the Strong Museum, 1992), 53.

[>]
“if it takes a pail-full”: “Lager Bier Is Decided to be Not Intoxicating,”
New York Times,
February 6, 1858, p. 8.

[>]
“he was in the habit”: “Is Lager Bier an Intoxicating Beverage?,”
New York Herald,
May 21, 1858, p. 2.

[>]
“Good lager beer”: “Lager Beer,”
Harper’s Weekly
3 (July 9, 1859): 434.

[>]
“There is no denying”: “Beer Drinking,”
Milwaukee Sentinel,
March 3, 1860, p. 2.

[>]
“a good deal too fashionable”: “Total Abstinence,”
New York Times,
October 15, 1856, p. 3.

[>]
“in the habit of drinking”: “Lager Bier—Change in the Beverages of the City,”
New York Times,
September 17, 1855, p. 4.

[>]
“A German festival”: Quoted in Gerber, “‘The Germans Take Care,’” 52.

[>]
“forms refreshment”: Charles Cist,
Sketches and Statistics of Cincinnati in 1859
(Cincinnati, OH: n.p., 1859), 246.

[>]
“Lager has gone ahead”: Samuel Mordecai,
Richmond in By-Gone Days
(1860; reprint Richmond: The Dietz Press, 1946), 246.

[>]
“A dozen years ago”: D. W. Mitchell,
Ten Years in the United States: Being an Englishman’s Views of Men and Things in the North and South
(London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1862), 86, 87.

[>]
“‘set ’em up’”: “Milwaukee’s Ancient Saloon,”
Milwaukee Sentinel,
August 13, 1890, p. 1.

[>]
“apostles of Temperance”: “The Carnival in Milwaukee,”
Milwaukee Sentinel,
February 25, 1857, p. 3.

CHAPTER TWO

“I Must Have Nothing But the Very Best”

[>]
“inundated with breweries”: “Local Matters—Beer,”
St. Louis Republican,
June 21, 1857, p. 3.

[>]
“I see nothing but ruin”: James W. Goodrich, ed., “The Civil War Letters of Bethiah Pyatt McKown, Part I,”
Missouri Historical Review
47, no. 2 (January 1973): 237.

[>]
“I never saw a city”: Peter Josyph, ed.,
The Civil War Letters of John Vance Lauderdale, M. D.
(East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1993), 85.

[>]
“regulates the bowels”: “Sanitary Commission. No. 17. Report of a Preliminary Survey of the Camps of a Portion of the Volunteer Forces Near Washington,”
Documents of the U.S. Sanitary Commission,
vol. 1 (New York: n.p., 1866), 12, 23.

[>]
“I spent my early life”: “Spends Youth on Rafts; Breaks Jam Years Later,”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
October 12, 1913, p. 3:4.

[>]
“assertiveness and good-natured”: “Body of Adolphus Busch Will Lie in State in St. Louis,”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
October 12, 1913, p. 3:3.

[>]
“He wills and does”: “Adolphus Busch, Esq., St. Louis,”
Western Brewer
7 (1882): 1575.

[>]
“I love my work”: Adolphus Busch to Charles Nagel, December 8, 1909; Charles Nagel Papers, Box 2/Folder 25; Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University. Hereafter Nagel Papers.

[>]
“I an an eternal optimist”: Adolphus Busch to Charles Nagel, February 1, 1912; Nagel Papers, Box 7/Folder 98.

[>]
“the ultimate good of man”: Charles Nagel, “Adolphus Busch: A Great Life Understood,”
Western Brewer
41 (1913): 231.

[>]
“more ambitious and industrious”: “ ‘Work Double Time You Are Paid for,’ Busch’s Advice to Young Men,”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
October 11, 1913, p. 2. This interview with Busch first appeared in the
Post-Dispatch
in 1911 and then in Walter B. Stevens,
Eleven Roads to Success—Charted by St. Louisans Who Have Traveled Them
(St. Louis, MO: n.p., 1914).

[>]
“delightful companion”: “August Uihlein Dies in Germany,”
Milwaukee Sentinel,
October 12, 1911, p. 4.