THIRTEEN Specials

Brewed in Brooklyn
Explore the origins of the brewing industry in Brooklyn from early 1800s and meet modern day craft brewers and home brewers who are helping to transform the borough. The film features interviews with historians, brewers and beer lovers alike and includes vintage footage and excerpts of classic beer commercials. The documentary is must see for anyone who loves beer, Brooklyn or history.
TRANSCRIPT
>> Funding for
"Brewed in Brooklyn"
is made possible
by a grant from...
John Sampieri Jewelers --
Crafting original engagement
and wedding jewelry in
Manhattan's Diamond District
for over half a century.
Online at jsampieri.com.
Peluso Orthodontics
of Cedar Grove, New Jersey --
Concentrating in teen
and adult smiles.
More information
at usabraces.com.
By Grand Prix Auto
of Brooklyn -- Leasing new
and used vehicles since 1997.
At 2709 Coney Island Avenue
or grandprixmotors.com.
Narrows Insurance Agency
of Brooklyn -- A full-service
agency serving the tristate
area.
Online at narrowsins.com.
Marovato Italian Imports --
Purveyors of Italian
gourmet foods.
Online shopping available
at marovatofoods.com.
And by Lugara Law of Brooklyn,
lugaralaw.com -- Focusing
on all aspects of residential
and commercial real-estate
matters, estate planning,
probate, and commercial
litigation.
♪♪
>> One of the special things
about New York, that everybody
who comes here brings his or her
culture, and so what you have
in Brooklyn is a culture of
beer.
♪♪
>> Welcome to Brooklyn,
New York.
Of the five boroughs
in New York, it's the most
populated, with some 2.5 million
people of every ethnic
background living here.
It's a place where hipsters
and Hasids live side by side.
♪♪
Our people are eclectic,
our bridges are iconic,
and our breweries
are world-famous.
Well, they were world-famous.
♪♪
Marshall Stevenson is
a New York City tour guide
and beer expert.
Every week he brings tourists
on beer tours of Brooklyn
to visit breweries of the past.
>> Commercial brewing began
in Brooklyn in the early
19th Century.
Well, you have a lot of German
immigration, and that's really
key to it because Germans
bring their culture.
>> And when they came to
Brooklyn, they had their own
cities.
They had Williamsburg.
It was a separate city.
Bushwick -- just names now --
was a separate city.
>> Bushwick was well-suited
for brewing for one simple
reason.
>> This was really the heart
of beer brewing in Brooklyn
in part because
the Ridgewood Reservoir
opened up in the 1850s
and fed fresh water
into this neighborhood.
>> Built in Queens,
the Ridgewood Reservoir
had just been completed in 1858
to satisfy Brooklyn's increasing
demand for water.
Water from the reservoir
would be the main ingredient
that the breweries in Brooklyn
would use for decades to come.
For the German immigrant
brewers, water from
the Ridgewood Reservoir makes
for a perfect match for their
style of brewing.
>> The Germans come in,
and they start to open
the first breweries
in the 1850s, and those beers
were classic German-style beers.
They were lagers.
They were wheat beers,
or Weissbiers, and they're
the ones that really --
the industry takes off.
>> And not only did they bring
their brewing style here,
they brought with them
respectable places to enjoy
a cold beer.
>> So before German-American
immigration began, where
Americans drank were saloons,
which were associated with
crime, vice, corruption.
It really wasn't a place
where you would bring your
family to have a beer.
This all changed when
the Germans came, and they
introduced the beer gardens
and the beer halls.
These were, all of a sudden,
places where you could enjoy
a beer in the outdoors
with your family, and it was
accompanied by other pleasures,
such as singing, dancing,
or playing cards, and this
basically changed the whole
atmosphere.
It made drinking outside
a respectable thing,
all of a sudden.
>> One of those immigrants
was a German Jew named
Samuel Liebmann, who came
to Brooklyn from Ludwigsburg
just north of Stuttgart in 1850.
His great-great-grandson,
Walter Liebman, explains
why the family left Germany.
>> I'm not, myself, a scholar,
but I do know that it was not
a very pleasant place to live
if you were a Jew,
and that's why they decided
to immigrate.
>> The family settled in
Brooklyn and started their
brewery there for the same
reason so many other brewers
were choosing Brooklyn --
the water from
the Ridgewood Reservoir.
>> In those days, of course,
Brooklyn was a separate city.
It had its own community.
It didn't look anything
like it looks today,
and I'm sure that the water
was pure and good.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have
done it.
>> For more than a century
thereafter, the name "Liebmann"
would become synonymous
with beer brewing in Brooklyn,
paving the way for what would
eventually become their
signature product --
Rheingold Beer.
