Love this thread...fond of ghosts.

Muessel Brewing / Drewry's

The Muessel Brewery was originally located where the College HOF was eventually built. They built a new location on a 100+ acre lot across town in 1868 @ 1408 Elwood ave, some of which still stands today.

Interesting tidbits about Muessels: 1)the brewery formed a club football team coached by Knute Rockne in 1913. 2) the breweries president, his son and their chauffer were shot and killed in the office in a robery in late 1915.

Some brands brewed here were Arzberg Export, & Muessels Export. Muessels closed in 1922 to wait out Prohibition. Once Prohibition ended they were a step behind breweries that had switched to non-alcoholic drinks during the ban. The business and brewery were sold to Drewery's in 1936.

1408 Elwood Ave.:



Drewrys was a big player in the midwest beer market. Drewrys lager & Drewry's Malt liquor were some of the brands as well as a rootbeer. Throughout the 1950's they purchased Chicago's Atlas Brewing which had purchased Schoenhofen Brewery in the 1940's. However the tables were turned in 1963 when they were bought by Associated Brewing of Michigan. Which was then swallowed up by G. Helieman in August of 1972. The South Bend Drewry's plant was shuttered forever 3 months later. Production of the Drewrys brand was moved to the Sterling Brewery in Evansville, IN., the last Drewrys brewed in Indiana was in 1997.

There is some hopes of the Drewrys brand name to come back to life.

Brewery Building:





Muessles/Drewrys Brewery
1408 Elwood Ave.
South Bend, IN.

Trip to Indy gave me the chance to check out a couple spots from brewing past.

First one is the old Anheuser Bush Brewing Association property over on 920-24 E. Ohio - Indianapolis.

This was a "branch office" for Anheuser Bush who was obsessed with getting their beer to consumers quickly and cold. This branch was opened in 1891.

This building was built in thelate 1890's early 1900's:



note the Crest above the door:



Behind this building there was access to rail, there was alos ice houses, and a bottling works on site. - Refrigerators on site could hold 16 train car loads of beer cold

some of the other building still stand on the property:



Anheuser Bush Brewing Association (former location)
920 E. Ohio
Indy

a 2nd spot in Indy.

The old Home Brewing Co. Site over on 24 S. Shelby Street.

All that left of this complex is the bottling house.

a nice article and some pictures:

http://historicindianapolis.com/indiana ... g-company/

Brands brewed here: Home Brew, Columbia & Indiana Ale

Operated from the 1890's until prohibition.













Home Brewing Co.
24 S. Shelby
Indy

Visited the old Schaefer and Meyer brewery down in Louisville, KY. recently and grabbed some nice pics. At one time there were 36 breweries in Louisville, a major brewing hub.

Kentucky Brewery lic. # 50: Schaefer & Meyer - Logan @ Lampton Streets - Louisville, KY.

Located in the rough neighborhood of Smoketown - The buildings I took photos of were from the 1889 and after. Looking at renderings from back in the day and reading, they topped off the large building on the corner in the 1920's for an ice and cold storage business, other buildings look just as they did.

S & M brewed beer here from 1889-1901, producing 50,000 barrels a year in 1901. The brewery changed hands to Frank Fehr/Central Consumers until Prohibition shut it down in 1918 - Kentucky State Prohibition.


you can see where the old brickwork stopped and where the original building topped off back in the day. the ornate acrhitecture of this building once included "onion top roofs" and tall weather vanes.


connected to the large ice house:




you can make out S & M & co on the stone over the door:




This was obviously a large facility consuming almost a city block. Plans to re-purpose have come and gone. Amazing how brick holds up.

This being Halloween, I feel duty-bound to alert fans of this thread to a yearly opportunity to visit the subterranean warrens of the Lemp Brewery. The history of the Lemp family, beer barons prior to Prohibition who ultimately succumbed to despair, is commercialized in the allegedly haunted Lemp Mansion B&B and restaurant. A tour of the caves might be more interesting without all the fake gore (I'm squeamish) depicted on the Travel Channel's Halloween episode. This episode of KETC's Living St. Louis gives some of the history.

Note to Hammond: Cahokia it ain't, but this might qualify for your next trip down St. Louis way. Just down the street from the Lemp Brewery is Cassy Vires' new communal-table restaurant, Table. Don't miss the other delights of the Benton Park area Sidney Street Cafe, Antiques Row, The Demenil Mansion, Gus' Pretzels, Black Bear Bakery. Or pick up some verses to go at the fort gondo Poetry Slam - all to be chronicled in an upcoming thread.

Iowa DOT to seal beer caves near I-380, Archaeologist tests site where beer was once stored underground

...
On Friday, Dolan will visit the site where a bridge inspector last July discovered an 18-inch-wide sinkhole along the Seventh and Eighth street access ramps to I-380. Further investigation revealed that below were beer caves — subterranean rooms used for cooling and aging beer before refrigeration — connected to two breweries from the 1800s that have been demolished.
...
The DOT hired the Office of the State Archaeologist and the Iowa Geological Survey to study the area for historical significance and to identify the number and scope of caves below.

Based on the tests, which included probing the ground with electric pulses, officials believe three caves are directly under the roads, and the area around Cedar Lake overall had 11 to 14 caves connected to Magnus Eagle Brewery, which was built in 1857, and Williams Cedar Rapids Brewery, which was built in 1860.
...

I wonder if there are covered over caves near some of the old breweries no longer in use.

Regards,

abandoned beer cave sounds like the best teenage party spot

AlekH wrote:abandoned beer cave sounds like the best teenage party spot

There are similar caves in and around Kansas City as well. IIRC, several of them are wide open and "available" for such parties.