The following article was written by Joe Kazda, the founder of ManitowocTavernHistory.org.
Imagine spending a month on a crowded wooden ship, enduring damp air, poor food, and sea sickness with your head wracked by many questions as you begin your journey to America. If your family in the old world had provided you with enough money to make this journey and had given you the training to support yourself, then you had a major advantage over those coming over without dedicated skills.
When Wisconsin was being settled in the mid-19th century, one of the notable fields of employment was that of the brewer. Beer at that time was a staple food of the rising Germanic population and it was a common occupation of those emigrating from this region in Europe. These immigrants had experience not only in brewing beer and making malt, but also in creating vinegar, yeast, and soda water.
The founding of the first Manitowoc breweries began around the same time Wisconsin was about to gain statehood (1848). To be exact, it was 1847 when William Rahr arrived in Manitowoc and began setting up his Eagle Brewery. And shortly after, Charles Hottleman started his brewery a stone’s throw from Williams’. Breweries had begun springing up in Wisconsin as early as 1840 in the Milwaukee region and had been slowly spreading across the state. By 1847, Wisconsin had about three dozen breweries, with around 400 established nationally. As a northern state, Wisconsin’s climate provided the ideal cold environment for beer brewing and preservation.
The success of William Rahr’s Brewery was a significant factor in the immigration of his nephews, beginning with Henry in 1853. Though all three nephews worked at their uncle’s brewery upon arriving in America, they eventually would leave to start their own breweries.
Henry would become partners with August Hochgreve in the Belleview Brewery in Green Bay in 1857 before beginning his Rahr Brewery in 1866. Brothers Charles and August became partners in the Rahr Oshkosh Brewery in 1865. As a testament to the continued success of the Rahr family brewing tradition, the Green Bay Brewery would remain in business for 100 years and the Oshkosh Brewery for 91 years.
Though the Eagle Brewery in Manitowoc provided training for the rest of the Rahr family’s brewing success, it was closed in 1915, just before Prohibition, never to reopen after over 60 years of operation. By this time, however, the Rahr malting business was proving far more successful and a much better income source. Though it was common for other brewers in the state to make their own malt, nobody did it on a scale that matched Rahr Malting.
The Rahrs started selling their malt locally and then nationally, attracting customers like Anheuser-Busch. They became Rahr’s biggest customer and eventually bought the business in 1962, retaining ownership until selling to Riverland AG Corporation in 2011. By this time, the malting equipment was idle, and the facility was only used for grain storage.
Riverland AG was ready to shut down its limited operation in 2014, and this could have easily become another “Mirro Aluminum”-type problem for the city with a large industrial facility sitting empty. If it’s hard to repurpose an abandoned brewery, imagine doing that with a massive 23-acre malting facility! Lucky for Manitowoc, a buyer appeared in 2014 that would use the facility for its original purpose—making malt! This family-owned company had been in business almost as long as the Rahr family. Fast forward to today, where Briess Malting has invested millions of dollars in making the Manitowoc malting facility, once again, a state-of-the-art operation, and they are the leading producer of malt used by craft breweries throughout the United States.
If you want to learn more, we invite you to attend “Manitowoc Brewery History, 1847-2023” at Manitowoc Public Library on Wednesday, November 1, from 6-7:30 PM in the Balkansky Community Room. We will cover Manitowoc’s brewing history from 1847 to the present day. We look forward to seeing you November 1.