♪♪
>> Rheingold was created
for the Chicago World's Fair.
The family was making beer
ever since the mid 1800s
in Brooklyn --
different beers.
For the Chicago World's Fair,
they decided they would have
something new, so they developed
a new beer and called it
Rheingold, and it was such
a smashing success, that it
overwhelmed the whole company,
and it became Rheingold.
While we did make other beer --
we made bock beer, spring beers,
and, you know, a few other
things -- ales,
it was the dominant product
and became the signature product
of the company.
♪♪
>> By the 1880s, 35 breweries
had been established in
Brooklyn, generating an
estimated $8 million in revenue
annually.
>> So you not only have a lot
of Germans, both in Manhattan
and in Brooklyn, you have people
with resources and skills
who can know something
about making beer.
I wouldn't be very good at it.
And, thirdly, you have a market,
because certainly in
the 19th Century, if not in
the 21st, you needed to --
beer production was associated
with something nearby.
I mean, you couldn't brew beer
in Brooklyn and sell it
in Tennessee very easily.
>> All breweries in Brooklyn
up until 1850 could be
classified as regional brewers.
A regional brewer sold its beer
exclusively to a local,
or regional market.
>> For early Brooklyn,
it was local.
So there was really --
There was no refrigeration,
and, at one point in time,
the areas that had the largest
German influence had
the breweries, because Germans,
beer is their drink of choice.
So the Bushwick section,
Williamsburg, East New York,
but, really, the heart
of Bushwick was where most
of the German immigrants came,
and they started opening
breweries.
>> There's literally a brewery
on every corner, and that's
where people came to get their
beer.
They got it fresh from that
local brewery, and that's
how people were drinking
in the 1800s.
>> The German brewing technique
required cooler temperatures
to store the beer and employed
extensive cellars for storage
so as to take advantage
of the cool underground
temperatures.
They also used large blocks
of ice cut from area lakes
and ponds during the winter
to regulate temperature.
The block-ice business
in Brooklyn in the 1800s
was good for plenty of cold
cash, much of that due to
the enormous amount of ice
needed by area brewers.
>> They could only brew during
certain times of the year
when it was cool enough
to cool down the hot wort
coming out of the kettle,
and they had to cut ice.
If they had to store beer
for nine months in an icehouse,
they had to cut ice.
>> Changes in refrigeration
technology, which was first
employed in Brooklyn
at Liebmann and Sons in 1870,
hit most of the breweries
in the 1880s, helping to shorten
the cooling stages of
the brewing process and
permitting a longer brewing
season.
The breweries were able to brew
more beer, and Americans were
falling in love with lager beer.
>> And at that point, the beer
was so good, they were actually
supplying a good percentage
of the beer in
the United States.
>> In the time period prior
to the Civil War to, say,
the 1880s, lager beer had
undergone a tremendous
popularization to the extent
that it had become a national
beverage enjoyed beyond
the ethnic German communities.
♪♪
>> And what starts to happen
in the late 1800s and then going
into the early 1900s is you
start to see the industry
change, and it goes from being
a local industry to being
a regional and, eventually,
a national industry, and
the reason it changes is because
of technology, and brewers
were behind a lot of
the technologies we now take
for granted -- things like
pasteurization, refrigeration,
the development of bottling
lines and canning lines,
and all of these things make
beer manufacture easier,
and they make it possible
to keep beer for a long time
and ship it over long distances.
>> The number of breweries
increased in the 1880s and
1890s, as did production,
aided by an increased demand
and technology advances.
By 1898, Brooklyn was the fourth
most populous city in
the country and supported
45 breweries.
>> In terms of the number
of breweries in Brooklyn,
it peaked in 1900.
>> By the turn of
the 20th Century, you had
approximately 50 breweries
operating in Brooklyn.
It was the brewing capital
of the world, and Brooklyn
had a reputation of being
great beer.
It was extra hoppy
and very popular.
>> And the fact that three
of the largest breweries
in the country were right there
in Brooklyn -- that was Piels
and Schaefer and Rheingold --
said something.
>> Another one of those famous
breweries to have a lasting
impact on Brooklyn
was the Ulmer Brewery.
>> Ulmer himself was a great
philanthropist, and he gave
a lot back to the community,
so he was very popular
to the point his biggest
donation, so to speak,
was the opening of Ulmer Park
in the Gravesend section
of Brooklyn.
That opened around 1893.
It only had about a six-year
run.
However, it was the amusement
park of the day, and they had
a hotel, restaurants, shooting
gallery, bowling alleys --
all sorts of fun things
for people to do, but most
importantly, it was an outlet
for Ulmer to sell his beer.
