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Welcome to the first segment of the Brewing Heritage Trail to be completed. This urban walking trail will eventually stretch from the riverfront to the northwest corner of Over-the-Rhine. The trail, which is composed of physical signs and enhanced by digital experiences, explores Cincinnati’s history through beer. This includes celebrating our wealth of remaining pre-Prohibition brewery buildings as well as the ways in which the production and consumption of Cincinnati beer impacted the culture and economy.

The trail consists of multiple segments, each forming a loop. Each loop focuses on a particular aspect of our past. This segment is called Glasses & Growlers because it explores the interaction between breweries and saloons, and the role that the city’s thousands of neighborhood bars played in nineteenth century life.

This mural was installed by Art Works in 2015. The original artwork was produced by local Cincinnati artist, Jim Effler, who has become known as Cincinnati's "Beer" artist due to his many brewing related commissions, including producing the artwork for Bockfest posters for nearly 30 years!

By 1900, Christian Moerlein was the fourth largest brewery in the U.S. The brand was known internationally and helped make Cincinnati synonymous with quality beer. The Christian Moerlein Brewery closed at the onset of Prohibition in 1919, but when the Hudepohl Brewing Co. began brewing one of the the nation's first craft beers in the early 1980s, they named it "Christian Moerlein" in homage to this proud heritage. In 2004, Gregory Hardman purchased the brand and revived the Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. Two years later, Hardman purchased the brand assets of Hudepohl-Schoenling. The modern Christian Moerlein Brewery reunited and revived the city's most iconic beer brands and brought both Moerlein and Hudepohl back to the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood.

1983: Christian Moerlein became the first American beer to formally pass the Reinheitsgebot, Germany's beer purity law.

This mosaic is a representation of an iconic image of a German-American barmaid serving steins of beer to patrons. The mural was created by Koverman Mosaic, a local husband and wife team and was installed in 2016. They hand make the mosaic tiles, creating sheets that are then installed on the wall.

During the late 19th century, Cincinnati featured more than 1800 saloons, with many of them located in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. Employment opportunties for women outside the home were very limited during this time, but working as a barmaid was socially acceptable in the largely German community.

Beer is the world's oldest alcoholic beverage, dating to around 10,000 B.C.E. There are four essential ingredients in beer: water, malted grains, hops, and yeast. The basic steps in making beer have been the same for thousands of years, but the invention of new machinery and a better understanding of natural science transformed brewing from an ancient art form into a modern industry in the 1800s.

1. Grist Mill: Malt is ground into a crushed grain called grist.

2. Mash Tun: The grist is soaked in hot water. This converts starches into fermentable, sugary broth.

3. Lauter Tun: Grist is separated from the sugary broth, called wort.

4. Boil Kettle: While the wort is being boiled hops (and sometimes other ingredients) are added for flavor and aroma.

5. Whirlpool: Spent hops and physical particles are removed from the boiled wort.

6. Heat Exchanger: Hot wort is cooled before fermentation.

7. Fermentation Tanks: Yeast is added to the cooled wort. Fermentation produces alcohol and transforms the sugary liquid into beer.

8. Bright Tanks: The beer is cooled to near freezing, flavor matures, and carbonization is added.

9. Filtering & Packaging: Most modern beers are filtered before they are kegged, bottled, or canned.

Liberty Street was Cincinnati's orginal northern boundary. A small cluster of homes and businesses lying just beyond the city limits was unofficially called "The Northern Liberties." Roughly 710 people lived in this area in 1830, but immigration caused the population to explode. By 1840, rougly 8,000 ethnic Germans lived north of Liberty. The Northern Liberties became part of the City of Cincinnati in 1849, adding thousands of German-Americans to city voter rolls. This exacerbated ethnic and religious tensions between the city’s more established, ethnically English and Scottish residents and its newer, German and Irish populations.

Lying just north of the city’s official northern boundary, the Northern Liberties are often recalled as an outpost of lawlessness. It paints a romantic picture to imagine that Cincinnatians of the 1840s could step from a well-regulated society into a nihilistic wonderland simply by crossing Liberty Street, but this legendary image of the Northern Liberties has almost no basis in reality. It is true that the area was beyond the reach of Cincinnati’s municipal law, but for practical purposes this had very little impact on daily life.

City Council did outlaw saloons in 1847, but with only one city marshal and two deputies to enforce the law against roughly 400 open taverns, efforts were quickly abandoned and the law was repealed; and while laws against gambling and prostitution remained on the books, they were rarely enforced. The truth seems to be that it was far more frustrating than liberating to live so close to, yet just beyond the reach of city services. As a result, the residents of the Northern Liberties voted to become part of the City of Cincinnati in 1848, and Cincinnatians approved the annexation the following year.

The Christian Moerlein Saloon on Vine

The first floor of this building was a Christian Moerlein bar in the early 1900s, known as a "Tied-House." These were saloons that were controlled by a specific brewery. The concept originated in England in the late 1700s, but did not become common practice in the United States until the 1880s. As Cincinnati’s beer industry became increasingly competitive, breweries tried to ensure some of their retail business by controlling the saloons themselves.

By the 1880s hundreds of the city’s saloons were “virtually owned by the brewers.” What this meant depended on individual circumstances. Some saloons were literally owned by the brewery. More commonly, breweries used their capital and credit to lease storefronts, then sublet the space along with the bar, stock and fixtures to a saloon operator. In exchange, the saloon operator was required to carry that brewer’s beer exclusively.

We still have at least two establishments in this city that started out as tied-houses in the 1800s. The first is Mecklenburg Gardens in Corryville. Louis Mecklenburg wanted to buy the bar that he worked in but he didn’t have the capital. The Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. leased the space and sublet it to Mecklenburg and his family. (You can see a copy of the original lease hanging in Mecklenburg Gardens.) The second example is Washington Platform at Court and Elm Streets. In the 1870s, the Schaller & Gerke Brewery enable bartender Fidel Bader to operate the saloon by acting as his surety on a lease and providing all of his bar furniture and fixtures. Unfortunately, this location closed in January, 2022, however it has recently reopened as a Japanese Restaurant called Aji Ichiban.

Brewery control over saloons was a national phenomenon. Brewery sponsorship enabled people to become saloon owners who lacked the captial and credit to open any other comparable business. As a result, breweries were blamed for the ubiquity of saloons in almost every major American city, although regional differences in laws and customs gave some cities a lot more bars than others.

