Early Kalamazoo Breweries (1837-1915)

“The Brew from Kalamazoo”

1830s—1840s | 1850s | 1860s—1880s | 1890s—1915 | 1915—1933

The Third Round: Commercial & Family Brewers

Commercial distilling in Kalamazoo ceased after 1858, but Kalamazoo’s brewery business witnessed unprecedented growth during the late 1850s and 1860s despite the statewide ban on alcohol. In 1856, there were still just two known “strong beer” breweries in Kalamazoo County. By the end of the Civil War, however, that number had tripled. By then there were at least six known commercial breweries operating within the confines of the “Big Village.”

One holdover from the early days remained at the west end of the village near Arcadia Creek, while other newcomers were in operation on North Street west of Burdick, on East Main Street near the river, on Walnut Street east of Burdick, “at the foot of Portage Street” on Winstead Street, and on Olmstead Road (Lake Street) east of Portage Street.

Two additional family brewers were well-known for their work outside of the corporation limits—one became a favorite among Kalamazoo beer lovers during the Civil War years, the other supplied the village of Pavilion southeast of Kalamazoo. Most were established well before the Civil War and many enjoyed modest success until the late 1870s.

Burchnall Brewery (1858-1878)

One of Kalamazoo’s most popular early breweries was an out-of-town operation located south of the village limits along the “Kalamazoo and Three Rivers Plank Road” (Lovers Lane) near Portage Creek, across the road and just north of where Milham Park is today. The spot later became known as the Burchnall Woods, a favorite of local picnickers.

‘Old Joe’ & Dorothy Burchnall

Already brewers by trade, Joseph and Dorothy (Nichols) Burchnall (Burchnell) departed Liverpool, England, aboard the packet ship John R. Skiddy and arrived at the Port of New York on 3 May 1849. By 1858, the Burchnalls had found their way to Kalamazoo (probably from Wisconsin) and soon after established a brewery on their nine-acre farm in section 34 of Kalamazoo Township just south of the village. According to the Kalamazoo Gazette, “This establishment was not a large one, in fact, it was a rather enlarged ‘home brew’ outfit, but the excellence of its product was scattered by all who loved beers and ales made in the real old English way.”

“Old Joe’s XX”

But the Burchnalls’ output during the 1860s was significant and by 1865, the couple had become the second largest beer producer (by taxable value) in Kalamazoo, averaging up to sixty barrels or more each month. Burchnall’s “Home Brewed Ale” (known famously around the area as “Old Joe’s XX”) was available at Joseph Moore’s Portage Street Grocery and was “always on draught” at the Messmer & Seiler Billiard Saloon on South Burdick Street. (‘XX’ indicated the strength of the product, which commonly ranged from ‘X’ (the weakest) to ‘XXXX’ (the strongest).)

Dorothy Burchnall

By 1867 Joe’s health had begun to fail and Dorothy was superintending the brewery with Andrew Lewis employed as a hired hand. After Joe Burchnall’s death in April 1873, Dorothy continued to operate the brewery on her own and offered “to furnish private families with beer in quantities to suit.” Dorothy’s ginger ale became her specialty and could be ordered at Underwood’s Bakery inside Union Hall on Portage Street.

“Colonel Joe”

As an interesting aside, Joe and Dorothy’s daughter, Mary Elizabeth Burchnall (born 1847), met and married a Kalamazoo man named Thomas Westnedge (born 1834). If that name sounds familiar, it should. In 1872, Mary Westnedge gave birth to a son named Joseph Burchnall Westnedge in honor of the boy’s grandfather. He later grew to become “Colonel Joe” Westnedge, Kalamazoo’s beloved World War I hero. West Street was later named Westnedge Avenue in his honor.

Robert Walker’s ‘Plank Road’ Brewery

But the Burchnall story doesn’t quite end there. In 1876, three years after her husband’s death, Dorothy Burchnall married an Englishman named Robert Walker (born about 1820). The Walkers continued to engage in the brewery trade on the Burchnall property at least until 1878. The township directory that year listed Robert Walker as the proprietor, but it was Mrs. Dorothy Walker who paid $52.79 in taxes to the township in 1877 for the “manufacture of malt liquors” (Gazette) under a “Class B” brewer’s license.

Little else is known about Robert Walker or the “Plank Road” brewery. When the census taker came around in June 1880, Robert and Dorothy Walker were identified as married and living in Kalamazoo Township; he was a farmer, and she was “keeping house.” There was no mention of a commercial brewery on the Burchnall property after that time.

By 1881, Dorothy Walker was a lone resident on her farm, perhaps widowed once again. Dorothy (Burchnall) Walker passed away as a widow in April 1892 at the age of 67 and was laid to rest beside her husband Joseph Burchnall in Riverside Cemetery. A few months after her death, a fire—said to be accidental—destroyed the house and barn that once served as the old Burchnall brewery.

