Conrad Seipp Brewing Company
{{Short description|Former Chicago brewery established in 1854 by Conrad Seipp}}
{{Infobox company
| name = The Conrad Seipp Brewing Company
| logo = Conrad Seipp Brewing Co.jpg
| type =
| genre =
| fate =
| predecessor =
| successor =
| foundation = 1854, {{Years or months ago|1854}}
| founder = Conrad Seipp
| defunct = 1933
| location_city = Chicago, Illinois
| location_country = United States
| location =
| locations =
| area_served = Regional
| key_people =
| industry = Beverages
| products = Beer
}}
The Conrad Seipp Brewing Company was established in 1854 by German immigrant Conrad Seipp in Chicago, Illinois. The brewery is notable for its prolific use of advertising, making it one of the most successful breweries of its era.{{cite web |last1=Brooks |first1=Jay |title=Historic Beer Birthday: Conrad Seipp |url=https://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/historic-beer-birthday-conrad-seipp/ |website=Brookstone Beer Bulletin |access-date=5 June 2022}} It closed in 1933.
History
File:Conrad Seipp Brewing Company advertisement, circa 1910s.jpg
Conrad Seipp was born in Langen, Hessen, Germany on 28 September 1825. His early trade was that of a carpenter and joiner. During the failed German revolutions of 1848-9, Seipp was conscripted and served as a bodyguard for the Grand Duchess of Hessen. In 1849, he emigrated to the United States, arriving first in Rochester, NY—a city in the midst of its own extensive brewing history—where he married his first wife, Maria Teutsch. His stay in Rochester was short and the couple soon moved to Chicago, where Seipp first worked as the driver of a beer wagon for the Miller Brothers Brewery and later owned and operated his own hotel on the corner of Washington and Wells Streets.{{cite web |title=The Seipps of Black Point Estate |url=https://walworthcgs.com/newsletters/WCGS%20Mar%20Apr%202018.pdf |website=Walworth County Genealogical Society |access-date=5 June 2022}}
In 1854, with the profit from the sale of his hotel, Seipp invested $18,000{{cite book |title=One Hundred Years of Brewing |date=1901 |publisher=H.S. Rich and Co. |location=Chicago |page=162 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dPI7AQAAMAAJ |access-date=10 June 2022}} to purchase a small brewery from Matthias Best on 14th street, which burned down within the year. Seipp immediately built a new brick brewery on 27th Street near Lake Michigan with underground cellars, a malt floor at ground level, and a 2nd floor living quarters for his family. By the end of his first year Seipp had 6 employees and was producing more than 1,000 barrels.{{cite book |title=One Hundred Years of Brewing |date=1903 |publisher=H.S. Rich and Co. |location=Chicago and New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1JFOAQAAMAAJ |access-date=5 June 2022}}
In 1858 Seipp partnered with Frederick Lehmann, creating the firm Seipp & Lehmann. By the end of the next decade, it was one of Chicago's leading brewers, with about 50 employees producing more than 50,000 barrels of beer per year.
The brewery survived the Great Chicago Fire and the partnership continued until Lehmann's death in 1872. Seipp purchased the interest of the Lehmann heirs and, in 1876, incorporated the Conrad Seipp Brewing Company.