Cincinnati was particularly wet. By the late 1800s there were more than 2200 saloons in the city, with close to 300 in Over-the-Rhine alone. This was partly attributable to the city's large German and Irish population, and partly due to state laws that were so restrictive that they were ignored completely.

Ohio law made it illegal to sell alcohol by the drink for onsite consumption in 1851. At the time, Cincinnati had roughly 400 saloons. By 1886, counting saloons, hotels, beer gardens, resorts, grocery stores, drug stores, and confectioners, there was an estimated 3434 businesses selling alcohol in the city, all operating in violation of state law.

The work celebrates the materials and place where beer was stored and how they were often artfully labeled. The mural was created by a small team of student apprentices led by artist Jim Effler and installed in 2016. It consists of actual wood barrels with decorative lettering, on a background mural that covers blocked up window openings with details of the building.

Barrel manufacturing, or coopering, was an important industry during the 19th century. They were not only used to transport beer, but also most other manufactured and agricultural products, from nails to pickled swine. A barrel of beer is 31 gallons and the modern keg holds 15 1/2 gallons, which is why it is commonly referred to as a half barrel.

Years of Operation: 1856-1920

John Kauffman began his brewing career in his uncle’s brewery, located just northeast of Cincinnati’s central business district. Several years after his uncle’s death, Kauffman purchased the brewery with partners George Eichenlaub and Rudolph Rheinboldt. He also married Eichenlaub’s only child, Marianne. Partially due to her inheritance when Eichenlaub died, Kauffman was able to buy out Rheinboldt and become the sole proprietor of the brewery. Under his direction the brewery took a bold and successful course, breaking with several conventions.

Cincinnati lager beer was typically described as amber in color. Brewers relied on domestically grown hops and barley, and brewers all agreed on a standardized price for a barrel of beer. Kauffman imported hops and malt from Europe, had his brewers trained in European brewing schools, and made a light, pale-colored Bohemian Pilsner. Kauffman also aged the beer for months on ice in wooden barrels to smooth and even its flavor.

The brewery was undergoing significant expansion when Kauffman died unexpectedly in 1892. His widow, Marianne, began running the Kauffman Brewing Company from behind the scenes, but she was unsuccessful at curbing some of the excesses of her sons. Charlie Kauffman was terminally lazy, Michael Kauffman used his job as Treasurer to embezzle, and John Jr.’s domestic troubles resulted in two attempted murders, one of him and the other of his brother-in-law, Emil Schmidt, by Kauffman's estranged wife Blanche. The brewery recovered from the turmoil and remained succesful until Prohibition closed its doors in 1920.

John Kauffman left the Alsace region of France at age 15 and began his brewing career in Cincinnati. By 1877 Kauffman was the sole proprietor of one of the largest breweries in the city. Kauffman carved a unique niche in the competitive brewing industry by importing select European malt and hops. This was a marked departure from the use of domestically grown raw ingredients.

In an era when agreements among breweries set a standardized price for beer, Kauffman explained that the quality and pronounced "hop flavor" of its brews justified "a higher price than any other beer in the market." The better beer strategy worked and Kauffman's sales rose.

Years of Operation: 1869-1919

The Kauffman Brewery moved their brewing operations to Over-the-Rhine on Vine Street in 1859. Prior to building this malt production facility in 1869, the brewery had to puchase their brewing grain from a separate malt company. By building this facility they could save money, control exactly how the malt was produced, and also sell excess malt to other breweries at a profit.

Making Malt:

Almost all 19th century malt rooms have arched columns that taper down to small columns and this is true of the Kauffman Malthouse. The design helped provide consistent temperatures and the small, tapered columns maximized the amount of useable floor space. Converting the seeds of barley to malt was very time consuming and tedious in the 1800s. The grain was steeped in water both to clean and moisten it. Then the moist grains were laid out on a malt room floor.

After the moist malt was laid out on the floor, it began to germinate or sprout, becoming its own living, developing new barley plant. The barley did this naturally. What it did not do naturally was to keep itself at the same pace in the process as all of the other barley grains around it. To ensure that the barley was germinating consistently, malt room workers needed to watch it, tend it, and rake it almost constantly. Different levels of moisture and different germination conditions are also part of what produces different types of malt from the same grain, so workers also needed to know when it was time to start bringing the grain off the floor to produce the malt that was desired.

Modern maltsters still follow these same basic steps, but they rake the grain with large, automated pieces of equipment, and they monitor its moisture and germination levels with computers. In the 1800s all of this work was done manually, and this meant that malt rooms required almost constant attention. Prior to the labor movement, working hours were completely unregulated, and overtime did not exist. So the typical day in a malt room could start at 5AM and last until 6PM, then the men got a two hour break before returning to work at 8PM and finishing up around 10PM. Seven hours later they were back on the malt room floor repeating the same work.

Years of Operation: ca. 1859-1919

These stables were built and used by the Kauffman Brewery shortly after they relocated to Over-the-Rhine in 1859. Horses were an important part of brewery operations, even once steam power became dominant in equipment operation by the mid-19th century. Prior to this period, horses would move grinding wheels and turn pulley systems that moved materials throughout the brewery, but by the time the Kauffman Brewery opened at this site, they were primarily involved in moving materials to and from the brewery.

In the middle and late 19th century, breweries typically needed about 50 horses to help produce about 100,000 barrels of beer. Draft horses were the dominant horse used due to their ability to pull heavy loads of two or three times their weight and required less food and water per pound to make it happen. The Kauffman Brewery seems to have maximized their production capacity at around 70,000 barrels, so they probably utilized about 40 horses that were rotated in and out of service throughout the year.

Fun Fact: Draft horses did NOT get their name from draft beer!

This work is made out of traditional neon which pays tribute to the use of neon signs to advertise beer products at watering holes all around the world. The Brewery District marks the physical, cultural, and economic heart of our city. As our beer goes, so does our city. Zinzy Ist Bier. The mural was created at Neonworks of Cincinnati in the American Sign Museum and installed in 2016.

1871- Legend says that a Chicago bar owner known as "Oyster Joe" Mackin invented the free lunch concept

By the 1890s, Cincinnati was "over salooned." There was roughly one bar for every 20 registered voters in the city. Competition grew fierce. Giving away food to attract afternoon business started out as a good idea, but in the race to beat each other, saloons started losing money by giving away ample portions of roast beef, ham, herring, and oysters in exchange for the purchase of one or two glasses of five cent beer.