Slater’s Brewery (1875-1879)

During the 1870s a second out-of-town brewing operation appeared in rural southeastern Kalamazoo County near the village of Scotts. McKain’s Corners is a ghost town that was once located at the intersection of 34th Street and ‘S’ Avenue in Pavilion Township. The village itself, also known as Pavilion, predates the village of Scotts and flourished until the 1890s with a hotel, blacksmith shop, dance hall, schoolhouse, post office, cemetery, and a handful of other businesses, thanks to a stop on the Chicago, Kalamazoo & Saginaw Railroad line. After the CK&S line was sold in 1910 the village all but disappeared.

McKain’s Corners

Joseph Andrew Slater (born 1840) owned a 38-acre farm just south of McKain’s Corners where he ran a small brewing and malt making operation. Slater was a Civil War veteran who served in the Michigan 1st Cavalry Regiment, but little is known about his brewing operation other than the liquor tax assessments he paid between 1875 and 1879. Slater evidently operated a popular dance hall (known as “Slater’s hall”) and his tax assessments were typically somewhat less than those of his counterparts, indicating that he probably brewed just enough to supply the local taverns, his dance hall, and perhaps a nearby farmer or two. After suffering the loss of a leg, Slater apparently ceased brewing about 1880. He died on 18 September 1885 following a long illness, leaving his wife Rachel (Hampton) Slater and seven sons. Joseph Slater was laid to rest in McKain Cemetery just south of where the village once stood.

Kalamazoo Malt House (1857-1886)

George Judge

Back in the village of Kalamazoo, an Englishman named George Judge (1820-1893) established the Kalamazoo Malt House during the mid-1850s, a place that remained a favorite among the locals for more than three decades. Born in Kent, England, about 1820, George Judge became a successful malster (malt maker) before immigrating to the United States in 1850. In 1857, Judge opened his celebrated Kalamazoo Malt House at 82 North Street on property that was once home to Isaac Moffatt’s former distillery near the corner of Frank and Burdick streets. Judge’s operation likely supplied home brewers and many of the smaller breweries in town with malted barley, hops, and other brewery grains.

Judge’s Kalamazoo Malt House was primarily a wholesale and retail supplier of malted barley and rye (used for animal feed, brewing, and baking), but locals knew the establishment well for its small batches of light amber and “black as ink” dark ales, both of which were said to be very good. By 1880, George Judge had become a major supplier of malt to the Goebel Brewing Company in Detroit and was doing business with his son-in-law, John Bommerscheim, who was a saloon operator and proprietor of the Detroit Bottling Works on Main Street in Kalamazoo (the local bottler and distributor for Goebel).

Bommerscheim Brothers

George Judge retired about 1882, leaving Joseph Steiner to run the operation. John Bommerscheim purchased Judge’s property in 1886 and moved his saloon and beer bottling operation to that location. By 1891 the old grain warehouse and kiln were gone, but a separate warehouse, wood hopper, and malt floor were still there, although apparently unused.

By the 1890s the Bommerscheims had developed several thriving businesses on the property. In addition to John’s beer bottling operation and saloon, Frank and Henry Bommerscheim had located their offices there, as well. Both were agents for Fleischmann & Co., a major supplier of yeast to the baking and brewing industries.

George remained at his home on the corner of North and Burdick streets until April 1893, when injuries he sustained from a fall resulted in his death at the age of 72. His wife, Jane, died a few weeks later in June. Both are buried in Riverside Cemetery.

In June 1895, disaster struck when a massive fire wiped out most of the block, including Bommerscheim’s saloon, warehouse, cold storage facility, and offices, along with several other businesses. According to the 1902 Sanborn fire insurance map the remaining structure was being used as a “Celery Shipping House,” but by the time the 1908 map was drawn, the building had been replaced by an alley and several new residential buildings. Judge Avenue (between West North and West Frank streets) is the only remaining hint of the industry that once occupied the block.

The German Influence: Lager

While Kalamazoo’s earliest brewers were for the most part of English descent, and their British-style ales dominated local brewing until the mid-19th century, immigrants from Germany began to arrive in Kalamazoo around 1850, bringing with them a vibrant culture of hard-working laborers, merchants, craftsmen, and brewers. Beer played an important role in German culture, and most Germans preferred their own style of lager over the heavier English-style beers and ales.