>> But the Ulmer name still
lives in Brooklyn with
the Ulmer Park Bus Depot
and the Ulmer Park Library,
not to mention brewery buildings
on Belvedere Street that still
bear the William Ulmer name.
>> His brewhouse and office
were actually granted landmark
status -- the only brewery
in Brooklyn, the only remaining
brewery, ever to be granted
landmark status.
Unfortunately, most of them
were razed, torn down.
You could drag yourself through
Brooklyn and possibly see some
remnants of the old breweries,
but Ulmer, who hasn't operated
since 1919 because his company
went out of business right
at Prohibition, his buildings
still stand.
Their romanesque-style offices
are actually in landmark status,
which is very nice.
♪♪
>> There's one street in
Bushwick that had 11 breweries
in 12 square blocks.
It was called Brewers Row.
>> Brewers Row was
a two-by-seven block area,
which covered Scholes and
Meserole streets and extends
from Bushwick Place
to Lorimer Street.
One of those breweries
was the Otto Huber Brewery.
>> And this happened to be
one of the largest breweries.
in what was called
"Brewers Row."
>> The building can still be
found at 260 Meserole Street,
and at the peak of its
production, the brewery produced
100,000 barrels a year.
>> When this brewery opened
in 1877, we know that on opening
day, there were 1,500 people
that came to the party,
800 dinners were served.
They went through 200 kegs
of beer.
So this was one of many
breweries in the area that would
have been making fresh beer
that local people could come to.
>> The Otto Huber Brewery
was later bought by
Edward B. Hittleman,
and the facade still bears
his name today.
The Hittleman Brewery was
best-known for producing
Goldenrod Ale.
The building, however, plays
another role in Brooklyn
history.
On the morning of
January 14, 1880, a fire broke
out at the brewery.
Engine 16 responded to
the blaze, which was brought
under control within a half
an hour, but then, without
warning, a wall collapsed down
on six firefighters.
All six were rescued,
but only five survived.
Captain William Baldwin
would die six days later
at St. Catherine's Hospital,
becoming the first firefighter
in the history of Brooklyn
to die in the line of duty.
♪♪
Now, more than 130 years later,
a statue of Captain Baldwin
stands lookout in
Evergreens Cemetery in Bushwick,
just blocks from where he
battled his final blaze.
♪♪
Despite the tragic setback,
Brooklyn was good for beer
and beer was good for Brooklyn.
It had become a major source
of revenue for the borough,
and, more importantly,
a major source of jobs.
>> The economic impact of
the beer-brewing industry
has been immense.
>> I think it was a major
employer during its entire
history.
During the 1800s,
the development of this
neighborhood was really driven
by the German immigrants
who move here.
One of the biggest industries
they develop is the beer-brewing
industry, and hundreds and
thousands of Brooklynites
were employed in this industry.
It became a vital piece
of the neighborhood.
The brewers themselves,
the people that own
the breweries were some
of the wealthiest people
in the community, and they
spent their money in support
of building the community.
>> Brewing offered a lot
of people in Brooklyn
employment, steady employment,
livable wages for a while --
back before everything was
exported to other places
or cheaper states or
right-to-work states
or other kind of things.
Before the competition
of the South and exurban places,
Brooklyn had a lot of advantages
there.
But it would have been extremely
important to Brooklyn's economy.
>> And it wasn't just Bushwick
and Williamsburg where the beer
was being brewed.
>> Right here in Bay Ridge,
there was
the Golden Horn Brewery,
and the Golden Horn Brewery
was an anomaly for the day.
Everyone was sort of in
the Bushwick area, a little bit
into Williamsburg,
East New York where Piels
was located.
However, Bay Ridge had
a penchant for beer.
There was a large German
population, also a large
Norweigian population
who liked beer, and
the Golden Horn Brewery,
this was very pre-Prohibition.
It was the early turn of
the 20th Century, and it was
right down Third Avenue
on 96th Street.
They actually don't know
which side of the block
it was actually on, but you'd
go to your neighborhood
Golden Horn Brewery,
and you'd get your beer.
>> But there was something more
than just beer that was brewing
in Brooklyn.
So, too, was anti-German
sentiment.
>> World War I happened,
[Chuckles] and that changed
it all.
>> The outbreak of World War I
in 1914 would put
German-Americans in Brooklyn
in a most untrue and unfavorable
light.
>> Because they have German
roots, they support the Kaiser,
and they're unpatriotic
and unloyal citizens.
One famous prohibitionist,
his name is Wayne Wheeler,
actually called them
"alien enemies."