1908- After several failed attempts to outlaw free lunches at the state level, Cincinnati City Council successfully ended the practice by city ordinance. Saloon keepers were so thankful for the restriction that a committee met with the mayor and promised to stop breaking the Sunday closing law in a show of appreciation. Sunday closing laws typically restricted alcohol sales on Sundays, but they could also be applied to certain types of work or entertainment.

In the late 1800s, a long-standing custom dictated that a glass of beer cost 5 cents everywhere, always. Beer specials came in the form of big mugs or better beer.

"Growlers" are containers that are filled with draft beer. In the 1800s, they were much cheaper than bottled beer. Workers fought their way through crowds to fill them during lunch breaks, a battle that was called "rushing the growler." Young entrepreneurs, like the one pictured above, made money by getting them filled for workers before lunch, a service that saved them time and a fight through the crowd. Housewives had them filled up to improve their daily chores and men carried them home full when they left the saloon in the evening.

Most 19th century growlers were made of tin. Some had lids, but earlier versions were simply buckets. Customers sometimes lined the inside of growlers with soap to decrease foam and get more beer.

This mural is a friendly honor to the animal labor that was once used in the brewing industry. The mural was painted in artist Yetti Frenkel’s studio and installed in 2016. The mural itself is acrylic paint on a durable panel.

Bock beer most likely gets its name from Einbeck, Germany, as this town is believed to be where it was originally brewed. The name comes from a Bavarian dialectic pronunciation of Einbeck that made it sound like "ein bock," meaning "a billy goat."

(This mural has been temporarily removed for repair and will return to the trail soon!)

This building was commonly called the “Kauffman Building” or “Kauffman Flats.” It was built by the John Kauffman family as a combination of an investment property and an extension of the brewery. Above ground it housed retail space and apartments for rent. Below ground it has sub-basement lagering cellars that were used for additional beer storage. We used to think that this building housed Kauffman Brewery workers. It did not, but Kauffman, like most breweries of its time, did have housing for its employees here on Vine Street, closer to the brewery. (Now one of the vacant lots north of the brewery.) Breweries often considered employee housing to be a perk of the job, but employees tended to see it differently.

Brewery hours were long. Prior to union contracts with the breweries, the average Cincinnati brewery worker’s day was 12 to 14 hours long, 6 days a week, and 6 to 8 hours on Sunday, with no vacation time or paid sick leave. Breweries wanted men living in housing that they controlled and that was within a few dozen feet of the brewery in order to have greater control over their lives and to ensure that they showed up on time, or that they could be found when they didn’t.

Louis Hudepohl II and partner George Kotte sold their liquor business and bought the small, defunct Koehler Brewery in 1885. The Hudepohl & Kotte Buckeye Brewery expanded rapidly, replacing obsolete buildings and equipment, steadily growing sales, and quadrupling production in less than a decade. The partnership ended unexpectedly when Kotte died suddenly one afternoon in 1893. Hudepohl maintained a successful and amiable partnership with George Kotte’s widow, Kate, until her death in 1899. Hudepohl then bought the Kotte share of the brewery, incorporated the business and renamed it the Hudepohl Brewing Company.

Unfortunately, Louis's solo run at the helm of the brewery did not last long, as he passed away in 1902. Having no male heir, Hudepohl’s son-in-law maintained the brewery after his death, along with his widow Maria. During Prohibition, the company produced soft drinks and near beer, finding little success, but it was enough to keep the doors open until Prohibition ended in 1933.

The brewery resumed beer production at their original location in 1933, but began building and transitioning into a larger, modern brewery on West 6th Street in the 1950s and ‘60s, formerly owned by the Lackman Brewing Company. The original brewery was razed in 1963 and the company stopped using the office across the street in 1967. Hudepohl beers were brewed in different facilities over the years, finally returning to Over-the-Rhine in 2011 where it continues to be brewed by the Cincinnati Beverage Company.

Years of Operation: 1850-1953

Brothers Gottfried and John Koehler first operated a barrel making facility at the site, then converted it into a brewery in 1850. The brewery superintendent and brewmaster was Conrad Windisch, who would later partner with Christian Moerlein in 1856. The Koehler brothers would brew beer here from 1850 to 1871, when operations ceased upon the death of both brothers. The lagering cellars of the Buckeye Brewery were used by other breweries to expand their storage capacity after the 1871 closure. It was then purchased by the nearby Kauffman Brewery, so that it could use the space exclusively, although it appears that they may never have actually used the cellars or brewery, perhaps wanting to keep them out of the hands of competitors.

Years of Operation: 1911-1967

This facility opened in 1911 as the Hudepohl bottling plant, with the original brewery located behind it. A number of things during the 19th century made bottling beer cost-prohibitive: Bottles were all blown individually, had to be filled by hand and then were manually corked, one by one. All of this made bottled beer extremely expensive, so if you wanted to take beer home or to work with you, you filled up metal growlers at the saloon. The beer was also not artificially carbonated, and until pasteurization was discovered in 1864, it spoiled and went flat very quickly. For all of these reasons, there was a small market for bottled beer.

This started to change in the 1890s, with changes to tax laws and in the early 1900s when machines were invented that made bottles, filled them mechanically, and gave them a tight, seal with the new crown style bottle cap. Combined with the knowledge of pasteurization and better carbonation, this made bottling beer more feasible. It also made the requirement that the brewhouse be physically separated from the bottling facility a major problem.

The Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee is given primary credit for driving the lobbying effort that caused Congress to change this law in 1890 and permit the connection between finished beer and bottling rooms. The basement of the Hudepohl bottling facility has a small connecting tunnel where pipes were run through to the brewery out back, in order to bring beer to the bottling facility. As bottling was becoming more practical, something else was happening in the world of beer. Supporters of national Prohibition were starting to succeed in getting counties across Ohio and the rest of the country to vote themselves dry. This drove bars out of rural counties and small towns, but it remained legal for breweries to ship cases of beer directly to consumers’ homes.

Years of Operation: 1850-1860

Bavarian immigrant Paul Andress (Endress) purchased this parcel of land in 1844 and opened the Andress & Co. Brewery six years later. In 1852, he relied heavily on credit to double the size of the brewery. Sparse records of the brewery tell the short story of a doomed business venture. The brewery was sold to George M. Schmidt to satisfy creditors in 1858. The George Schmidt Brewery lasted roughly two years before being converted into a carriage manufacturing facility in 1862. Sadly, none of the brewing structures remain today.