“American lager beer breweries have adapted their manufacture of beer to comply with the demand of the popular taste at was formerly met by ale, and there are many thousands of gallons of strong beer or winter beer brewed each year as a substitute for ale.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, 19 July 1904

“Lagerbier”

Unlike British ales, German-style lager or “Lagerbier” (German for storeroom or warehouse) is made with a bottom-fermenting yeast, which ferments at relatively cold temperatures and tends to settle to the bottom during the process. The beer is then kept under cold storage for several weeks after brewing to produce a mild, lightly colored beverage. Lagers were relatively inexpensive to produce and typically kept longer than the heavier “young” ales. While the cold storage requirement did add an element of complexity to the process, the overall popularity of German-style lager grew quickly, especially among the working class. Lager styles (especially Pilsner) would in fact come to dominate American brewing throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Frank’s Brewery (1855-1884)

Richard Frank

During the 1850s nearly a million Germans fled their native homeland in search of a brighter future in North America. The year 1854 alone saw more than 215,000 Germans migrate to the Americas, including 26-year-old Richard Frank (born 1828) and his 22-year-old fiancé Caroline Himmel (born 1831). The couple packed their belongings that summer and traveled west from the state of Baden in southwest Germany to Le Havre, France, where they boarded the packet ship “William Tell” in September and set sail for North America. After nearly six weeks at sea, they arrived at the Port of New York on 23 October 1854, and were married soon after.

Henry Schroder

Richard Frank passed away unexpectedly in April 1865 at the age of 37, leaving his wife Caroline in charge of the brewery and their four young children: Joseph, John, Albert, and Francis. A local brewer named Henry Schroder (born in Prussia about 1834), who was most likely working with Frank at the brewery, took over the operation and soon after married Frank’s widow, Caroline, eventually adding two more children to the family: John H. and Anna. The two oldest boys worked in the brewery during their teen years, assisting brewer John Geipel. Brewers George Foegele and William Koehler also joined Schroder’s operation for a time.

It seems that Henry Schroder was a true craftsman, a “manufacturer of superior ale, lager and porter,” who took great pride in his small batch operation. Schroder was a lively character, who often decorated his brewery wagon and took part in many of the local holiday parades. But Schroder also found himself at odds with the authorities at times when it came to obeying local ordinances. More than once Schroder was seen in front of a judge for selling beer on Sunday.

Village tax rolls indicate $50 was collected from Schroder (as a Class ‘B’ brewer) for 1877 and 1878, and $65 for 1881, but at some point, evidence suggests that Schroder’s tax payment schedule went awry. “Many thousands of gallons of brew went into the placid Kalamazoo,” recalled the Kalamazoo Gazette, “when revenue officers breached the barrels and sent their contents into the ditch when this place went out of business.”

“Kalamazoo Brewery” (1857-1879)

Lorenz Brentano

The community’s second so-called “Kalamazoo Brewery” was established during the 1850s by “Count” Lorenz Brentano, a political refugee from Germany. Brentano’s Kalamazoo Brewery was built about 1857 (possibly by Nicholas Baumann) along the south side of Walnut Street on a portion of the old denBleyker homestead just east of John Street, roughly where Bronson Hospital’s emergency room is now located.

Born in Mannheim, Germany, in 1813, Lorenz Brentano studied law at universities in Heidelberg, Freiburg, and Giessen, and was widely recognized for his rhetorical skills and sharp logic as a supreme court lawyer. During the early part of his career, Brentano became a leader of Baden’s democratic left and was an outspoken critic of the moderate German government.

An active supporter and participant in the 1848 revolution against Germany’s conservative aristocracy, Brentano was elected president of the short-lived provisional republic. The revolution failed, however, and Brentano fled to Switzerland to avoid imprisonment. In 1849, he sailed to the United States aboard the schooner Splendid, which arrived at its New York City port on December 6th. Brentano settled in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, where he became a journalist and publisher of the German anti-slavery journal, Der Leuchtturm.

Brentano spent a year or so in Pennsylvania before moving to Kalamazoo County where he became a farmer and eventually a brewer. In April 1851, Brentano and his wife Caroline bought a farm from Caleb Sweetland on Section 28 in Portage Township. According to the Detroit Free Press, “His life in Michigan was a very quiet one.”

“Bavarian Lager Beer and Ale”

By the end of 1857, Brentano was residing on South Burdick Street in the village of Kalamazoo and advertising that he had “the entire control” of the Kalamazoo Brewery on Walnut Street. Brentano wrote that his “excellent establishment” was by then “prepared to fill all orders for his celebrated Bavarian lager beer and ale,” which would be delivered free of charge if ordered at the brewery or at Stofel’s Lager Beer Saloon on Burdick Street. Brentano offered to pay the “highest market price” for hops and barley, and called special attention to his featured product, “a choice article of Ale and Beer, expressly for family use… (an) excellent, wholesome, healthy beverage” (Telegraph).

