Buffalo Beer: The History of Brewing in the Nickel City (American Palate) by Michael F. Rizzo & Ethan Cox

Author:Michael F. Rizzo & Ethan Cox [Rizzo, Michael F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2015-01-17T22:00:00+00:00

A view of the remains of the Iroquois Brewery on Pratt Street. At one point the biggest by volume of Buffalo’s breweries, it was the second last to close in Buffalo. Photo by Michael Rizzo.

Also in 1905, Frank X. Schwab, general manager of the International Brewing Company on Niagara Street, became a business adviser to Leonard Burgweger, president of Iroquois Brewing Company. Schwab would use his influence and personal connections during his twelve years with Burgweger to help Iroquois become Buffalo’s biggest brewery.335

Michael Schamel, a brewer since 1864 and co-founder of the Union Brewery with Jacob F. Kuhn, died in 1905. He is buried in St. John’s Cemetery, Cheektowaga, New York.336

The Moffat family continued in the brewery business when Henry’s son William Leroy took over management of the brewery in 1906. His leadership would continue until the onset of Prohibition in 1919.

William Voetsch Sr., sixty-eight, a pioneer Buffalo brewer and founder of the Clinton Cooperative Brewing Company and later Clinton-Star Brewery, died suddenly on February 11, 1906. Modestia Lodge Number 340 arranged the funeral since he had been a Mason for many years. He is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery.337

Lake View Brewing Company was formed in 1885, when its founder, Alois Schaefer, retired. His son Philip G. was appointed general manager upon his father’s retirement and, after twenty-one years serving as acting executive, was elevated to president of the firm on April 1, 1906. It was estimated that the firm was producing about fifty thousand barrels of high grade beer, ale and porter per year by this time, with a capacity of about seventy-five thousand barrels a year. It sold its products primarily locally.338

Unions had long been an important aspect in the brewing industry, providing fair wages to workers. All the major breweries in Buffalo used barrels made by union coopers, but sometimes things went awry. There were two coopers’ unions in Buffalo: Mixed Coopers, Local Thirty-three, and Beer, Ale and Brewery Coopers’, Local Ninety-three. Local Ninety-three went on a multi-month strike against the breweries in Buffalo Brewers’ Exchange around June 1906, demanding a raise from $15 to $17 ($395 to $448) per week. It had settled on $16.50 ($434) in late July or August when a committee from the Brewery Workers’ Union wanted a new clause added to the contract. The coopers were upset that the Brewery Workers’ Union did not side with them during the strike. It was finally approved, and the coopers returned to work.339

“Anthony Schreiber (of A. Schreiber Brewing Company) was a man who was deeply connected to his Polish culture. Schreiber decided to honor and promote that by naming his premium light beer after Jan Paderewski’s 1901 opera, Manru,”340 According to the company’s trademark, it was called “the King of bottled beers.”341 Although being in business just about seven years, the demand for “Manru” lager compelled the company in 1906 to erect a large addition to its plant, which would bring brewing capacity to about 100,000 barrels per year. The company was already producing 60,000 barrels of beer per year with output steadily increasing.

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