According to One Hundred
Years of Brewing, supplement to the Western Brewer,
published in 1903. The Lewistown Brewing Company was
"...founded in 1894 by Frank Hass and Philip Laux. The product of
the plant is lager beer." The brewery was
constructed of locally quarried sandstone by John Laux, the
founder's brother.
Lewistown brewery ca.1899
The previous citation didn't
provide much information on the Brewery, but another historian's
work certainly did. The following was written by Dan Jeziorski, and
is reprinted here (in black text) with the author's
permission.
"The year was 1894 and Lewistown, Montana's
agricultural economy was booming. The recent addition of a mill
to grind wheat into flour brought promise of furthered economic
prosperity. It was an exciting time when many a folk considered
new business opportunities. And it was two men by the names of
Frank Haas and Philip Laux who realized Lewistown's great
potential for a local brewery.
The men secured a piece of land about one mile
south of Lewistown on the banks of Spring Creek. It was there
that John and Philip Laux erected the Lewistown Brewing Company.
This two-story stone structure was designed to include three 70
barrel standards and six 20 barrel casks, giving the brewery the
capacity to produce ten barrels of beer a day. The power for the
building was generated in a twenty-horse boiler, which drove a
sixteen-horse power engine.
The brewery took great pride in the fact that
they made their own malt from home grown barley. In reference to
this, the brewery often stated
'the experienced brewer in charge says there is no better
malt used in the great breweries of Milwaukee or St. Louis.'
Initially their products were sent out almost entirely in kegs
and were consumed in Lewistown, Gilt Edge and other nearby
towns. At the time, the only local area competition they had was
from the Maiden Brewery, which also had a ten barrel a day
capacity and was owned by a gentleman named E.G. Schneider.
After two years of struggling to compete with
the prices of the national brands, Haas & Laux decided to sell
the brewery in 1896¹. The business was promptly purchased by a man
by the name of Bernard McDonnell, a man known for his careful
and conservative management style. Because of McDonnell's
business reputation, the local newspaper predicted it would not
take too many years before outside breweries would find it more
difficult to compete with the home product."
13 March, 1900, edition of the Lewistown Eagle
"McDonnell successfully operated the brewery until 1904² when John C. Hogl took over as president. It
was in that same year that an ad appeared in the Polk Directory
listing "Double Brew Bottled Beer" as the brewery's brand of
beer (we could find no reference to brand names or bottling of
beer prior to this listing). Hogl presided over the brewing
operations until 1912, when prominent brewmaster Gustav Hodel
became president."
(see Gustav Hodel
biography)
embossed tin sign, ca.1910
In 1910, Gus Hodel was brewmaster and
superintendent of the
Centennial Brewing Co. in Butte.
The following year, after disposing of some mining stock, he
purchased controlling interest in the Lewistown brewery from John
Hogl for $65,000. Then, in June of 1912, the company was
re-organized with Gus Hodel as president; J. P. Schmidt,
vice-president; and A. C. Hodel³, secretary & treasurer.
With his extensive knowledge of brewing, Hodel improved the
brewery's product and continued to successfully operate the business
until Prohibition became law in 1918⁴
and the brewery was forced to close.
With the 1919 imposition of state-wide
prohibition, rather than closing his brewery, Gus decided to produce
near-beer. This allowed the plant to stay open, but the demand for
real beer was stronger than ever, and Gus was willing to meet the
demand.
Luckily the prohibition
enforcement agents were "few and far between" as well as being
notoriously corrupt. In November of 1922, former prohibition enforcement
director, O. H. Shelly, was indicted on 12 counts of accepting bribes.
He had received money from the Montana Brewing Co. of Great Falls, and
the Lewistown Brewing Co., with the understanding that he would allow
them to make and sell beer.
Other than making near-beer or illegal beer,
there were no options to brewers other than to leave the country.
The obvious choice would be Canada, but unfortunately they too were
experimenting with idiocy of prohibition. However, unlike the U. S.
they wised-up much sooner. As of January 1, 1924, the Province of
Alberta modified their eight year old prohibition law to the extent
that beer could again be produced.
On 31 December, 1923, Gus crossed the border
into Canada and headed to Medicine Hat, Alberta, with $2,000 in cash
from the sale of his Lewistown home. There he found local investors
and they re-opened the ten year old, Medicine Hat Brewing Co.
In November, 1926, Montanans voted to repeal
state-wide "dry" laws, which left enforcement of national
Prohibition to federal agents only. This event, coupled with
mediocre beer sale in Medicine Hat, influenced Gus to close the
Alberta brewery in June, '27.
Gus was now back in Lewistown and again making near-beer, and with
relaxed enforcement he was making stronger beer as well. Still, he
had too much exposure and was an easy target for the feds. On Sept.