All of them, not just
the Brooklyn brewers,
but all brewers in
the United States were from
then on called "alien enemies"
who would supposedly support
the Kaiser back in Germany.
>> It was not a fun time to be
a German-American, and there
were sensationalized cartoons
depicting Germans in these big
Kaiser-like menacing cartoons,
and it was not fun to be German.
>> Brewers actually changed
the names of their brands
to no longer be associated
with the German element.
>> The Schmidts became Smith.
The Muellers became Miller.
The Germania Life Insurance
Company became
the Guardian Life Insurance
Company, which is actually
still in operation today.
>> The German brewers even
had to change the way they were
brewing their beer because they
were being accused of wasting
grain for brewing.
>> Every bushel of grain
that is used for beer
is used for kaiserism.
That's the equation,
and when Congress passes
the Food and Fuel Act,
brewers are no longer allowed
to produce any beer that
contains more than 2.75%
of alcohol, which diminishes
the body of the beer and,
of course, the flavor.
>> As World War I ended,
anti-German sentiment faded,
and life for the brewers
in Brooklyn began to return
to normal.
♪♪
>> They were good neighborhoods
then, by and large, and good
employees and good beer,
and life was good.
You had a baseball team,
you had a newspaper, and you had
the Brooklyn Eagles, and you had
30 or 40 breweries at any given
time.
Who could ask for much more?
♪♪
>> The first half of
the 20th Century, Brooklyn
is a thriving city, a growing
city at a point during that
period becomes, if it were its
own city, the fourth largest
city in America.
Manufacturing explodes
all over the city.
The Brooklyn Navy Yards
along the river become one
of the most advanced shipyards
of the U.S. Navy.
Companies like Pfizer and,
you know, what we now know
as Exxon, but it was
Standard Oil at the time --
all these companies are booming,
and the beer business
is booming, too.
It's booming right up until
Prohibition, and then we kick it
in the teeth.
♪♪
>> Prohibition would shut down
the breweries, taking jobs away
from a lot of people and
legal beer away from everybody.
It hit the brewery workers
and the tavern owners
like a sucker punch
in a Bensonhurst barroom.
♪♪
In Brooklyn, the first whispers
of banning alcohol started
nearly a century before
Prohibition was actually passed.
Temperance societies had been
formed.
They passed out leaflets
and made their case to anyone
they could, all for
the so-called moral benefit
of life without drink.
It took a while, but,
eventually, they got their way.
Prohibition began on
January 17, 1920 when
the Eighteenth Amendment
went into effect.
A total of 1,520 federal
Prohibition Agents were given
the task of enforcing the law.
♪♪
>> Here you had brewers that
maybe had five generations
of brewing skill in their family
before they came to America,
and you look at the breweries
of Europe, and they look like
these temples to Gambrinus.
You know, they have the name
of the family carved in stone,
and I'm sure when those families
came here in the 1880s and
1800s, they didn't foresee
having the product that they
so proudly sold be made illegal
in 1920.
♪♪
>> Breweries, bottlers, and
saloons throughout Brooklyn
were forced to shut down or find
another line of business.
At Liebmann's Brewery,
the makers of Rheingold knew
that they had to do something
fast now that Prohibition
had given them lemons.
>> They made lemonade,
they made soft drinks.
They tried to distribute
other kinds of products.
They could take advantage
of whatever activities
would fit in, but it was mostly
beverages.
>> The breweries that were still
around had to scramble, figure
out what else they can make.
Some of them make near-beer,
which is kind of like
the nonalcoholic beers
we have today like O'Doul's.
Some of them get into other
businesses, like cereals,
ice cream, extracts --
all sorts of things just trying
to figure out how to stay
in business.
>> But the real money was in
still making beer, so they did
that whenever possible.
>> And that really was the main
source of business that kept
them alive during the 14 years
of Prohibition.
>> The law, Prohibition law,
did allow what was called
near-beer, which is not beer,
but it sort of tasted like beer.
>> But the interesting thing
about near-beer is that it's
made from something else --
real beer.
>> So, at any given time,
agents could walk into
a brewery, and that brewery
could legally be in possession
of "high-powered beer"
because it hadn't made it
to the de-alcoholizing machines
yet, and so this provided a lot
of leeway for some of that
high-powered beer to make it
into barrels and make it
into trucks and be delivered
to saloons, and that's really --
So there was still a lot of beer
production.
>> Now, Prohibition didn't stop
people from drinking.
In fact, speakeasies were
opening up from one end
of Brooklyn to the other.
[ "The Charleston" plays ]
Prior to Prohibition,
drinking was, for the most part,
a man's sport.
