May 27, 2015 at 1:48 p.m.
50 years later, Rhinelander beer lives on
50 years later, Rhinelander beer lives on
By By Kyle Rogers-
But in the 1980s, with some help from changes in federal legislation, the diversity of the brewing scene started to gradually make a comeback. That increase in breweries has been particularly prominent in recent years as the nation's interest in craft beer continues to grow, and the number of breweries in the country is again at 1882 levels.
Though the Rhinelander Brewing Company hasn't had a physical presence locally in the form of an actual brewery in nearly a half-century, it has still been a part of the brewery resurgence in recent years, debuting a line of craft beers as well as bringing back the original recipe of its Rhinelander Export Lager in the iconic 7-ounce Shorty bottles that came on the scene in 1940. The Rhinelander brand has been kept alive by the Minhas family, owners of Minhas Craft Brewery in Monroe - the second oldest continuously running brewery in the country. Since that's where Rhinelander beer currently resides, that's where the story of the Rhinelander Brewing Company should begin.
Brewing operations in Monroe began in 1845, three years before Wisconsin even became a state. The brewery is only topped in age by Pennsylvania's Yuengling Brewery, which began operations in 1829. The city of Monroe grew around the brewery, so to this day the brewery remains in a prominent location, just off the heart of the downtown.
Nearly 40 years after the startup of the Monroe Brewing Company, brewing operations began in Rhinelander on Ocala Street. Otto Hilgermann and Henry Danner founded the company in 1882. In 1897, the brewery burnt down, but was rebuilt. The next hiccup for operations occurred in 1920 when Prohibition started, and operations at the brewery shut down for more than a decade.
Meanwhile, in Monroe, operations continued despite alcohol being illegal under federal law. By that time, Fred J. Blumer was heading up operations and the company was known as the Blumer Brewing Company, named after Blumer's father who had become the sole owner of the company in 1892. The brewery changed its name to the Blumer Products Company and survived Prohibition by making ice cream and non-alcoholic beer, and distributing tractors and other types of machinery.
When Prohibition ended in 1933, Rhinelander, Blumer and other breweries across the country got back to their roots and began making beer again. For Rhinelander, the return to brewing was successful as just seven years into operations the company debuted its 7-ounce Shorty, which became a top seller. But the success didn't last, and with the growing presence of the macrobreweries, the Rhinelander Brewery suffered the same fate as other breweries and closed its doors because of financial difficulties in 1967. The company's assets were sold to the brewery in Monroe, by that time known as the Joseph Huber Brewing Company.
Joseph Huber had worked his way up to his ownership position, starting out as a brewery worker in 1927 when the company was still owned by the Blumer family. An interesting side note, Huber was a relative of former Wisconsin assemblyman and senator Henry Huber, the man responsible for the Huber Law - the country's first work-release law for prisoners. There was more than just a family name connection though, as prisoners in a Monroe jail directly adjacent to the brewery actually worked at the brewery under the Huber Law. The former jail is now the Jailhouse Tap Bar & Grill.
Under the Joseph Huber Brewing Company, the Rhinelander beer recipes stayed in production, though the Shorty was eventually phased out in the 1970s. That is until the Minhas family got involved in the brewery a few more ownership changes later.
Siblings Ravinder and Manjit Minhas of Alberta, Canada, came into the picture in 2003 when they chose the Monroe brewery to make the Mountain Crest brand they developed. They injected some life into the brewery. By 2005 the contract with the Minhas siblings made up 85 percent of the brewery's production. In 2006, the brewery became Minhas Craft Brewery after the brother/sister team purchased the company.
That ownership change also led to a comeback for the Rhinelander brand. Ravinder's wife, Jyoti Auluck, became president of the Rhinelander Brewing Company in 2009, formally purchasing the Rhinelander family of beers from the Monroe brewery and instead maintaining it as a contract under the Minhas name. Though brewing operations stayed in Monroe, it meant a stronger local presence again with an office in Rhinelander and the return of the 1940s era Rhinelander Export Lager in the Shorty bottles - plus joining the craft beer craze with a line of craft brews.
"Craze" is an apt term. At the start of the decade in which the Rhinelander Brewery on Ocala Street shut down, the number of breweries nationwide was less than 250. That number would drop to below 100 before the resurgence started in the 1980s. According to a report from the Brewers Association released late last year, there are now 13 states that have over 100 breweries. The nationwide total is more than 3,200.
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