Brentano operated his Kalamazoo Brewery for about a year before moving on to Chicago, where he planned to become a lawyer and resume writing and publishing. Brentano and his wife eventually sold the brewery property (Lot 240 in the den Bleyker Addition) to Frederick Augustus Jensch in September 1862.

Peter Herboldsheimer

By the end of 1859, Brentano was practicing law in Chicago, where he was eventually elected to Congress and became a prominent politician. Meanwhile, John Peter Herboldsheimer (Heirboldsheimer, Harboldsheemer) (born in Germany in 1807) had taken over the brewery business on Walnut Street. By 1860, Herboldsheimer’s two-person operation consumed 300 bushels of barley malt and 400 pounds of hops each year, while producing 150 barrels (roughly 4,700 gallons) of lager, with annual revenue of $900 (roughly $34,000 in today’s dollars).

Barney Locher

Born in Württemberg, Germany, in August 1838, Bernhard “Barney” Locher was already a brewer by trade at the age of 19 when he boarded the steamship Ericsson in Bremerhaven on the northern coast of Germany and set sail for the United States. Locher arrived in New York on 5 November 1857, and within a year’s time, he had applied for immigration and was headed for Illinois.

By the fall of 1862, Peter Herboldsheimer had moved on and was brewing beer in Topeka, Kansas, where he later died. Meanwhile, Barney Locher had made his way west, stopping short of Illinois, and settling instead in Kalamazoo, where he became proprietor of the brewery on Walnut Street, selling “good Hay and Harvest Ale and Beer” at $9 per barrel.

When Locher initially leased the brewery with resident brewers Albert Fogt and Michael Henkee, theirs was the smallest of the four local breweries (in terms of taxable value). By 1865, Locher’s operation had grown to be the second largest brewery in the village. In July 1866, he purchased the brewery property (Lot 240 in the den Bleyker Addition) from F.A. Jensch. A year after that, Locher secured four additional lots west of his existing property to further accommodate his growing business.

Barney Locher became an active member of Kalamazoo’s vibrant German community. He often participated in programs put on by the German Harmonia Society and was treasurer of the local German Workingmen’s Benevolent Association. He was also an active volunteer fireman, and treasurer of the local fire department’s Empire Hook and Ladder Company, No. 1.

Following the death of his first wife Louise in April 1868, Locher married Theressa Sarah Robischung, daughter of a well-known local cooper and saloon keeper. While struggling to keep the brewery afloat, the couple raised eight children: Minnie, William, Adolph, Edward, George, Bertha, Louisa, and Estella.

By the 1870s, Locher’s brewery had been producing high quality lager and ale for nearly a decade. A German brewer named John Pedler (born in Württemberg about 1841) lived next door by then and was most likely employed by Locher. Business was good, which prompted Locher to expand his operation by adding a new brick building to the brewery campus during the early months of 1874. This would allow his production capacity to exceed 15,000 barrels per year and make Locher’s “Lager Beer Brewery” the largest of the local breweries at the time.

The following June, Locher opened a wholesale and retail ale house and bottling works at 73 Main Street, but by then his health had begun to fail. Locher traveled to Petoskey that summer, hoping to get some rest and a breath of fresh air, but on September 8, Barney Locher died of consumption (tuberculosis) just two weeks after his 42nd birthday. His body was returned to Kalamazoo and buried at Riverside Cemetery.

Sarah Locher continued to operate the business on her own for a brief time, but eventually the land was sold and platted for residential use. Portions of the old Kalamazoo Brewery survived as an apartment building known as the Bostwick flat until 1968, when the last remaining brick walls were torn down to make way for a Bronson Hospital expansion project.

Portage Brewery (1856-1873)

Nicholas Baumann

The Portage Brewery was yet another small neighborhood outfit that went into operation during the 1850s near the outskirts of town in an area then known as the “lower end of Portage Street” (Gazette). Built in 1856 by Nicholas Baumann, the brewery stood along the west side of a street called Winsted that used to run southward from the intersection of Lovell and Portage streets through a residential neighborhood that was later absorbed by a parking lot.

Nicholas Baumann (Bauman, Bowman) was a local entrepreneur and developer who became involved in several local breweries during the early part of his career. Born in Schifferstadt, Germany, in January 1828, the bright 21-year-old arrived in New York in April 1849, likely traveling with his older sister aboard the passenger ship Belvidere. By 1855, Baumann had found his way through New York’s Allegheny Mountain region and on to Kalamazoo. After working in a local boarding house for a brief time, Baumann opened the Portage Brewery on Winstead Street just south of Lovell in 1856 and managed it for three years.

Burr Oak Brewery

In 1859, Nicholas Baumann had an altercation with neighboring brewer Peter Herboldsheimer, who had just taken over Lorenz Brentano’s Kalamazoo Brewery on Walnut Street. The exact reasons for the disagreement weren’t disclosed, but a recent transaction had evidently left some bad blood between the two enterprising brewers.