But with alcohol illegal,
women who had never before
darkened a doorway of a legal
saloon were now tipping their
martini glasses and dancing
the Charleston in gin joints
from Canarsie to Coney Island.
Instead of destroying
the institution of alcohol,
Prohibition had given it a chic
it had never before seen,
and now it was tax-free.
>> Speakeasies are very popular.
They're all over.
Speakeasies really went from
the beginning to the end
of Brooklyn, and they were just
social places.
Some were more out in the open
than others.
You think of the traditional
speakeasy in the movies
where someone has a slide
on the door, and you give
a secret knock or a password,
and someone opens the door
and lets you in --
those did exist.
They may exist today, actually,
if you really look into it,
but a lot of the speakeasies
are actually right out in
the open, and they would just
know who to avoid or maybe
who to pay, and that's where
you get your beer or your
alcohol, which was primarily
coming in, at that point,
from Canada if you wanted to go
for the hard alcohol, and beer,
too, was being brought in
from Canada, as well.
It was a little easier to cross
the border those days.
>> At the Trommer Brewery,
management could see that
Prohibition's days were
numbered, and they had a plan.
>> So they started making loans
to bars, hot-dog companies --
mostly hot-dog companies --
hot dogs were a big thing
back then -- with the hopes
that eventually they would
be able to ship their beer back
to those stores.
>> It took 13 years before
Prohibition would be repealed.
>> So there's this 13-year
period of Prohibition, kind of
a temporary national insanity.
We get over that.
Beer comes back, and
the beer brewing resumes again
in Brooklyn, and it's still
booming.
>> After Prohibition was over,
brewing recovered in Brooklyn.
In fact, by most estimates --
and these are all crude --
you could argue that Brooklyn
was about the brewing capital
of the United States.
♪♪
>> Now, despite the turbulence
of everything else going on,
like a Depression followed
by a World War, things are
going along reasonably okay
for the beer-brewing industry
that had remained in Brooklyn.
♪♪
That is, until 1949.
>> In 1949, there was a strike
in the beer-brewing industry
that went on for 81 days.
>> Unions probably had something
to do with it.
There were big strikes
at various times against
the breweries.
They wanted two-man trucks,
for example.
Well, the breweries said
that was inefficient,
so there were major strikes.
>> Yeah, they went on strike
for, like, three months
into the hot heat of summer,
and, in the meantime, brews
from out of state were coming in
by the caseload.
Blatz came in with big, big
sales and marketing.
>> ♪ I'm from Milwaukee
♪ And I ought to know
>> ♪ Why Blatz Beer tastes great
wherever you go ♪
♪ All Blatz is draft-brewed
♪ That's why you hear...
>> Blatz is Milwaukee's
finest beer.
>> Draft-brewed Blatz --
Milwaukee's favorite premium
beer -- now at local prices.
>> New Yorkers did not stop
drinking beer for 81 days,
so somebody had to supply
the beer, and this is one
of the points where Budweiser
and Miller and Pabst and these
other outside breweries
really make significant inroads
into the market.
People become Budweiser
drinkers, people become Pabst
drinkers, and they don't go back
to Rheingold and Schaefer.
>> Seven thousand people
were out of work as a result.
The strike propelled Wisconsin
to overtake New York
as the leading beer producer
in America.
>> Having a strike in the '40s
was bad, and it was also bad
'cause that's about the time
when you see the emergence
of canned beer, and canned beer,
'cause it's so light and so easy
to ship, really made it so that
companies like Budweiser and
Miller could sell cheap beer
here in New York City.
>> After the strike,
the breweries of Brooklyn
looked to regain the market
they had lost, but the damage
had been done.
Across the Hudson River
in Newark, New Jersey,
Anheuser-Busch was getting ready
to open a mammoth brewery.
The company boasted it would
have an output of 10 million
barrels a year upon opening
in 1951.
In Brooklyn, the breweries
were doing anything they could
to get their customers back
and keep them before being
pushed into oblivion
by the behemoth national
breweries.
>> I think the beer you're
brewing now since we're back
is absolutely delicious.
The shipment that went out
this morning is the best beer
that ever left the brewery.
If only they'll try it again.
It's so good now.
We've got to make them try it
again.
>> Advertising had become
a big part of the strategy.
>> Piels, they actually sort
of shunned sports for a while,
and they really were not
a major sports sponsor like
Schaefer was, and, in turn,
they came out with
the characters Bert and Harry,
who are two cartoon characters,
brothers who are allegedly
the Piels brothers.
Actually, the Piels brothers
had different names.
They weren't Bert and Harry,
but they would always be getting
themselves into some sort
of trouble, and people loved
them when you mentioned them.
