Wisconsin Folklore

8 The Brewing Industry

8 The Brewing Industry Charles E. Brown From the mid-nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries, hardly a town in Wisconsin lacked a brewery. In the 1870s the destruction of Windy City breweries by the Chicago Fire, the proliferation of reliable railroads, and new refrigerator cars combined to vault Milwaukee into prominence as "Beer City" (see Jerry Apps, Breweries of Wisconsin [Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992]). No wonder musicians as diverse as Cleveland's Polka King Frankie Yankovic and louisiana's rockabilly piano pounder Jerry lee lewis invoked Brew Town through such national hits as "MiIwaukee Polka" and 'What Made Milwaukee Famous (Made a loser Out of Me)," respectively. True to his Siovenian roots and "happy music" genre, Yankovic emphasized beer as an elixir of conviviality: Beer from Milwaukee, The finest beer in town, Makes me so talky. Drink it down, drink it down, drink it downI In contrast to Yankovic, the southern Anglo-Celtic honky-tonk pianist lewis imagined himself a lost soul on the wrong side of a moral line dividing teetotalling Christians from the devil's beersucking disciples. Charles E. Brown's occupational glossary, drawn from Milwaukee brewery workers in 1938, not only illustrates the specialized equipment and corresponding speech that the work demanded, but also reveals the strong presence of German-speaking workers and German American customs. Still, it begs as many questions as it answers: for example, how and from whom did Brown gather this list? How were these words used at work, and why was profanity "noticeably absent"? Not even a foreman screaming "Goff in Himmel!" if some Dummkopf let a bunch of kegs fall off the beerwagon? During the same period Brown also compiled a glossary of occupational speech used by workers in Wisconsin foundries and machine shops. Both lists formed part of the Wisconsin Folklore Project, which Brown initiated. Within the evolution of folklore scholarship, such lists of texts and lore resemble the species of animals and plants and specimens of rocks gathered by biologists and geologists: useful as inventories, for structural examination, and as the basis for typological classifications, but only hinting at the dynamics of either biological or cultural spheres. Reprinted from the papers of the Wisconsin Folklore Project, under the federal auspices of the Works Progress Administration, 1938-a microfilm copy of which is held by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, reel P84-2053. 80 BROWN: The Brewing Industry Touring In Milwaukee 8.1. A Milwaukee German amid his city's beer, cheese, pretzels, and sausage in this comic postcard, ca. 1900. Wisconsin Folk Museum Collection. The brewing industry is a key industry in Wisconsin. The actual brewing of beer now employs few people in proportion to other industries. The bulk of employees are to be found in the bottling department which is quite separate from the brewing process. Employees in the brewing process are mostly German and in many cases German is still the only spoken language. Profanity is noticeably absent among brewery workers. Among workers in the bottling department the conveyor system (endless chain) together with the noise make much conversation impossible. ausbrenner beaudelot beer schiessen can packer carousel case-In man 81 Device to get rid of old pitch in kegs before adding new pitch. Copper pipes for cooling beer with beer running outside pipes, copper at top, stainless steel at bottom. Beer time for workers. Puts bottles in cases or cartons. Conveyor. Puts bottles in cases or cartons. case unloader cellar men clutch man cooker cooperage depitching dumper enclosed coolers fass filter man filter mass flat beer graining out high kraussen Irish moss Kaiser's geburtstag kuehl schift Kuesel guhr filter lauter tun or lauter tub leaker mal zeit Part One. Terms and Talk Empties cases or cartons and removes cancelled stamps. Men who work in the cellar. Works on washing machine. Man or machine boiling percentage of rice or corn grits (rice or grits mash). Term applied to the wooden keg beer (in some cases to any keg, metal or wood). Process of renloving old pitch. Empties cases or cartons and-removes cancelled stamps. Double pipe with wort [fermented beer mash] running inside water and ammonia outside. Removal of beer from fermentation. Takes beer from storage tank and filters it. Cotton asbestos pulp used to filter beer before shipping. Beer having no gas [carbonation]. Taking a spent grain out of lauter tub. When foam on beer resembles cauliflower. Used to...