In 1851, temperance advocates successfully backed an ammendment to the state constitution that prohibited Ohio from issuing saloon licenses. The result was not what they wanted. Although it became illegal to run a saloon anywhere in the state, it was ignored in urban areas. Without a licensing process, there was no way to control the number of saloons or collect license fees. Widespread disregard for the law also bred corruption and helped foster other vices.

Breweries were blamed for exacerbating the problem by supplying start-up capital and perks that made operating a bar relatively easy. Breweries recognized that their relationship with saloons was bad for their image and often bad for their bottom-line. This is partly why brewers joined forces with liquor dealers and moral reformers to support a 1912 change in the Ohio constitution that restored the license system and restricted the number of saloons to 1 for every 500 residents. The change forced 3,300 bars out of business across the state, 539 of them were in Cincinnati.

The mural was painted by artist Phillip Adams in 2016 over a 2 week period. The mural itself was created using charcoal powder mixed with denatured alcohol to give it a watercolor texture. An exterior primer was used first to create a base and when finished the mural was sealed with a clear acrylic sealer for permanence. This mural is the first of it's kind in the city

Barrel manufacturing or coopering, was an important industry during the 19th century. They were not only used to transport beer, but also most other manufactured and agricultural products, from nails to pickled swine. A barrel of beer is 31 gallons and the modern keg holds 15 1/2 gallons, which is why it is commonly referred to as a half barrel.

Years of Operation: 1855-1915

Francis "Frank" and Joseph Linck grew up above a family tavern that was located in the middle of where Grant Park is today in Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati. The brothers opened a brewery here in 1855 and it operated in conjunction with lagering cellars on Race Street near Findlay Market. Frank Linck was a local politician and also a Colonel in a volunteer militia. These interests may have spread him too thin to run a successful business in the highly competitive Cincinnati brewing industry of the 1850s. The brewery fell into debt and was out of business by 1859.

The brewery reopened briefly as the Charles Schmidt Brewery for one year. It then served as the malt house for the neighboring Kauffman Brewery, then the Gambrinus Stock Brewing Company. In 1915, the brewing structures on this site were razed for the installation of Grant Park.

Cincinnati was founded in 1788 and quickly became the country's first western boom town due to its location on the Ohio River and rapid industrial developments. It is a city of many nicknames, but one of its first was "Queen City of the West", which has largely been attributed to American poet Henry Wadworth Longfellow and his poem "Catawba Wine."

The mural is a depiction of Cincinnati's literal brewing heritage: the beer making process from malt and grain all the way to barreled drink. The concept comes to life through a very hand-drawn aesthetic. The acrylic mural was painted by artist Christian Dallas in 2016, and designed by artist AJ Yorio, both Cincinnati based artists.

Years of Operation: 1853-1925

Andrew Sommer and Jacob Fuchs opened the St. Louis Brewery at this location in 1852. The brewery grew, but then began falling apart when Fuchs died unexpectedly in 1859. Sommer, along with Fuchs’ widow, tried leasing the operation, but unpaid bills started accumulating during the Civil War and all of the property was lost to foreclosure by 1863. The facility was reopened by several fledgling partnerships in the years after the war, then brothers Henry and Fred Schmidt turned it around, taking over this location in 1875.

The Schmidt and Brother Brewery constructed this brewhouse in 1883 and later expanded onto adjacent land and across the street on McMicken Avenue. These developments increased their brewery's annual capacity to about 11,000 barrels. This facility contained ice machines, which were used to cool their small lagering cellars, located three stories underground. Like most breweries of the day, most of the equipment was steam-driven and brewing started on the upper floors of the facility, allowing gravity to move materials to lower levels throughout the process.

The new owners purchased the brewery on January 4, 1905 and incorporated the business under the name Crown Brewing Company. Crown represents a stark shift from the nineteenth century breweries founded by and dominated by the personalities of German-born “beer barons.” The Crown Brewing Company was a modern corporation run by savvy businessmen. Over the next three years, the brewery purchased the Cincinnati Malt Beverage Company, enlarged its cellars, built new stables, installed a top-of-the-line “modern” bottling system in a new building on the north side of McMicken, and doubled sales.

When Prohibition came to Ohio in 1919, the Crown Brewing Company switched their production to soft drinks and cereal beverages. Profits were slim and by 1925 they were forced to close their doors. Over the past 100 years, several businesses have repurposed this facility, but for much of the 20th century a drywall and plumbing company owned this building. They didn't have much use for the lagering cellars underneath, so they slowly filled them with construction debris over the course of roughly 60 years. These cellars were cleaned out by a dedicated group of volunteers, led by the Brewery District CURC, who reopened them in 2010.

Schmidt & Brother Brewhouse

Sommer & Fuch's Brewery leased this land for their St. Louis Brewery in 1858. They had constructed a smaller brick and wood-frame brewhouse here by 1863. It was replaced by the middle portion of this structure during the Schmidt & Brother era. The Schmidt & Brother Brewery built this facility in 1883 as a brewhouse and it served in this capacity until the Crown Brewing Co. closed in 1925.

1851: Greater Cincinnati's 31 breweries produced $566,000 worth of beer.

1859: The number of local breweries grew to 36 and they produced $1,500,000 worth of beer.

This acrylic mural was created by a team of student artists, led by Keith Neltner in partnership with the Brewery District Community Redevelopment Corporation. It was inspired by Cincinnati’s rich brewing history and celebrates the contribution that beer production has made to the city. The mural features workers from the past and present as they place a crown on the "head" of a giant pint of beer.

Years of Operation: 1884-1925

The Schmidt and Brother Brewery expanded to this side of McMicken in 1884 and erected several buildings around that time for the purpose of storing ice, stabling horses, and later bottling beer. The original stables and bottling buildings were razed and replaced by the Crown Brewing Co. between 1905 and 1908, but the 1884 Icehouse still remains. When the Crown Brewing Company replaced the original structures they installed a top-of-the-line bottling system.

Throughout most of the 1800s, bottling beer was cumbersome. It had to be kegged, moved from the brewery to a separate building, pumped out of kegs into bottles, and then every bottle had to be individually corked by hand. Technological advances, a change in federal law that allowed breweries to pipe beer directly to bottling departments, and the invention of the crown bottle cap all made bottling a much more cost-effective option near the turn of the last century.

When changes in Ohio law caused many rural areas to vote themselves dry in the early 1900s, it eliminated markets for draft beer but opened new opportunities for bottled beer. The Crown Brewing Company was particularly adept at recognizing these changing opportunities. As hundreds of saloons closed and stopped carrying their beer, Crown’s sales actually rose by selling bottled beer directly to customers in dry markets.