They would put their faces
on signs and coasters and what.
So when you think of Piels,
people think of Bert and Harry.
>> My brother and I are brewing
you a Piels beer that is,
without question, the most
flavorful brew that ever tingled
your taste buds.
>> Trommer itself was also known
as the first advertising giants,
and they really focused on
print ads, signs, billboards,
pretty ladies to sell their
beer.
So they were really ahead
of the game on advertising.
♪♪
>> Schaefer had also turned
to TV advertising and had come
up with a series of catchy
jingles and slickly produced
television ads.
>> There are times when only
an ice-cold beer will do.
♪♪
And there are times,
like this one, when it's got
to be Schaefer.
♪♪
>> Schaefer had a very
interesting jingle.
Actually, their slogan/motto
was "the one beer to have
when you're having more
than one," and I don't know
if that would fly in today's
world when you're encouraging
people to have more than one
beer and drink Schaefer and add
a catchy little jingle that went
along with that sung by many
people, one of which was
Queens' own Louis Armstrong.
>> ♪ Ye-e-ah
♪ Schaefer is the...
one beer to have ♪
♪ When you're having
more than one ♪
♪♪
>> Schaefer also turned
to baseball, sponsoring
the Dodgers.
>> Schaefer was a tremendous
supporter of the sports,
and taking from someone like
Trommer, who really began
the sort of guerrilla
advertising to sell their beer,
Schaefer took it to the next
level by supporting sports
teams, and they actually
called it the Schaefer Circle
of Sports, and it was their goal
to be the sponsor for every one
of the sports teams, and they
really were ahead of the curve
on that and were a major sponsor
of the Dodgers -- you know,
at different times, pretty much
all the sports teams throughout
the New York area --
the Dodgers, especially,
because they installed a very
large sign in the outfield
at Ebbets Field, saying
"Schaefer," and very interesting
is that in the "Schaefer,"
the "H" in Schaefer and the "E"
in Schaefer would light up
if there was a hit or an error,
and that was really way ahead
of the time, and Schaefer really
took it up there, and becoming
a major sports sponsor,
really, they're a large factor
of how we have -- and now beer
is closely associated
with all sorts of sports,
and Schaefer could take a lot
of credit for that.
>> But without a doubt,
the most famous marketing
campaign ever to be employed
by a Brooklyn brewery and
arguably the most famous
and enduring beer campaign
there ever was came in the form
of a beauty contest concocted
in part by Rheingold's head
of advertising, Philip Liebmann.
>> Philip Liebmann, who is
a cousin of mine -- and older --
was a character of enormous
proportions.
He was one of those very rare
people who is sort of a legend
in his own time.
>> But this legend was about
to come up with, or perhaps,
more accurately, stumble upon
what would become a legendary
marketing campaign --
the Miss Rheingold Contest.
>> Linda Bromley.
>> Miss Rheingold was a big
deal.
That was like Miss Subways
or something like this.
Rheingold was the New York beer.
>> I can remember as a kid
you would actually get into
arguments over which was
the prettier, prettiest
Miss Rheingold.
♪♪
>> The Miss Rheingold Contest,
or election, could take a girl
from the sticks and make her
a superstar.
>> Miss Rheingold began in 1940
with the first Miss Rheingold,
Jinx Falkenburg.
For a quarter century
thereafter, the public voted
annually for Miss Rheingold
and vote they did --
by the millions.
>> The Miss Rheingold Contest
was incredibly popular
for the entire 25 years.
In fact, I got between
20 million and 22 million votes.
♪♪
>> More people in Brooklyn voted
for Miss Rheingold than voted
in the presidential election.
[ Laughs ]
So people were jazzed --
I mean, everyone, you know,
whether you were beer-drinking
age or not.
Of course, Miss Rheingold
was a sex symbol of the day.
This sex symbol never showed
her elbows, so a little bit
different than a sex symbol,
but sex symbol nonetheless,
and Rheingold was progressive
in a way in that they had
women of color.
Of course, women of color
were Italian.
♪♪
>> And guess what we've got
today that matches right up
to the Miss Rheingold election?
We've got "American Idol."
>> Well, Marge, there they are.
>> And while Miss Rheingold
was signing autographs,
Rheingold Beer was dominating
the New York market, thanks,
in part, to Madison Avenue.
>> We had this huge advertising
budget, and, of course, there
was the Miss Rheingold promotion
and the fact that we outspent
every other brewer in New York
to do this is what made us
the number-one beer in New York.
We had a 35% share of
the New York market.
That's unbelievable, I mean,
for any one product in
a multiproduct environment
to have 35% share of the market.