On a Monday afternoon in early March, Baumann and Herboldsheimer got into an argument at Baumann’s brewery on Winstead Street. During the confrontation, Herboldsheimer evidently grabbed a bucket full of boiling hot beer and threw it upon Baumann, leaving him severely scalded, before rendering what the newspaper called “a final blow.” Herboldsheimer was found guilty for the incident, sentenced to 40 days in jail, and ordered to pay a $100 fine. Baumann was left “shockingly burned” after the incident and was confined to his home for quite some time. While recovering from his injuries, Baumann sold his Portage Brewery property in July to Gustav Sesemann.

Sesemann & Co.

During the early months of 1853, Gustav Sesemann (born in Saxony about 1823) and his wife Wilhelmina packed up their baby daughter Caroline, boarded the barque Hermann in Hamburg, Germany, and set sail for the Americas with hopes of making a better life for themselves abroad. The Sesemanns arrived in New York in June that year and within months they were in Kalamazoo, where Gustav evidently found work in Nicholas Baumann’s brewery.

After Baumann’s burn incident, Sesemann took over the brewery in 1859 with help from fellow brewers Lewis Leovert and John Honser. Much like Lorenz Brentano at the Walnut Street brewery, Sesemann offered his own “celebrated ale and lager beer,” delivered promptly “free of charge.” Sesemann—like Brentano—advertised “a choice article of Ale and Beer, expressly for family use,” once again emphasizing that the product was an “excellent, wholesome, healthy beverage” (Gazette). According to the 1860 census, Sesemann’s three-person outfit had consumed 2,000 bushels of malt and half ton of hops, while producing 850 barrels (just over 26,000 gallons) of lager, with annual revenue of $5,100 (roughly $192,000 today).

Hughes & True

In September 1860, Sesemann sold the Portage Brewery to Phebe Hughes (wife of William L. Hughes) and returned to New York. By the end of 1862, Sesemann was working in a brewery in the Bowery neighborhood of southern Manhattan. Meanwhile, William L. Hughes and his partner Samuel True had taken control of the brewery at 6 Winsted Street and had begun calling it the “Burr Oak Brewery.” In the fall of 1864, Sam True left the brewery and opened a saloon in the basement of Fireman’s Hall on South Burdick Street, leaving William and Phoebe Hughes to operate the Burr Oak Brewery on their own until about 1870.

Seyfferth & Son

In November 1870, veteran Kalamazoo brewer Fred Seyfferth purchased the brewery property from Phebe Hughes and took over the operation with his son, Charles. Seyfferth and son kept the small brewery running until about 1873 or so before closing it permanently. (More about Fred Seyfferth in the following section.)

“The Old Brewery”

Although clearly shown on the 1873 village map, the Portage Brewery (“Burr Oak Brewery”) did not appear on the 1876 or 1877 liquor tax assessments. By then, Seyfferth was still in Kalamazoo, but working as a bookbinder. In September 1881, “the old brewery opposite Egleston’s” (Kalamazoo Spring and Axle Company) was purchased by W.H. Gibson and used as a machine shop for his Kalamazoo Elevator Works.

W.H. Gibson’s Kalamazoo Elevator Works (former Portage Brewery location), c.1887 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo County, Michigan. Sanborn Map Company, Jul, 1887. Library of Congress

Kalamazoo Spring Brewery (1856-1867)

Established by John Hall in 1847, the Kalamazoo Brewery on Arcadia Creek at the west end of the village (not to be confused with the brewery by the same name on Walnut Street) had failed. It was put up for sale in 1852 and remained vacant for several years.

Syke & Foegele

Born of German parents in Barcelona, Spain, in 1794, Sebastian Samuel Syke (Syikes, Zeug) arrived in Kalamazoo from Rochester, New York, about 1856 and took over Hall & Russell’s old Kalamazoo Brewery on Arcadia Creek. Soon after, Syke went into partnership with a young French master brewer named George Foegele (Foegle, Voegel) (born about 1828), also from Rochester. Together, they called their new operation the “Kalamazoo Spring Brewery.”

Seyfferth & Stearn

By 1860, Syke & Foegele’s Kalamazoo Spring Brewery had added two new resident brewers to its ranks; an immigrant from Württemberg, Germany, named Frederick William Seyfferth (Seyferth, Syford) (born about 1829), and a young New Yorker named John Stearn (born about 1838). According to 1860 records, Syke & Foegele’s three-person operation consumed 3,700 bushels of barley malt and 2,500 pounds of hops that year and produced “a superior article of ale and lager beer” (Gazette), with annual output of approximately 1,500 barrels (roughly 48,000 gallons) and yearly revenue of $9,000 (roughly $339,000 today). An 1861 advertisement emphasized the healthful (even medicinal) qualities of their product, promising a “pure and lively tonic beverage, unsurpassed [for] those suffering from debility, ague and chill fever” (Gazette).