Schmidt & Brother Brewery Ice House

The Schmidt & Brother Brewery expanded to this side of McMicken in 1884 and erected this building, which was used orignally as their ice house. Before electric refrigeration, a local brewery could use around 30,000 tons of ice every year.

Schmidt & Brother Stables and Bottling

The adjacent property was also purchased by Schmidt & Brother in 1884. The original buildings were razed by the Crown Brewery Co. between 1905 and 1908. Schmidt & Brother had stables and a bottling plant here. The Crown Brewing Co. replaced the original structures and installed a top-of-the-line bottling system.

1892: The modern bottle cap was invented

1900: Cincinnati breweries were producing 1,337,300 barrels of beer a year

Welcome to the first segment of the Brewing Heritage Trail to be completed. This urban walking trail will eventually stretch from the riverfront to the northwest corner of Over-the-Rhine. The trail, which is composed of physical signs and enhanced by digital experiences, explores Cincinnati’s history through beer. This includes celebrating our wealth of remaining pre-Prohibition brewery buildings as well as the ways in which the production and consumption of Cincinnati beer impacted the culture and economy. The trail consists of multiple segments, each forming a loop. Each loop focuses on a particular aspect of our past. This segment is called Glasses & Growlers because it explores the interaction between breweries and saloons, and the role that the city’s thousands of neighborhood bars played in nineteenth century life.

F & J.A. Linck Cellars

Much like Lafayette Hall, the F & J.A. Linck Lager Cellars still exist under this structure. The original building made way for an apartment building built in the 1920s.

The brothers who owned these cellars were Frank and Joseph Linck. They grew up above a family tavern a few blocks from here, where Grant Park is today on McMicken Avenue. Once old enough, the brothers bought an area around the tavern to construct their brewery in 1855; the cellars here were constructed around 1857-58.

The physical location of these cellars likely played a role in the brewery's demise as they were several blocks apart from each other and required a great deal of time and effort barreling the beer, loading it onto a wagon, unloading at the cellars, and finally storing it. Most brewers avoided having the cellars under their brewery, like Jackson, or just around the corner, like Lafayette. The brewery closed in 1859, only four years after opening. These cellars were then leased and shared by many brewers, including Christian Moerlein, Windisch-Mulhauser, and Kauffman. As well as used by merchants at Findley market, storing perishable products in the cellars during market hours.

Years of Operation: 1835-1880

Frederich Billiods, a Frenchman from the Alsace-Lorraine region, started the Lafayette brewery. He traveled to the United States with his cousin, Pierre Jonte, in the early 1820s. The cousins founded and managed the Jonte & Billiods Brewery on Abigail & Sycamore streets in 1823, until going their separate ways in the early 1830s. Billiods moved to the northern part of the city and, in 1835, established the Lafayette brewery, naming it after the famous and beloved American Revolutionary War hero, the Marquise de Lafayette, who had passed away the year before.

In the 1800s, McMicken Avenue was known as Hamilton Road, as it was the primary route to Hamilton, Ohio, allowing for many stops from weary travelers between the communities. The brewery did face challenges starting in 1847, when the original wooden Lafayette brewery caught fire and burned to the ground. The profit that Billiods made from its first 13 years in business allowed for a quick rebound, and the brick building that still stands today was the result. .

The hall’s purpose was to ferment and age lager beer and sell it directly to the public at the beer hall located on the top floor of this building. In Cincinnati, lager grew in popularity during the 1850s, which necessitated the construction of this facility. Billiods did not account for lager when he constructed a new brewery in 1847 after a fire destroyed his original facility; otherwise, he would probably have built cellars beneath it. Instead, he built Lafayette Hall, a building two blocks away on Race Street. The hall stands above three levels of lagering cellars, which, while accessible today, often fill with water. The building, constructed in 1857, has remained essentially unchanged since its inception, other than the removal of the decorative Italianate cornice in the late 20th century, due to deterioration. The building continues to feature a few elements of the Italianate style, such as the tall, slender windows along the upper levels of the facade.

From this beer hall, Billiods would sell lighter French ales, likely a French double beer, similar to an English Ale, and was brown and known to be reasonably strong. Early forms of this beer appeared in 1580 from a mixture produced by English and Flemish brewers. Opposed to today’s glass beer bottles or aluminum cans that come in packs of 6, 12, 18, or 24, most beer was bought and sold by people bringing their own steins, filled until they weighed at least a pound. Each pound of beer costs three cents, and 16 ounces of beer roughly weighs one pound. Or the beer would be sold wholesale by the barrel to saloons, theaters, or bars in the area.

Built in 1895 as a new fermentation, aging, and cold storage facility for the Christian Moerlein Brewery. Innovations in cooling lines and ice-making machines had made lager tunnels obsolete and the insulated icehouse was the answer. Built five stories high, it is one of the tallest structures in Over-the-Rhine, with walls 3-4 feet thick. The structure is designed to be a giant refrigerator and ice was produced for it next door, then hauled over in giant blocks that were slid down ice chutes on the south side of the building into the basement. One of these chutes is still located in the massive cellar underneath the building. The large windows surrounding the building are not original; previously, they were solid walls, with the inside of them was lined with cork to help keep the cool in. After Prohibition closed the brewery, it became furniture manufacturing facility called Apex, who cut windows into the facade of the building for light and ventilation.

The original bottling plant was built in 1870 and also served as the cooperage. It was then renovated and expanded upon in 1910, stretching half block between Findlay and Henry Streets. Due to monopoly laws at the time, a brewery would have to pay more if it directly owned its bottling company. To get around the law, the Christian Moerlein Brewing Company founded the National Lager Bottling Company through a cousin. When Prohibition closed the brewery, the bottling plant shut down with it. A short time later the former bottling facility came under the control of the Arthur Nash Tailoring Company, an industrial Tailor Shop, then later a lamp manufacturer, and since 2013, the Rhinegeist Brewery. The primary portion of the building Rhinegeist brews out of was actually built by the Arthur Nash Company and wasn't added until 1924.

In 2025, during maintenance and cleaning of the original 1870 bottling plant utilized by the Christian Moerlein Brewery, the workers uncovered a mosaic tile mural. After Christian Moerlein's brewing operations ceased at the site in 1919, due to Prohibtion, the building was utilized as an industrial tailor shop. It is assumed that this is when the tile was painted over, as the new occupants did not want to be associated with the production of alcohol, which was now illegal.

