Edelweiss Beer (US)

*NOTE*: No relation to the German beer brand with the same name!

Edelweiss beer, a brand of lager beer brewed by Schoenhofen (Peter) Brewing Co. in Chicago, with no relationship with the former: Peter Schoenhofen, a Prussian immigrant, was in Chicago working in the brewing trade by the 1850s. In 1861, he started a partnership with Matheus Gottfried; they were soon operating a brewery at Canalport Avenue and 18th Street where, during the early 1860s, they made about 600 barrels of lager beer a year.

Subject ID: 50937

More

*NOTE*: No relation to the German beer brand with the same name!

Edelweiss beer, a brand of lager beer brewed by Schoenhofen (Peter) Brewing Co. in Chicago, with no relationship with the former: Peter Schoenhofen, a Prussian immigrant, was in Chicago working in the brewing trade by the 1850s. In 1861, he started a partnership with Matheus Gottfried; they were soon operating a brewery at Canalport Avenue and 18th Street where, during the early 1860s, they made about 600 barrels of lager beer a year.

In 1867, Schoenhofen bought out his partner, and the company became the Peter Schoenhofen Brewing Co. By 1868, annual output had increased to about 10,000 barrels. During the 1890s, when the business was owned by the City Contract Co. of London, England, annual output reached 180,000 barrels. Around 1900, the Schoenhofen family regained control of the company, which employed about 500 people at its brewery on West 12th Street by 1910. During this time, the company was also known as the National Brewing Co. The company's "Edelweiss" brand of beer was a big seller. Operations shut down during Prohibition except for making Green River soda. By 1933, after the national ban on alcohol production was lifted, the company was back in business as the Schoenhofen-Edelweiss Co. Edelweiss was popular among German immigrants as late as the late 1940s in Calumet City, IL. After being purchased by the Atlas Brewing Co. in the late 1940s, Schoenhofen became part of Drewry's Ltd. of South Bend, Indiana, in 1951, and thereafter assumed the Drewry's name, although the Edelweiss name was still marketed into the 1960's. The slogan "Edelweiss Beer, Always a Case of Good Judgement!" is fondly remembered from the radio, T.V. and print advertising of the era. By the beginning of the 1970s, there was nothing left of its Chicago operations, although Drewry's reintroduced the famous Edelweiss brand in 1972 after nearly a decade-long hiatus. It doesn't seem to be produced nowadays.

Subject ID: 50937

Less