History of Brewing in Cincinnati
Rhinegeist (named after the river in Germany and “geist” translates to spirit or ghost) was founded in 2013. The brewery is housed in the former Christian Moerlein facility in Over-the-Rhine which closed in the 1930s. The name was resurrected in the 1990s when it was purchased by a company for a new brewpub. Brewpubs were the latest craze.
Rhinegeist is the second largest craft brewery in Ohio and nationally is in the Top 50 breweries. There’s a cavernous taproom with enough space for cornhole, music, and even weddings. The tour is roughly half an hour and can be booked through their website. After the tour ends you will receive a token for a pint. I highly recommend “Cheetah”, but I’m not really a beer drinker. So maybe you should have another to be certain?
This vintage ale bottle was discovered during renovations of Rhinegeist.
Beers is simply a general term for an alcoholic drink made from yeast-fermented malt flavored with hops. Ale is a type of beer with a bitter flavor and higher alcoholic content. Unless they are labeled lager which are light in color and body. Also, lagers are brewed at a lower temperature. Take the tour and you can see the process from start to finish.
Bockfest (Bock is a type of sweet, relatively strong beer) and Oktoberfest (the second largest after Munich) were created to reenergize the city’s German heritage. By 2019 there were 50 craft beer breweries in Cincinnati.
The History of Brewing in Cincinnati
Throughout the 1800s saloons served as social clubs and employment connections due to overcrowding they became “living rooms” of sorts. With the advent of glass bottles, beer became available to carry out.
The typical 19th-century saloon had some key features. Breweries and saloons had alliances. Say if you wanted to purchase a Hudepohl, you had to find a saloon that served Hudepohl. There wasn’t much mixing of brands. Often lunch was included with a beer. Only men could visit a saloon, except for a single woman who is seated beside the “Sitting Room” window. You can guess what was going on.
A new lager yeast was discovered about the same time as Germans began migrating to Cincinnati which helped with beer production. The first large scale brewery, Heroncourt, was soon developed. In the 1850s there were seven commercial breweries, which grew to 25 in 1855. During the peak, there were 36 breweries in 1859. During the Civil War naturally, beer production declined due to workers becoming soldiers. After the war, Christian Moerlein was launched in 1873 to become the largest brewery in Cincinnati. Eight other large breweries followed.
The “Beer Barons” were mostly from lower classes in Germany but in Cincinnati, they became pillars of society funding the arts and the zoo. Biergartens became popular — even on Sundays. In 1893 the average consumption of beer in the U.S. was 16 gallons per capita. In Cincinnati, it was twice that.
At the height of the Saloon Era, my two-time great-grandfather, Charles Klein, was a saloon keeper on Vine Street in OTR which has several hills. At the age of 49, he was unloading a large order of beer kegs from a wagon that broke loose and crushed him. He lingered at his home nearby for a couple of days. He left behind his wife, Karoline, and seven children. I often wondered what happened to the family. There were no social safety nets at this time.
Then Prohibition (1920 to 1933) annihilated the brewing industry nationwide. During World I and II there was “German hysteria” sweeping across the country, including in Cincinnati. German teachers and professors were dismissed or censored, German books were removed from public libraries, business names were “Americanized”, and even the street names were altered. Any public meetings were conducted in English only. My grandmother told me that sauerkraut became “Liberty Slaw” during WWII.
#Mural of the #historyofbrewing in #Cincinnati #beerhistory #drinkinghistory #OverTheRhine #GermansinCincinnati Read more: lanesjourney.com/blog
— Lane (@lanesjourney.bsky.social) September 11, 2024 at 8:51 AM
[image or embed]
Somehow my ancestors made it through this dangerous time because Edward Dietrich and Catherine Klein married in Cincinnati in 1908 — after both of their families disowned the couple. His family was Protestant while hers was Catholic. That was forbidden. They became tenant farmers around Lebanon, Ohio, and had six children. When Grams showed photos of them to me, they were always holding hands or touching each other.
Love always wins.