The mural depicts an ornately dressed man in the German fashion, next to him, a serving maid. The date of 1896 was also included in the design, but since the building was constructed in 1870, the tiles are not orignal, even though they date to the 19th century. The installation is made with tiles from the Mosaic Tile Company in Zanesville, Ohio. If you look closely at the mural, you will notice a misaligned tile. See if you can find it. Hint: Rhinegeist are set to release a beer called "tip of the hat."

This two-story mural was created by artist Chuck Tingley in partnership with Rhinegeist Brewery and ArtWorks Cincinnati. It depicts a towering hop plant, celebrating Cincinnati's brewing heritage and the role of hops as a key ingredient in beer. The work was designed to showcase the beauty of the brewing process and the city's historic connection to brewing. The mural's title, "Rise," references both the upward growth of the hop plant and the resurgence of Cincinnati's modern brewing scene.

The Moerlein stables were constructed sometime in the 1870s and served Moerlein well until the brewery's closure, as the availability of horses was vital to any brewing operation. As the brewery's capcity grew, so did the need for more horse power. At it's peak, the brewery would have utilized approximately 300 horses, which roughly half at a time being rotated in and out of service, so they could rest and recoupate.

Horses transported products like raw materials to and from the brewery, while most importantly, barrels of beer, across the city for wholesale at businesses like saloons, theaters, and bars. This only began to change in 1907, with the mass availability of cars and trucks. Thus, much like with malt, most brewers who could afford to would invest in stables to keep a large number of horses for rapid transport. Other brewers, including Sohn/Klottter, Jackson, and Jung, all owned horses and an area to house them.

The stables were demolished after a fire during the 1990s. Today, OTR Community Housing has constructed a large low-income apartment building designed for houseless OTR residents with a capacity of up to 44 tenants.

Years in Operation: 1881-Present Day

The Emmert Saloon was started by Frederick Louis Emmert (1839-1888) and his father in law, Savior Maier and was located at the intersection of Vine & Clifton Avenue, about two blocks east of their current facility on Dunlap Street. Brewers would come into the saloon and complain about farmers not showing up on time to pick up spent grains from the breweries, giving the owners an idea to pick them up themselves to transport and sell the grain to local farmers for their livestock.

In 1881, they began the F.L. Emmert Company and soon established contracts with several local brewers to remove their spent grains from the brewing process. Christian Moerlein and the Bruckman Brewery, were two of their largest local suppliers prior to Prohibition. They would later add Anheuser-Busch, Schlitz, and Pabst to their list of spent grain suppliers. Emmert’s son, Frederick Emmert Jr. (1866-1937), began working at the business as a clerk when he was 15 and at the age of 23, took over as president after the death of his father. Frederick Emmert Jr. would go on to be elected to the city council and later the Ohio State Senate, where he opposed Prohibition.

In 1907, the business incorporated and began operations out of their current site on Dunlap Street. Prior to this relocation, they had offices on Pleasant St., just south of Findlay Market. Part of the Dunlap Street location was built specifically to dry the grain, so it could be shipped longer distances, without the messy problems of shipping wet grains, which is the way it had been done up until this point. During Prohibition, spent grains were less available, but the company continued drying what grains they could obtain and shipped the feed around the country. The Bruckman Brewery during Prohibition continued to produce “near beer” for a time and supplied the company with an ever dwindling supply of spent grains. They also developed a process of adding wet molasses to the grain called “Molasso-Malt” which was used as a ration for dairy cows during the 1930s & 1940s.

Years of Operation: 1853 - June 1, 1919

The Jacob and Josephine Moerlein House

Built in 1879, this structure is close to 150 years old. It was built by the Moerleins to house Christian's third son, Jacob, and his wife, Josephine.

Serving as the logistical hub of the Christian Moerlein Brewing Company, it housed documents, contracts, and two bank-sized vaults, where all the profits and beer tokens the company collected were stored. Jacob Moerlein, Christian's third son, served as treasurer from 1881 until 1897 upon his father's death, becoming vice-president along with John Goetz Jr., while Jacob's older half-brother John inherited the presidency. In the house next door to the office, Jacob lived with his wife Josephine until her death in 1901. He would spend much of his professional life in the office handling the Company's finances.

After moving across Elm Street in 1868, Moerlein returned to the original site in 1873, constructing his malthouse. Moerlein's malthouse served in this capacity until the company's closure in 1919. Today, Cincinnati Electrical Repair operates out of part of the building while the rest remains mostly empty.

Malting is the process of germinating cereal grains: wheat, barley, rye, to name a few examples. This malted grain is often used in beverages, such as beer and whiskey, as well as in other flavored drinks. So, brewers maintaining control of their own malt supply was crucial, if they could afford the upfront cost.

The alternative was purchasing from malting companies, such as the Albert Schwill malting company, which, in 1880, purchased the Lafayette brewery on McMicken and became one of the largest malting companies in the world until its purchase by Falstaff Brewing Company in 1961.

This location was the site of the Bellevue or Elm Street Incline Railway and it was one of five inclines in Cincinnati.

Mt. Auburn / Main Street Incline (1872-1898)
Price Hill / Eighth Street Incline (1875-1943)
Mt. Adams Incline (1876-1948)
Bellevue / Elm Street Incline (1876-1926)
Fairview Incline (1892-1923)

Prior to the development of the incline rail system in Cincinnati, most residents lived and worked in the basin area located between Mount Adams to the east, Price Hill to the west, and a series of steep hillsides roughly two miles north of the Ohio River. This led to a densely populated, polluted city in need of a way to expand. The inclines offered a way for the city to grow and also a way for its citzens to leave the crowded, smokey basin area, even if only for a few hours at one of the hilltop resorts built at the top of the inclines, like the Bellevue House.

The inclines were steam powered, with the exception of the Price Hill Incline that converted to electricity in 1920. They each had platforms that allowed electric street cars to pull on to them, as well as wagons and other passengers, and then ride up or down the hillside. The exception to this was the Price Hill incline. It was really two separate inclines, one for carrying freight and the other for passengers. Neither accommodated street cars, as the passenger side had fixed cars on the platforms.

Years of Operation: 1832-1942

When brewing began at this site in the late 1820s by a man named Schmeltzer, the simple brewing structure described by contemporary observers as “a little old house” would have been located several blocks north of the Cincinnati city limits. By 1932, the property had changed hands and new owner and recent German immigrant Martin Klopf constructed a new, larger facility that he named after the recently re-elected President, calling it the Andrew Jackson Brewery. Like other breweries of the era, he produced ale and common beer, as lagers had yet to be introduced to the American public.

