Modern-day Chicago is home to a large number of breweries offering residents and visitors a wide array of delicious beers. The story of how beer came to the city is a fascinating one, and we’ll explore it in detail at chicago1.one.
It All Began with German Immigrants
In the 19th century, beer production transformed into a highly mechanized, large-scale business, and Chicago became the nation’s largest center for the malt beverage industry. In 1833, German immigrants opened the city’s first brewery, which produced popular styles like ale and porter.
In 1847, John Huck established the first brewery to produce German lager. The majority of Irish and German immigrants who came to Chicago preferred this light, carbonated beverage of their homeland, pushing traditional ales to a small, niche market.
The constant need for ice to brew and store beer was a major factor in the creation of Chicago’s ice business. Similarly, the need for strong animals to haul wagons loaded with large beer kegs to restaurants and saloons across the city led to the establishment of draft horse breeding farms.
The Rise and Fall of Brewing in Chicago
From 1860 to 1890, brewing underwent a scientific and technological revolution. Thanks to Louis Pasteur’s studies of beer yeast, brewers understood that microorganisms were the main cause of spoilage. The dominance of German immigrants and their descendants in Chicago led to the opening of the Siebel Institute of Technology. Successful businessmen like Conrad Seipp and Michael Brand financed inventions that improved refrigeration equipment, and they soon replaced traditional brewers with university-educated chemists.
The malting business grew rapidly, becoming a major industry in its own right. The increasing use of energy in the form of heat, electricity, and refrigeration made beer production one of the country’s most highly mechanized industries, complete with bottling plant assembly lines. By 1900, Chicago’s 60 breweries were producing over 100 million gallons of beer a year, a remarkable output for the time.
The Legendary Dewes Brewery
The Standard Brewery, which operated from 1892 to 1920, was one of the most successful, competing honorably with companies like Wacker & Birk, McAvoy, and Best Brewing Co.
Long before Chicago gained a reputation as a bootlegging capital, many entrepreneurs and companies began opening drinking establishments. Most of them, including Standard, not only sold beer to independent taverns but also made lucrative contracts with saloon owners, creating “tied houses” that sold beer exclusively from one sponsoring brewery. This created a network of loyal producers, suppliers, and beer lovers that grew organically for over half a century. It’s important to note that many Chicago breweries earned huge profits, largely due to the spread of alcoholism that afflicted the working class and immigrant communities. At the same time, brewing traditions were important cultural touchstones and a source of pride for the city’s newly enfranchised residents.
In 1855, immigrants faced persecution from former Chicago Mayor Levi Boone, who ordered all taverns to close on Sundays and raised the cost of a liquor license from $50 to $300 a year, forcing many establishments to shut down. In response, immigrants rioted downtown, resulting in 60 arrests and one death in what became known as the Lager Beer Riot.
In the following years, as the immigrant population grew, many prominent brewers saw a great opportunity to serve both their old customers and the overseas market. One such brewer was Joseph Dewes, the future founder and president of the Standard Brewery Company.
Joseph was born in Losheim am See, Germany. In 1845, he began learning the art of brewing from his father. At the age of 23, he set off for America. In 1868, Joseph took a job as an accountant before becoming the secretary at the brewery of Michael Brand and Valentin Busch. After the Great Chicago Fire, Dewes helped the entrepreneurs rebuild their business.
In 1881, Joseph opened his own brewery, the F. J. Dewes Brewery Company, and began producing new beer styles. The company’s first headquarters was located at the corner of Hoyne Avenue and Rice Street in Ukrainian Village. The business grew rapidly, and Dewes soon became one of the most popular ale producers in the region. He brought the best German and Danish brewing technologies to the West Side and made deals with local saloon owners, creating a solid fleet of “tied-house” establishments. By the late 1880s, the entrepreneur had become a millionaire.
The F. J. Dewes Brewery Co. achieved a high status, second to none of Chicago’s famous breweries. Its motto was “Hops and Malt Keep the Gold.” Notably, this brewery was the first in Chicago to implement the “Hansen method” for obtaining absolutely pure yeast. Soon, its production volume reached 80,000 barrels per year.
In 1920, when Prohibition was enacted, Standard, like many breweries of the time, tried to stay afloat by brewing non-alcoholic “near beer.” In 1922, after the death of Joseph Dewes, the Standard Brewery was closed. This marked the end of the story for a business that had long delighted the city with its delicious beer.
After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the city’s brewing industry could not cope with competition from national brands that sold beer in cans. One by one, Chicago’s breweries closed down. Industrial beer production in Chicago ended in the 1980s. Attempts to reopen some of the large old breweries ultimately failed, but small breweries and pubs kept the city’s brewing tradition alive.
A Revival of Tradition
In 1988, John Hall founded the Goose Island Brewery on the city’s North Side, and the brand quickly made a name for itself. In 1992, Goose Island celebrated its 1,000th batch of brewed beer. By 1995, due to increased demand, a second brewery and a new bottling plant were opened.
Over the next decade, many craft breweries opened in the city, but their products had not yet gained widespread popularity. That all changed in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The Chicago brewpub Piece Brewery and Pizzeria won a gold medal at a festival in 2009, drawing national attention to Chicago. In 2011, officials noticed the high demand for craft beer, and the state senate passed a law that allowed small breweries to sell and distribute their own beer without going through official distributors. Since then, beer in Chicago has been able to reclaim its former glory.
According to Forbes, from 2017 to 2018, national craft beer production slowed by about 5%. During that same time, independent breweries in the Midwest increased their volume by an average of 163%.