19, 1928, the Lewistown Brewery was raided, and he and one employee,
Ole Langland, were arrested. The feds destroyed 800 quarts of beer
and dumped 600 gallons from the aging tanks. They also confiscated
his brewing equipment.
Both Gus and Ole were released on $300 bond (about $3,700 today) and
were to be tried in Great Falls Federal Court on October 13th. Ole
faced the court and was sentenced to 60 days in jail, and fined $50.
However, Gus failed to appear and forfeited the $300, and was
believed to have departed for Canada to avoid what would surely have
been a stiffer sentence than his employee received.
Gus kept a low profile in Lewistown, and apparently the forfeiture
of the bond satisfied the Feds since they dropped the matter. He
turned his brewing skills to making root-beer, since there was
literally no demand for near-beer. However, fate was to deal him
another set-back, when on October 29, 1929, the stock market
crashed. What investments he had left, including the Lewistown
Brewery, were lost.
Again, he found salvation in Canada. He
traveled to North Battleford, Sask., where an old acquaintance, Fred
Wentzler, offered Gus the position of brewmaster at Wentzler's Star
Brewing Company, Ltd. Gus remained there from January 1930 until
Repeal⁵.
"With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, many
Montana breweries were back in business. Having enjoyed his
experience in Lewistown, Hodel returned to reopen the brewery in
1934. Having spent the Prohibition years as a brewmaster in
Medicine Hat, Canada, Hodel earned the reputation as being one
of the finest brewmasters in the Northwest.
Before reopening in l934 many repairs had to be
made to the brewery building. A carpenter from Lewistown, a
carpenter from Winnett, and Philip Laux (a blacksmith) made the
repairs on the building and updated the interior with modem
brewing equipment. John F. Plovanic, a stone mason who built
Lewistown's St. Joseph's Hospital, did the stone and brick work
on the brewery. And Power's Electric did the wiring. one of the
other major tasks was the painting, which was done by brewery
employee Walter Scheid. Scheid agreed to paint everything except
the smoke stack, as he didn't trust the cables that would
support the stack's painter. About that time a steeplejack bum
came through town and offered to paint the stack for $15 so the
stack did get painted before opening. When all was said and
done, the Lewistown Brewing Company once again opened its door
in May of 1934.
Some of the brewery's employees in the 1930s included: Hodel's
son-in-law Roy Brookman in delivery and sales; Frank Carey as
main salesman; Jack Walters as chief engineer and machinist from
the Milwaukee roundhouse; a big man named Chris Ostad who
handled barrels; Jack Leiner as the kegger who repaired the
wooden barrels (Leiner also worked for Hodel in 1918); and
Walter Scheid as cellar man and corker. As a corker, Scheid
stated that corking was easier said than done. He would watch as
the barrels were filled and and at just the right moment he'd
pound the large cork in with a hammer. He said timing was
crucial because of the high pressure behind the brew -if you
weren't fast enough you'd get a shower. In 1934 his wages were
$3.00 a day but a year and half later Scheid was making $7.20 a
day. All of the employees wore blue and white striped overalls
and hats.
Although the plant had a potential capacity of 100 barrels a
day, it was planned to start off with a daily output of 25
barrels and add to it as the demand arose.
The barrels were made of wood, lined with pitch, and contained
32 gallons (4 kegs) of brew when full. Initially they made only
kegged beer, and it was called Silvertip. The brew was steamed
in a 25 barrel copper kettle.
Silver Tip Beer label c.1936
As with most smaller post-pro breweries, the
Lewistown Brewing Co. struggled to compete with the national
brewers. They began bottling Silvertip and Lewistown Brew in 12
oz and 24 oz bottles in hopes of turning their business around."
Additional capital was
needed and the company was successful in finding new investors.
In January of 1936, the company was
re-organized as Lewistown Brewery, Inc. The president of the
company was now Arthur F. Wiedeman; with Raymond Dockery,
vice-president; and Gustav Hodel, secretary-treasurer.
"Then, amidst their struggle to survive, the
Brewer's Union in Great Falls demanded that the brewery increase
its wages paid to employees, which it simply could not afford.
The situation left Hodel with no option but to let his employees
go and close down the brewery in 1938.
Thus the era of brewing in Lewistown ended. Much of the
equipment in the brewery was made of brass or copper so during
WWII, the metal was sold for scrap. The building, which I
believe still stands, had numerous occupants over the years. In
1984 it was occupied by Foster Apiaries, a bee and honey
processing plant."
The plant was sold to to John Foster at a
sheriff's sale in 1945. It has had two owners since
then and has remained a honey processing works. It is now the Snowy Mountain
Honey Ranch, 56 SW Ash St.
Due to the additions and
modifications over the years, the building bares little resemblance
to the original 1894 brewery, and is not eligible for recognition as
a historical structure.
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