Klopf’s brewery continued operations outside of the city limits until the area was incorporated in 1849 and by that time, things had begun to dramatically change in the newly developing Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. German immigrants were beginning to transform the area and one of them was Meinrad Kleiner. Kleiner was part of a wave of recent immigrants known as Forty Eighters, who had left Western Europe due to political and economic turmoil culminating with a series of revolutionary activities in 1848. Kleiner found work at the Andrew Jackson Brewery, demonstrating his considerable talents for brewing beer that had been passed down from previous generations.

In March of 1933, the Pattison-Squibb Brewing Company purchased the Jackson Brewery site with the goal of modernizing the facility to meet the anticipated demand for large quantities of beer following the repeal of Prohibition. However, due to poor sales of their products and internal problems, the company filed bankruptcy, again closing the Jackson Brewery. It was sold again in 1937 to a group of Detroit investors, who renamed the facility the Jackson Brewing Corporation. They continued upgrades to the facility, including the construction of this modern bottling facility in 1938.

The primary beers bottled at this site during the tenure of the Jackson Brewing Corporation were 1862, which was marketed to imply the recipe had been around since that date, Saazer Crown, Jackson Lager, and Cincinnati Cream Ale. The plant did not stay in operation very long, closing in 1942, due to financial losses.

The Gibson Wine Company took over the site until the early 1960s, but it seems like it was primarily used for storage and not the production or bottling of any of their products.

During the 1980s, the bottling building was utilized by Arnold's Print Shop.

Brewing briefly returned to the site in 1996, when Queen City Brewing purchased part of the bottling building. Within a short time, they were able to brew up to 7500 barrels annually and hoped to expand upon that amount after some initial sucess. However, it was short lived, and by 1998 the operation was closed.

Today, Riverside Construction utlizes the facility to produce high quaility residential and commercial cabinetry, casework, and other customized products.

Years of Operation:

Hamilton, Klotter & Sohn, J.G. Sohn: 1846-1907

Mohawk Brewery: 1907-1925

Clyffside Brewery: 1933-1945

Red Top Brewery: 1945-1957

These stables sit just across McMicken Avenue from the main brewing complex. Stables were massive to every brewer, all the way up to Prohibition, as horse and wagon were the main way to transport goods throughout the city, with trucks only becoming commonplace around 1907. To secure their hold on transport, breweries owned their own horses and stables, including Moerlein, Jackson, and Crown-Schmidt. If you look even a little closely, you can see that the brickwork for both the 1887 brewhouse and the stables building is very similar.

1937 Bottling & Distribution Facilities:

The existing Felsonbrau Building on McMicken Avenue was constructed by the Clyffside Brewery in an attempt to modernize their new operations. It is located on the site of the Sohn family home, which was demolished in order for it to be built. The west side of the building would serve as the primary packaging facility, and the east side was the shipping warehouse. In 1940, the company constructed a stockhouse behind the brewery across Mohawk Street, which also has the word "Felsenbrau" on it's facade, and was outfitted with the latest refrigeration equipment. Following World War II, the Clyffside Brewery struggled to stay financially solvent. In December 1945, when Red Top Brewing approached the company to purchase the plant, Clyffside management seized the opportunity, agreeing to a final price of over $1.1 million.

Red Top Brewery had been operating out of the former Hauck Brewery on Dayton Street since the repeal of Prohibition. Located about a mile away from the Sohn site, it was considered a substantially large brewery, but by 1945 it's equipment was outdated and inefficient. Upon securing the Clyffside plant, Red Top raised its capacity to 1,250,000 barrels, making it the 14th largest national brewery going into the fifties. Due to dwindling profits, in 1955, Red Top closed its Dayton Street plant, moved to the Clyffside site, and brewed over 300,000 barrels annually. Even then, just two years later, Red Top merged with Muskegon Motor Specialisties Company, ending all brewing production on September 27, 1957.

After brewing operations ceased, this site was used in various ways throughout the years, including in 2008, a planned renovation of the 1887 brewhouse site into condominiums called "The Clyffside." However, the project stalled due to an economic recession and when the western wall of the original 1846 brewhouse collapsed in 2010, the city called for a partial demolition. This halted all work on the project and the complex sat mostly vacant for the next decade. In 2022, when Cincinnati Beverage bought the complex, they set up their office, packaging, and storage in the 1937 plant and brewed out of the old shipping warehouse. Stabilizing and maintaining the 1887 brewhouse for a future public taproom and occasional tours by the Brewing Heritage Trail.

This historic marker was erected in 2008 to highlight and preserve the remarkable concentration of pre-Prohibition brewing structures that remain in and around Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Cincinnati was one of the leading brewing centers in the United States, with dozens of breweries, malt houses, bottling works, and extensive underground lagering cellars operating throughout the area.

The Brewing Heritage Trail was established in 2005 to help preserve these historic brewing-related structures and share their stories with the public. Through guided tours, educational programs, and historical interpretation, the organization promotes awareness of Cincinnati's brewing legacy and the role the industry played in shaping the city's economy, architecture, and culture.

Historical significance

• Commemorates surviving pre-Prohibition brewery buildings and infrastructure.
• Recognizes Cincinnati's status as a major American brewing hub.
• Highlights the preservation efforts that began in the early 21st century.
• Serves as a gateway to exploring the city's brewing history and underground lagering tunnels.

Today, the marker stands as a reminder of the neighborhood's industrial heritage and the ongoing effort to preserve one of the most significant collections of historic brewing architecture in the United States.

Years of Operation: 1867-1919

Years of Operation: 1885-1925

The Germania Brewing Company was established by John Wetterer in 1885, however, the brewery’s history doesn’t begin there. Originally the facility was built and operated by Peter Weyand and Daniel Jung, beginning in 1854. It was known as the Western Brewery and in 1868, the partners purchased two blocks along Freeman Avenue and constructed a much larger brewing complex. In 1880, they decided to sell the original brewing site along Central Avenue to John Wetterer, who owned and operated a malt production facility called the Queen City Malt Company on Colerain Pike.

From 1880-1885, Wetterer used his newly acquired brewery as an expansion of his malting operations, but in 1885 he decided to expand production to include brewing beer and the Germania Brewing Company was born. John Wetterer was the brewery president and his son, Ferdinand, the secretary and treasurer. The brewery produced approximately 9,000 barrels of beer its first year in operation, but commenced a rapid expansion over the next few years, reaching an annual production capacity of 40,000 barrels by 1893.