“On leaving Main Street, the first object of interest that meets the eye is Bauman’s large brewery, which is not only a prominent feature in the landscape, but somewhat suggestive, especially if one happens to be a little thirsty.”

—Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph, 6 August 1868

Sebastian Syke

Around 1862, Sebastian Syke stepped aside to become a hotel keeper and liquor dealer. Once a soldier who fought with the coalition army against Napoleon and was wounded in the famous 1813 Battle of Leipzig (the largest battle in Europe before World War I), Syke spent his final years quietly tending his farm on the Paw Paw Road (Michigan Avenue) west of Kalamazoo, about where Kalamazoo College’s Angell Field is today. Sebastian Syke passed away in January 1884, just days before his 90th birthday, and was buried in Kalamazoo’s Catholic Riverside Cemetery.

Foegele & Baumann

Following Syke’s departure, George Foegele was joined by local brewer and saloon keeper Nicholas Baumann, who had not been “able to leave his room for some time” (Telegraph) due to injuries he suffered in the altercation with Peter Herboldsheimer at the Portage Brewery. Their business progressed nicely, however, and by 1865, Foegele & Baumann were the largest producers (according to taxable value) of the four local (licensed) brewers.

Kalamazoo Steam Brewery (1868-1881)

In October 1867, disaster struck late one night when a fire broke out at Baumann’s Asylum Road brewery. Although it was a “distance from the main part of town [and] it was sometime before the alarm was sounded” (Telegraph) the Burr-Oak Engine Company eventually responded. Firemen and bystanders managed to save the house next to the brewery and a few of the outbuildings, but the large main (wooden) structure burned to the ground and was declared a total loss.

Henry W. Coddington

In the months that followed, Baumann engaged a respected local architect and builder named Henry W. Coddington to rebuild his brewery. During his lengthy career, Coddington would be responsible for many well-known local buildings, including St. Luke’s church and parish on Lovell Street, the Michigan Female Seminary, the Kalamazoo College Ladies Hall (or Lower Hall), and the Post Office on Burdick Street.

Although early in Coddington’s career, Baumann’s brewery was a significant undertaking. During the $25,000 reconstruction process (roughly $567,000 in today’s dollars), a new below ground ice-chilled lagering cellar was added. Ice cut from a nearby pond during the wintertime was stored and used to cool the 150 large wooden storage tanks (called butts), each of which held roughly 3 barrels (130 gallons) of lager. The cellar provided ideal conditions for the lagering process, which required the beer to be stored below 60 degrees for several weeks after brewing.

George Foegele

George Foegele left the operation around the time of the fire and went on to become a prominent local fireman and saloon keeper. When Foegele passed away in April 1874, the entire town mourned. The press called his funeral “a very imposing affair” (Gazette) that was “very largely attended” (Telegraph). Many downtown businesses closed for the day as a procession of more than 50 carriages followed all three local fire companies and the city band to his interment ceremony at Riverside Cemetery.

Nicholas Baumann & Co.

Baumann named his newly rebuilt operation the “Kalamazoo Steam Brewery” and continued brewing under the Nicholas Baumann & Co. banner. Steam brewing was a relatively new process that became popular during the mid-19th century to compensate for the lack of refrigeration. Steam brewing (so called for the signature cloud of steam that rose as the wort cooled) employed a strain of lager yeast that fermented at warmer temperatures like ale yeast, creating a light and bubbly lager-style brew that was especially popular among the working class. William S. Downer became head brewer at the Kalamazoo Steam Brewery, while Matthew Carroll and Martin Carl worked as resident maltsters.

“Messrs. Baumann & Co. are honorable men, and thoroughly acquainted with the business, and intend their goods shall always be of the purest quality. Already Baumann’s ale, porter and lager have attained an enviable reputation for their agreeable flavor.”

—Kalamazoo Telegraph, 21 May 1869

Corn Beer

Corn (maize) has been used as an adjunct ingredient in American beer brewing since colonial times. Substantial percentages (20-30% of the total fermentables) of such an ingredient helps achieve the lightness in color, clarity, and taste typically found in mass-market lagers.

In May 1869 Nicholas Baumann received a patent for his “improved process of using unmashed Indian corn in brewing beer, &c.” According to Baumann’s patent, “it is not a new thing to apply unmashed Indian corn in the manufacture of beer; but difficulties have arisen everywhere in endeavoring thoroughly to mix the unmashed corn with the mash, and thus to utilize the whole transforming power of the malt” (US Patent Office). The extent to which Baumann employed this process at his Kalamazoo Steam Brewery and the amount of corn he used in his local brew (if any at all) is not known.