We did.
>> During her yearlong reign,
Miss Rheingold's picture
was on the Rheingold can
and in all their advertisements,
and her public-appearance
schedule was brimming over.
In 1964, Miss Rheingold
had a pavilion at
the New York World's Fair.
Just next door at Shea Stadium,
Rheingold was a sponsor
for an upstart baseball team
called the New York Mets.
>> And I can remember
July 26, 1964, which just
happens to be my birthday,
coming to the Mets game
as the guest of Casey Stengel
and being invited out onto
the playing field to throw out
the opening pitch, and after
I came back to my seat
in the stadium where my mom
and my chaperone were with me --
This was, I think, the first
year that they made those
beautiful, big tote boards,
and on the tote board they put
up the words to "Happy Birthday"
and "Happy Birthday,
Celeste Yarnall,
Miss Rheingold 1964,"
and the entire Shea Stadium
sang "Happy Birthday" to me.
>> For those who took the crown
of Miss Rheingold, it became
a springboard to instant fame.
>> The Miss Rheingold Contest
put me into a very different
bailiwick, if you will.
It made me a star in my own
right.
I would go places and actually
have hordes of people and
paparazzi, which didn't even
exist, tearing at my clothes,
my hair -- you know, flashbulbs
popping as I'd go into
a restaurant.
Everywhere I went, I was
followed, but I loved it.
>> But as they say, all good
things must come to an end,
and 1964 was the last year
the adoring public elected
a Miss Rheingold.
>> Unfortunately, Miss Rheingold
ran its course, and there's
a few different reasons for
that -- one being that Rheingold
was a traditional company,
and they did not want
Miss Rheingold to be in bikinis
or looking in any sort of
a, I would say, sexy way.
At the same time, you know,
after all these campaigns,
after a while, people just get
tired of them, but an
interesting thing, as well, is
that there really was never
a Miss Rheingold of color.
So, at the time,
Rheingold did not want to
upset the minority communities
by not naming a minority
Miss Rheingold, and, also,
they didn't want to upset
the non-minority community
by naming a minority
Miss Rheingold, so it,
unfortunately, ran its course,
and by the end of 1965,
it disappeared.
>> It's a shame.
It was so much a part of
the every year of New York,
and -- my eyes kind of water up
as I think back to what fun
it was to have arguments
with your friends over
Miss Rheingold --
kind of a neat idea.
>> The Miss Rheingold Contest
was a phenomena that was utterly
amazing, and I just think that
it should never be forgotten.
>> Now, by around this point,
Brooklyn is starting to change.
People are moving out, going to
places like Connecticut,
Long Island, and New Jersey.
On November 21, 1964 in
the Bay Ridge neighborhood
of Brooklyn, Mayor Robert Wagner
would cut the ribbon on
the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge,
linking Brooklyn with
Staten Island.
Almost immediately the bridge
would offer an escape route
for tens of thousands of
Italian-Americans living
in Brooklyn to move to
Staten Island, earning the span
the dubious nickname
the "Guinea Gangplank."
>> So as people left, the city
lost tax revenue.
As it lost tax revenue,
it had less money for police
and sanitation.
As it has less money for police
and sanitation, the city got
dirtier and more crime-ridden
and more people left.
Meantime, it's hard for
the brewers because taxes
are high in New York.
It's difficult to expand.
The crime is such where
you can't leave a keg
on the sidewalk, and so it
became very difficult,
so the brewers started
to build -- not close in
New York right away, but started
to build higher-tech plants
out of the city.
>> Crime was at an all-time
high.
Actually, every bad thing
was at an all-time high --
inflation, taxes, unemployment,
utility costs.
Brooklyn was falling apart.
New York City was falling apart.
♪♪
>> In 1973, Abe Beame had been
elected Mayor of New York City.
The diminutive 5'2" Mayor
was up against the worst
financial crisis in the city's
history.
In the old German neighborhoods
of Bushwick and Williamsburg,
buildings were abandoned
and boarded up.
Crime and burning vehicles
were a fact of everyday life.
It looked like Brooklyn's
best days were long gone.
>> And then the industry
in the mid 1970s just dies here,
and people -- again, thousands
of people lose their jobs,
and that's a time when Brooklyn
is going through a difficult
economic period, and I just
think about how hard it would
have been in that time to have
lost this entire industry
when it had been so thriving
just 10, 15 years before.
>> In 1976, within two weeks
of each other in January,
first Rheingold, then Schaefer
close their doors forever,
ending the storied Brooklyn
brewing history.
>> Just decimated, so decimated
the beer industry.
1977 -- zero breweries.
Zero.