Brewery Names and Years of Operation:

The Western Brewery (1854-1878)

Weyund, Jung & Hellman Brewery (1879- 1884)

Jung Brewing Company (1885-1926)

Hauck & Windisch Brewing Company 1863-1882

John Hauck Brewing Company: 1882-1927

Red Top Malting Company: 1927-1933

Red Top Brewing Company: 1933-1957

The John Hauck Office Building still stands on Dayton Street today; the brewery and malthouse, which stood beside the office, are gone, and now a vacant lot at the back of Kaiser Pickles. The office operated as the base for all business functions for the John Hauck and later Red Top Brewery. The building is built in the Italianate style, a highly popular form throughout Cincinnati and the wider U.S. from the 1850s to 1890s during the massive immigration wave of Germans.

The structures are typically two to three stories high, built in a rectangular shape. The material is often brick with a wooden lining and roof; the elaborate overhanging cornices you see on the Hauck office are an example of the mixture of wood and brick. Notice also the tall skinny windows, another common feature of Italianate Architecture. Finally, elaborate brackets often trim the windows in a frown above the windows, but not always, as in the Hauck office building, where the brackets are squared with the windows.

If you stand right at the front door you can see the John Hauck name deliberatley removed from door frame above the entrnce.

The John Hauck Malthouse was built on Dayton Street by the Offices. Malthouses were tremendously important to brewers as they function by turning raw grain into malt. This process unfolds by soaking, steeping, germinating, and kilning.

The style in the 20th century was called floor malting: The grain is first soaked in a cistern for a day or more, allowing it to swell to a larger size. After the cistern is drained, the grain would be transferred to a couch, which, in construction terms, can be imagined as more of a raised flower bed than an actual couch. The grain is dumped into the couch at about 16 inches deep, and the grain begins producing heat, which germinates the grain. This process takes a couple of days.

After which, the grain is spread across the floor, and after days of controlled temperature, the grain begins rooting and producing a sweet smell right before the stem can break through the husk and become a new plant. The starch is harvested, and the grain is left on the floor to dry. From there, it is taken to a kiln and slow-fired for 2-4 days based on how dark the brewer desires the malt/beer to be. A common misconception is that the color of beer will tell you how heavy the beer is; thus, if the beer is lighter its likely a light ale or lager, and vice versa, if dark, the beer is heavier, like a stout or porter, think Guinness; however, the depth of color has nothing to do with the heaviness.

The John Hauck Bottling Building was built in 1906 as part of the additions of an icehouse, as well as an office, the latter of which still stands on Dayton Street today. The bottling building is located on Central Avenue and is in good condition. Building the facility cost around $30,000, styled in an A Romanesque revival style, much like the Hauck brewhouse. However, during the rest of the Hauck years, the bottling plant was not much used in favor of selling kegs wholesale for draft at saloons, theaters, beer gardens, and bars.

Upon purchase the Red Top Brewing Company modernizes the bottling building and begins filling the bottles with products like Red Top Ale up until the breweries closure in 1957. The Redtop name can still be spotted at tghe top of the bottling building today.

Years of Operation: 1866-1973

Windisch-Muhlhauser Brewing Company: 1866-1922

Lion Brewery Incorporated: 1933-1934

Burger Brewing Company: 1934-1973

The start of the Windish-Mulhauser Brewery differs significantly from all other Cincinnati breweries in that it began as a massive production facility, rather than a brewery that incrementally grew its business over many years. The primary reason for this difference is their relatively late arrival as part of the Lager boom sweeping Cincinnati during the mid-19th century, and also the fact that Conrad Windisch, the driving force behind brewing operations, had spent nearly his entire life involved in the brewing industry. He came from a brewing family and had the experience, connections, and finances to launch a massive new business with partners Gottlieb and Heinrich Muhlhauser, who were successful mineral water dealers and mill owners in their own right.

By the 1860s, producing lager beer in Cincinnati had become extremely lucrative and Conrad Windisch saw no reason to begin his new brewery in 1866 with timidity. He and the Muhlhauser brothers opened a massive facility bordered by the Miami-Erie Canal to the east and Liberty Street to the north. The impressive Romanesque Revival structure contained malting facilities with an annual capacity of producing 250,000 bushels and a 600 barrel brewing system. Below the facility were 20 underground lagering chambers varying in size from 80 to 150 feet in length with the capacity to store up to 30,000 barrels of beer at a time. As a result, the brewery shortly after opening became the second largest in the city, after the Christian Moerlein Brewery, where Conrad Windisch was previously a partner before selling his share in the brewery to begin his own.

The brewery would see continued growth throughout the 19th century, reaching an annual production capacity of 300,000 barrels after the construction of an additional brewhouse in 1888, along with 16 additional underground lagering cellars. The construction of new underground cellars at this time was a bit unusual, as most breweries by the 1880s had begun using insulted above ground stock houses, now that mechanical refrigeration had become much more reliable and affordable. However, this facility continued to uses these cellars for fermentation and aging throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

Years of Operation: 1866-1922

The original stables were built and used by the Windisch-Muhlhauser Brewery in 1866, and as the business grew, they added a second, larger stable house next door in 1887. Horses were an important part of brewery operations, even once steam power became dominant in equipment operation by the mid-19th century. Prior to this period, horses would move grinding wheels and turn pulley systems that moved materials throughout the brewery, but by the time the Windisch-Mühlhauser Brewery opened at this site, they were primarily involved in moving materials to and from the brewery.

In the middle and late 19th century, breweries typically needed about 50 horses to help produce about 100,000 barrels of beer. Draft horses were the dominant horse used due to their ability to pull heavy loads of two or three times their weight, and required less food and water per pound to make it happen. The Windisch-Mühlhauser Brewery seems to have maximized its production capacity at around 250,000 barrels, so they probably utilized about 125 horses that were rotated in and out of service throughout the year.

By the late 1950s, the expanded stables had been demolished, but a portion of the original stables still exists on the east side of Central Parkway and is currently occupied by the Curiosity Advertising Agency.

Years of Operation:

Schoenling Brewing Company: 1934-1986

Hudepohl Schoenling Brewing Company: 1986-1996

Boston Beer Company (in Cincinnati): 1996-Present.

Years of Operation

In Cincinnati, 1996-Present.

The business has operated from 1984 to the Present.