Breweries of Wisconsin

8. The Beer Barrel: Then and Now

The Beer Barrel: Then and Now l::Eold beer barrel-once a major part of the romantic image associated with breweries and beer-now plays only a minor role in the packaging of the product, but even today many people envision a barrel when they think of beer. A brewery's capacity is still expressed in terms of thirty-one gallon barrels rather than in cases or six-packs, and barrels of beer are the mainstay of many a party. Also, some cans and bottles are now designed to look like the traditional container for beer. The Cooper's Craft There was a time when beer came only in barrels, making barrels one of the most important elements of the brewing industry. "No barrels meant little or no beer in the old days," noted the cooper who had practiced his trade for gangsters during Prohibition . "That's why even the mobsters treated coopers like myself with the greatest care and respect." Until the late 1800s, the sole form of packaging for most breweries was the wooden barrel. At the turn of the century the Phillip Goerres Cooperage Company of Milwaukee advertised, "Beer packages-whole barrels, halves, quarters, eighths. Best quality, lowest prices." It was possible for a tavernkeeper to purchase full barrels, containing thirty-one gallons; half barrels, containing fifteen and one-half gallons; quarter barrels; and even smaller barrels, called "ponies." Because of the booming beer industry, the cooperage business thrived. The 1937 Brewery Age Buyer's Guide listed the names and addresses of forty-eight manufacturers of wooden barrels and kegs in the United States, many of them in Wiscon77 UNTIL THE LATE 1800S MOST BEER WAS PACKAGED IN BARRELS. '18 Part 'l\vo: Turbulent Times ONE OF WISCONSIN ' S LARGEST BARRELMAKERS STAYED IN OPERATION UNTIL 1965. ARCH OF KEGS. BUILT TO WELCOME PRESIDENT CLEVELAND WHEN HE VISITED MILWAUKEE IN 1893. (COURTESY OF THE MILWAUKEE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY') sin. Milwaukee coopers on the list included the Kitzinger Cooperage Company, the Milwaukee Cooperage Company, and the Charles Stolper Cooperage Company. Other Badger State coopers were Madison's Adam Hess Cooperage Company, Menasha's Woodenware Company, and the Oshkosh Cooperage Company. One of Wisconsin's biggest barrel-makers, the Frank 1. Hess and Sons Cooperage of Madison, began in 1894 and continued its operation until November 1965. The founder, Frank J. Hess, served his cooperage apprenticeship at the Pilsner Brewery in Bohemia before coming to this country in 1887 at the age of nineteen . Hess worked seven years at Chicago's Westside Brewery, and in 1894 he moved to Prairie du Chien to make barrels for both a small, local brewery and the G. Heileman brewery of La Crosse. In 1901 Madison brewer Henry Fauerbach convinced Hess to move to Madison in order to make barrels for his Fauerbach Brewing Company. Hess also began making barrels for the Hausmann brewery and Breckheimer brewery, both of Madison, and for the Pheasant Branch Brewery of Middleton. Eventually, he The Beer Barrel 79 made barrels for breweries in Portage, Baraboo, Sauk City, Columbus , Watertown, Wausau, Janesville, and Duluth. As his business grew larger and larger, Hess shipped barrels out of state to many eastern breweries. "We had as many as thirty-five men working for us at one time," Ed Hess, son of the founder, remembers. "We used only white oak for the barrels. The staves were purchased from a sawmill in Arkansas, but we were able to buy white-oak wood around here for the headings [tops and bottoms]." Hess explains that the barrels were made from "staves that were cured outdoors for a year and a half. If the staves weren't dried right, they'd crack when we tried to bend them." The white-oak staves were an inch and a half thick, making the barrels sturdy and heavy. Half barrels, which eventually replaced full barrels because they were easier to transport and handle, weighed as much as eighty pounds when finished. In addition to white-oak staves, tops, and bottoms, and the steel hoops that were used to hold the barrel staves in place, Hess also used an enormous quantity of cattail leaves in making barrels. "You can't make a beer barrel without cattails," Hess points out. We put a cattail leaf between every stave. This helps to keep the barrel from leaking. A tavern empties a barrel and rolls it outside where its sits in...