The brewery was originally founded in 1852 and closed in 1972 at a time when lots of local and regional breweries went under. It’s resurrection began in the mid-90s and was a long process of restoration. Potosi is one of the great success stories of the Wisconsin craft beer scene. Beer is once again being brewed there and it’s some very fine stuff. Plus it is home to the National Brewery Museum.
Upon entering, we noticed that off to one side was the taproom and a restaurant. The oposite way led to a room full of Potosi breweriana from years past. And straight ahead was the gift shop. We flashed our tickets to the festival which gave us free admission to the museum that occupied the upper floors along with the brew kettles. For beer history geeks, the place is like a shrine.
The museum belongs to the American Breweriana Association and the collection is lent by members. This means that the displays change frequently and, having chatted with a docent, I was under the impression that, there are no permanent displays. You may or may not catch sight of a bottle of that beer that you remember your grandfather drinking back in the day. There are bottles, church keys, signs, &c. from all around the country so, even if you miss that chance at bringing back memories, there’ll still be something of interest.
Back in February I speculated that, despite Wisconsin’s brewing history being dominated by pale lagers, surely some German immigrants brewed ales or ale-lager hybrids like altbiers and Kölsches. I eventually e-mailed Ron Pattinson to find out what he could contribute to my theory one way or the other. He replied that lager brewing was the hip new thing in the area we now call Germany around the time Germans began emigrating to the States, although it was Munich dunkels that were in vogue in Northern Germany in the mid-19th century. Lager breweries were pretty sizable at this time while ale breweries were very small and local and on their way out. He thought it likely that the younger people who emigrated thought of top-fermenting brews as being old fashioned and that they emulated the big boys once they made it to Wisconsin.
D’oh!
OK. So there’s probably no gose bottles from a Wisconsin brewery founded by an immigrant from Leipzig. Still, Wisconsin breweries brewed more than lagers, pale or dark. As some intrepid archaeologists in Milwaukee have noted, the state’s German heritage and the abundance of wheat here led to many Wisconsin weiss biers.
As a result of this lucrative grain trade, Wisconsin breweries had a steady and high quality supply of fermentable wheat and barley. Wheat became a staple ingredient in the production of a popular German beer, Weiss /Weizen and “weiss breweries” sprung up all over the state and in particular in Milwaukee.
Nestled in amongst all the lager bottles I spied this:
And this:
An ale! I can’t find anything on what style this beer was, however. I find it ironic that they advertised their beer as being made with the apparently famous Waukesha water and now the city is in a bit of a pinch water-wise and is looking to have it pumped in from Lake Michigan.
Madison was represented by Fauerbach with a few signs and some bottles.
I had to take a picture of this Walter sign as a friend of mine drank the stuff up in Eau Claire back when he was in college.
And since I know several folks from Portage, I took a snap of this.
I also noticed this can of Black Pride beer.
The beer’s motto is "A beer as proud as its people." I found an article from the December 1969 issue of Brewers Digest about it and discovered that it was very much a product of its time.
ON MONDAY, November 24, [1969] a new beer, labeled ''Black Pride," received its initial commercial distribution on the south side of Chicago, Ill. -- an area which includes a large portion of the city's approximately 1,200,000 blacks. It is more than a new beer label that has entered the market; it is a concept that is being introduced as well and, in a sense, the particular product -- beer -- is secondary to the concept.Curiously enough, the beer was actually brewed by the West Bend Lithia Co. which was located just north of Milwaukee and, like Potosi, went out of business in 1972 but the label has recently been revived.
Black Pride, Inc., was born out of the dying embers of black hope that the man (the whites) would magnanimously provide full economic opportunity for the blacks -- embers that the founders of Black Pride, Inc., are well aware can all too easily be fanned into a vicious conflagration when despair becomes desperation or when the justification for despair gives rise to individual irresponsibility.
There was a series of photos with Groucho Marx but I cannot recall what brewery they were taken at. Pabst? He was there as part of some kind of promotional event.
The last part of our tour was checking out the lagering cave.
If memory serves, that’s an old bottling machine there in the background.
Beer nerds are advised to check out Potosi. Although I was not born and raised in Wisconsin, my family owned property up by Stone Lake and I spent a few weeks each summer up there. I recall old Rhinelander and Chief Oshkosh signs so it was neat to see some old breweriana associated with those breweries now that I’m older and a beer drinker. I also learned that, while today we have growlers of beer, back in the day a half gallon bottle magically transformed your lager into picnic beer.
You have to wonder what all these beers tasted like. From talking to my elders, Walter’s and Potosi were just swill in their waning years. However much nostalgia and tradition there is surrounding these old breweries, I get the impression that they weren’t brewing what we’d think of as craft beer. Those people you see at Woodman’s picking up cases of Miller and Corona to go along with their brats are carrying on the tradition of Wisconsinites past who grabbed their picnic beers for a summer outing.
After the tour we went to the gift shop and then to the taproom where we shared a beer before heading back across the street for the festival.
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