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German immigrant Gottlieb Gluek used the brewing methods of his home country in the brewery he established along the northern reaches of the Mississippi River in 1857. The business preceded the establishment of the state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis. The next year, Gluek produced 3,996 barrels of beer. A March 1880 fire destroyed the brewery. No lives were lost directly but the founder died the following October at the age of 52, taxed by the loss and the effort to rebuild. Only partially covered by insurance, the Gluek family lost $20,000 and used their funds to rebuild a larger, more modern facility and continue the operation.

Brewmaster Paul Fleckenstien was born in 1836 at Hoerstein in Bavaria. His family’s long history in the brewing trade dated to the early 1700s. It was natural that he and his three brothers would follow that same trade when they came to America in 1864. They first worked in Faribault in Rice County. Fleckenstien soon decided his opportunities were better at another brewery — Schimek’s in Blue Earth.

Western Beer Retro Defunct Breweriana

vintage beer

Northern Brewing Co. opened in 1933 and closed in 1967 it was open for 34 years. The Northern Brewing Company was founded in 1890 by Louis Rueping and John A. Klinkert as the KIinkert Brewing Company. Both Klinkert and Rueping had worked many years in the brewing business before setting up this brewery in West Superior, Wisconsin. After Klinkert's partnership ended in 1898, Louis Rueping renamed the original brewery the L. Rueping Company. In the following months, he reorganized and incorporated the Northern Brewing Company. Northern eventually grew to become one of Superior's most prosperous industries. At one time, Northern beer outsold the combined sales of all other brands in the city.

White Seal Beer Retro Defunct Breweriana

Henry Schuster emigrated with his family from Germany to Wisconsin at the age of 12 in 1847. In 1862, he and his wife moved to Rochester, Minnesota where, working as a blacksmith, he made enough to buy an interest in the Joest Brewery. By 1866, he was working at Joest, which produced nearly 500 barrels a year, and in 1870, he bought out his partner, renaming it Union Brewery. A year later, the brewery burned down, and Schuster began construction on a new three-story plant, which included a single-story, solid brick structure housing the furnaces. The new brewery opened in 1871 as Schuster Brewing Co. and focused on both brewing traditional German beers and non-alcoholic malt and hop tonics that sold in drugstores as medicinal remedies.

Ulmer Lager Strong Beer Retro Defunct Breweriana

Fitger's Brewing Company was a beer manufacturer in Duluth, Minnesota, United States, from 1881 to 1972. The surviving brewery complex stretches for 720 feet (220 m) along the Lake Superior shoreline and East Superior Street, one of Duluth's main roads. The majority of the ten-building complex was constructed between 1886 and 1911. Fitger's, as it is now known, has undergone adaptive reuse as an indoor mall with shops, restaurants, nightclubs, a hotel, and a museum on the brewery's history.

Macho Beer Retro Defunct Breweriana

The Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company is the name of a former brewing company that was located at 882 W. Seventh Street in St. Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1855, the brewery was originally known as the Christopher Stahlmann Cave Brewery. Its name was changed to its final name in 1900. A short-lived venture lasting less than three years, the company formed with the dissolution of the Christopher Stahlmann Brewing Co. after the deaths of Stahlmann's sons. At the time of Christopher Stahlmann' and his three sons' deaths, the grandchildren were all too young to operate the brewery. By 1898, the job had fallen on Frank Nocolin, the second husband of Henry Stahlmann's widow, Anna.

Kiewel Bock Beer Retro Defunct Breweriana

Steinhaus Beer Retro Defunct Breweriana

The Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company is the name of a former brewing company that was located at 882 W. Seventh Street in St. Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1855, the brewery was originally known as the Christopher Stahlmann Cave Brewery. Its name was changed to its final name in 1900. Because Schmidt's had continued producing beverages, it was one of a few breweries in Minnesota that was ready to produce real beer when Prohibition was lifted in 1933. Schmidt's re-released City Club beer as a strong beer with the new slogan "Tops in any Town". Schmidt's saw widespread success and continued to grow. This success brought attention to the Bremer family, leading to the kidnapping of Edward Bremer by the Barker-Karpis gang on January 16, 1934.