By the end of the 1870s, the brewery was producing more than 100,000 barrels per year, making it the 5th largest brewery in the United States at the time.{{cite news |last1=Meier |first1=Birte |title=The Business of Beer |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-01-18-9801180285-story.html |access-date=5 June 2022 |publisher=The Chicago Tribune |date=18 January 1998}}{{cite news |title=Beer Statistics |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1845053764/D43D481B180E41FFPQ/30?&sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers |access-date=14 October 2024 |publisher=The Daily Post (Pittsburgh) |date=2 August 1879}} In 1889, it produced 230,000 barrels.{{cite book |last1=Moody |first1=John |title=Moody's Manual of Corporate Securities |date=1902 |publisher=John Moody & Co. Publishers |location=New york |page=1405 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J1FFAQAAMAAJ |access-date=10 June 2022}}
After Conrad Seipp's death in 1890, the Conrad Seipp, West Side, and F. J. Dewes breweries—along with the L. C. Huck and George Bullen malt houses—were amalgamated to form the City of Chicago Brewing and Malting Company, though each firm continued under its own name.{{cite news |title=Another Big Brewery Deal Consummated in Chicago |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1924568181/D43D481B180E41FFPQ/26?&sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers |access-date=14 October 2024 |publisher=Democrat and Chronicle |date=11 May 1890}} By the turn of the century the Conrad Seipp Brewing Company had grown into one of the largest breweries in the country, with an annual output of 240,000 barrels.{{cite web |title=Seipp (Conrad) Brewing Company |url=http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2841.html |website=Encyclopedia of Chicago |access-date=5 June 2022}}{{cite web |title=Taste Chicago's History |url=https://www.seippbrewing.com/about/?v=32aec8db952d |website=The Conrad Seipp Brewing Company |access-date=5 June 2022}}
During Prohibition, the brewery continued to operate, brewing both soda and near beer, however the brewery closed in 1933, just before the passage of the 21st amendment, which repealed Prohibition. The brewery buildings were demolished 1933, in part to make way for an expansion of Michael Reese Hospital's campus.{{cite news |last1=Bross |first1=Judy Carmack |title=Bringing Back the Beer that Built Chicago |url=https://classicchicagomagazine.com/bringing-back-the-beer-that-built-chicago/ |access-date=5 June 2022 |publisher=Classic Chicago Magazine |date=2 February 2020}}{{cite book |last1=Sawyers |first1=June Skinner |title=Chicago Beer A History of Brewing, Public Drinking and the Corner Bar |date=2022 |publisher=The History Press |location=Charleston SC |isbn=9781467149259 |url=https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9781467149259}}{{cite news |title=Beer Making Legal in Utah But It's Illegal to Drink It |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2270403572/D43D481B180E41FFPQ/8?&sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers |access-date=14 October 2024 |publisher=The Pittsburgh Press |date=24 March 1933}}
=Reintroduction=
In 2020, Seipp's great-great-great-granddaughter, Laurin Mack—in conjunction with Metropolitan Brewing, a firm specializing in German-style lagers, reintroduced Seipp's Extra Pale, a pre-Prohibition style pilsner and Seipp's Columbia Special Release, an interpretation of a Bock beer the Conrad Seipp Brewing Company specially brewed for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.{{cite web |title=Conrad Seipp Columbia Bock is Back from 1893 World's Fair |url=https://worldsfairchicago1893.com/2021/03/25/conrad-seipp-columbia-bock-is-back-from-1893-worlds-fair/ |website=The World's Fair Chicago 1893 |date=25 March 2021 |access-date=5 June 2022}}{{cite news |last1=Myers |first1=Quinn |title=Almost a Century Later, a Classic Chicago Beer Makes Its Triumphant Return |url=https://news.wttw.com/2020/07/02/almost-century-later-classic-chicago-beer-makes-its-triumphant-return |access-date=5 June 2022 |publisher=WTTW |date=2 July 2022}}{{cite news |last1=Riley |first1=Joshua |title=Conrad Seipp brews again |url=https://chicagoreader.com/food-drink/conrad-seipp-brews-again/ |access-date=5 June 2022 |publisher=The Chicago Reader |date=22 March 2021}}
See also
- Beer in the United States
- List of breweries in Illinois
- Lager Beer Riot
- {{portal-inline|Beer}}
External links
{{commonscat|Conrad Seipp Brewing Company}}
- [https://www.seippbrewing.com/ The Conrad Seipp Brewing Company]
- [https://blackpointestate.wisconsinhistory.org/ Black Pointe Estate and Gardens]
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buyCzvg8CqY Conrad Seipp Brewing: Then and Now]