In 1871, Nicholas Baumann sold his interest in the Kalamazoo Steam Brewery for $42,000 (roughly $750,000 today) and went on to become a successful local real estate developer and entrepreneur. He built the Baumann block on Burdick Street in 1870, two additional stores on Water Street in 1872, and a saloon, restaurant, and billiard hall known as the Peninsular Building on the north side of Main Street (Michigan Avenue) in 1875.

Baumann formed the “N. Baumann & Sons” company in 1879 with his sons Frank and James Baumann, both of whom had by then become successful local saloon keepers. The Baumanns made it known that they were the first in town to offer lager beer brewed by the famous Anheuser-Busch company of St. Louis.

Nicholas Baumann passed away in 1895 at the age of 67. His funeral ceremony was officiated by The Reverend Caroline J. Bartlett before burial at Mountain Home.

Charles W. Minard

In February 1871, it was announced that an English brewer and malster from Detroit named Charles W. Minard (born about 1847) had leased the brewery on Arcadia Creek. Minard was well known in the Detroit area for producing high quality present-use (“cream”) ale, stock (aged) ale, “X, XX and XXX” ales, and porters.

Minard called his operation the “Kalamazoo Steam Brewery and Malt House,” and immediately began soliciting “orders from town and country” (Gazette) for his cream and stock ale, brown stout, porter, and lager. Later that fall, Minard exhibited a half-barrel of porter, a keg of lager beer, and a half-barrel of ale in the twenty-third annual Exhibition of the Michigan State Agricultural Society (Michigan State Fair), which was held in Kalamazoo during September that year.

“Three of our boys went to Long Lake Sunday. On their return home, they became very dry and stopped at the steam brewery for a glas [sic] of ice water [their emphasis]. While enjoying the invigorating glass a train of cars approached, which so frightened their horse that he started for home, but had gone but a short distance before the carriage and horse were both upset. When found the horse was under and a somewhat demoralized carriage on top. The horse had none of the ice water either.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, July 29, 1879

Michigan Liquor Tax Law

The 1853 liquor ban might have helped curtail local distilling, but it evidently had little effect on the brewers. According to the 1874 census, the four breweries in Kalamazoo Village kept ten people employed and produced a total of 4,400 barrels of beer that year—nearly twelve gallons for every man, woman, and child in the township.

In 1875, the State of Michigan repealed the 1853 liquor ban and instead imposed an annual tax on beer and liquor retailers, wholesalers, distillers, and brewers. For a “class B” brewer (producing less than 1,500 barrels per year), an annual flat tax of $50 was assessed. For a “class A” brewer (producing more than 1,500 barrels per year, but less than 5,000 barrels), the annual fee was $100. Manufacturers producing more than 5,000 barrels per year would be charged $200.

“This [Liquor Tax Law], like prohibition, is an experiment, and experience alone can demonstrate its utility or impracticability. In the execution of the law it may be found that deficits exist which can be remedied at some future time, but there is little doubt but that the people have struck upon the right method of dealing with this question. The traffic should be taxed, and then dealers ought to receive protection in their business.”

—Kalamazoo Gazette, 7 May 1875

George Neumaier & Leo Kinast

There were five local brewers on the 1875 tax collection list for Kalamazoo County: Nicholas Baumann (late of the Kalamazoo Steam Brewery), Barney Locher (Kalamazoo Brewery on Walnut Street), Henry Schroder (Frank Brewery on East Main), Dorothy Burchnall (south of the village on Lovers Lane), and another recent arrival from the Rhineland, George Neumaier. Born 27 April 1842 in the historical territory of Baden in South Germany, George Neumaier trained as a cooper and a brewer in his native land before immigrating to the United States in 1866.

In November that year, George Neumaier, Valentina Siefert (the future Mrs. Neumaier, born in Baden-Württemberg in 1847), and fellow brewer Leo Kinast (born in Baden-Württemberg about 1842), arrived in New York City together aboard the French ship Floride. Neumaier (and presumably Kinast) soon found work in various New York City breweries and malt houses. George and Valentina were married in Manhattan in March 1868. After the birth of their daughter Emma later that year, the Neumaiers moved to Adrian, Michigan, where George became a foreman at one of the breweries there.

Bock Beer

Bock is a lightly hopped bottom fermenting German lager that’s been around in various forms since the 14th century. The beer is typically kept in cold storage during the winter months and served in the spring for special occasions. Bock is somewhat stronger than a typical lager and is noted for its dark amber color and robust malt flavors. Early Kalamazoo brewers like Barney Locker and George Neumaier were well known for their “celebrated” springtime releases of bock beer.

After the birth of their son Alfred in 1872, the Neumaiers moved on to Kalamazoo, where George went into partnership with his old friend Leo Kinast and took over Charles Minard’s Steam Brewery on Asylum Road. The following May, “Geo. Neumeyer [sic ] & Co.” began distributing its “Bock Beer,” along with their “fine Lager for Family use” (Telegraph). During the town’s annual Fourth of July celebration in 1878, the Spring Brewery helped represent the “trades and industries” portion of the annual holiday parade with “a wagon embowered with boughs and kegs of beer giving forth the foaming beverage” (Telegraph). Once settled in Kalamazoo, the Neumaiers welcomed two more daughters; Carrie in 1874 and Ida in 1876, although they lost their oldest daughter Emma that same year.

“Howard’s Brewery”

George Neumaier left the Kalamazoo Steam Brewery in the fall of 1878 to begin his own brewing venture across town. (More about George Neumaier in the coming sections.) Meanwhile, Leo Kinast continued to maintain the brewery as a sole proprietor with help from brewer Frederick Beck (born about 1855).

Production at the Steam Brewery on Arcadia Creek ground to an unexpected halt in March 1881 when Leo Kinast died of consumption (tuberculosis) just days before his 40th birthday, leaving behind his wife Mary and three children: Emma, Victoria, and Edward.

The property was owned by Robert R. Howard from Detroit, who attempted to revive the brewery in 1883 by renting it to a firm from Marshall, but his efforts were to no avail. After Kinast’s death, the brewery sat vacant for a few years, save for “a number of casks and vats” (Gazette).

On an overly warm Saturday afternoon in June 1886, a stray ember from a passing Michigan Central locomotive landed on the roof of the old brewery building and quickly ignited a blaze, which gutted the building and destroyed the Root brothers’ nearby icehouse. By late afternoon all that remained of the once “celebrated Kalamazoo Brewery” were portions of its “cracked and crumbling” (Gazette) brick walls and a solitary chimney left standing on its own. Loss of the buildings, including some 300 tons of ice, was valued at $12,000 (roughly $320,000 in today’s dollars). The growing local temperance movement celebrated the event, declaring that “it was an act of providence to do away with the nefarious business of brewing the devil’s drink” (Gazette).

Ruins of the burned-out brewery building remained until July 1890 when “Marshall Owens and a force of men lowered the dangerous brick walls that [had] stood there since the building burned” (Gazette). A decade later, the land was cleared and platted for residential use. Western Michigan University’s Waldo Stadium and Seelye Center complex currently occupy the location.

Lake Street Brewery (1865-1894)

Taylor, Thackwray & Co.

The Taylor Thackwray outfit was a short-lived brewing concern on Kalamazoo’s southeast side. Reuben J. Taylor, Richard Taylor, and brother-in-law John Thackwray arrived in Kalamazoo from England and settled in Comstock Township about 1865. In October 1867, they formed Taylor Thackwray & Co. and established a brewery at 6 Lake Street, most likely where John Halls original 1837 brewery had stood, just east of Portage Road on the south side of Olmstead Road (Lake Street), near a portion of what was then Merrill & McCourtie’s mill pond. The brewery, listed among five local brewers in the 1869 Kalamazoo city directory, operated until at least July that year before closing. In February 1872, the parcel of land along Lake Street, including the brewery, was sold by the village of Kalamazoo for unpaid 1869 taxes.

George Neumaier

In June 1878, George Neumaier purchased the Taylor Thackwray property on Lake Street from S.H. Malley. Neumaier & Company “overhauled, renovated and enlarged” (Telegraph) the remains of the old brewery building and by fall had it back in full operation. In September, Neumaier then left the Kalamazoo Steam Brewery on Asylum Road and began his own brewing venture.

“Cold Stream Brewery”

Eventually, Neumaier’s brewery became known as the “Cold Stream Brewery” after Merrill & McCourtie’s nearby flour mills of the same name. As time went by Neumaier’s brewery earned a solid reputation and by 1884 his was the only such operation left in Kalamazoo, producing between 900 and 1,500 barrels annually. Columbia Reister (born in Baden about 1854) was boarding with the Neumaiers around this time while working as a brewer. New York native Uriah Wheeler (born about 1820) lived around the corner on Jackson Street and worked as a cooper.

Major improvements were made in June 1886 with the purchase of an additional 2 3/4-acre parcel and the addition of a new icehouse with the capacity to store 100 tons of ice. During the winter months ice was cut from Merrill & McCourtie’s mill pond and stored away for use in the brewery’s lagering process.

Part 4: Last Call (1890s—1915)

Written by Keith Howard, Kalamazoo Public Library Staff, 2011. Additional revisions and corrections, March 2024.