♪♪
>> 1977 was not a good year
for Brooklyn.
Bushwick was burning.
People were fleeing the borough,
and then in the early morning
hours of July 31st, it was about
to get worse.
♪♪
David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam
killer would strike for
the final time, shooting
and killing Stacy Moskowitz
as she and her date sat
in a parked car in
the Gravesend Beach section
of Brooklyn.
Compounding the misery,
a blackout that summer
left the city in darkness.
Almost the minute the lights
went out, the looting started
in Bushwick.
The blackout of 1977 was,
perhaps, the perfect metaphor
for Brooklyn.
>> It was the Dark Ages.
I mean, come on.
There's no beer, no baseball.
You know, it was a tough time
in Brooklyn -- a lot of high
unemployment, high crime,
a lot of tension in
the community.
It certainly --
You know, that's the time
when President Ford was
"Drop Dead" to the city
of New York.
So it looked bad.
>> Meanwhile, the Anheuser-Busch
Brewery in Newark was churning
out beer faster than its trucks
could deliver it.
Miller Brewing had been chipping
away at the market, and
the Coors Brewing Company
had come up with a beer in 1978
called Coors Light that
threatened to dominate
the New York market for years
to come.
And while beer was getting
lighter, Brooklyn's outlook
was getting darker.
No one in their right mind
would consider starting another
brewery in Brooklyn.
>> The big guys are getting
bigger.
The distributors are swallowing
each other up.
How are we gonna compete?
>> The year was 1987,
and conventional wisdom held
that a startup brewery in
Brooklyn would not stand
a chance.
Steve Hindy and Tom Potter,
however, were not conventional
people.
>> And I said, "Well, you know,
we're not gonna compete
with the big American breweries.
We're gonna compete with
the imports.
We're gonna make high-quality
beers of different styles,
the kind of beers that are not
being made here in the U.S."
♪♪
>> Not only did Hindy start
a new brewery in Brooklyn,
he also chose to name it
the Brooklyn Brewery.
The name "Brooklyn" had been
tarnished from decades of
decline, and still carried
with it all of the negative
stereotypes and the image
of crime and poverty.
>> A lot of people questioned
calling it "Brooklyn."
Brooklyn doesn't have
the greatest reputation,
but, to me, Brooklyn's
an amazing place.
It's got an incredible history.
It's mentioned in literature,
in movies, and they say that
one out of seven people in
the U.S. can trace their roots
back to Brooklyn.
So it seemed, to me, to be
a great name, and it's
worked out really well for us.
♪♪
>> Beer brewing was returning
to Brooklyn, but it was far
from an overnight success.
>> We had a lot of adventures
early on.
Our first warehouse was in
an old brewery over in Bushwick,
and truck drivers refused
to come into that area
after dark because of the crime.
>> To help market his fledgling
Brooklyn beer, Hindy hired
graphic designer Milton Glaser
to come up with his logo.
The logo, however, evoked
the memory of an institution
that had abandoned Brooklyn
nearly 30 years earlier --
the Dodgers.
How would this play?
>> When he unveiled the logo,
to be honest, I was completely
underwhelmed -- you know,
this simple little "B,"
it just seemed like,
"That's it?"
And, you know, the genius
of that label began to dawn
on me.
It does evoke the Dodgers,
but it's not just about
the Dodgers.
It's a fresh image of Brooklyn,
and, also, it's kind of
a timeless image of Brooklyn.
It's worked out incredibly well
for us.
♪♪
>> Suddenly, the winds of change
were beginning to blow once
again in Brooklyn, but this
time, it was different.
Something was beginning to take
place.
Artists and musicians were being
priced out of Manhattan
by Wall Street executives.
The once-shabby Brooklyn
was beginning to look like
a chic alternative.
♪♪
>> We're not making any
cause-and-effect claim here,
but it just seems like a strange
coincidence that when beer left
Brooklyn was when Brooklyn
fell to its lowest point,
and then as Brooklyn has
re-emerged and becomethe place
to be in New York City,
all of a sudden, it's breweries
that are back on the scene.
>> People start to move over
to Brooklyn where the beer
used to be brewed, and they
start bringing their taste
for craft beer, because going on
at the same time with people
rediscovering the city,
they're starting to get tired
of Budweiser and Molson Ice.
>> You know, suddenly,
the pendulum has swung again,
and Williamsburg has found
a different kind of life.
♪♪
>> And that's not all.
This new wave of people
moving into Brooklyn begin
to embrace something else --
home brewing --
a beer you not only make
yourself, but when done right,
tastes pretty good, too.
>> This is my malt here --
four different varieties
of malt.
This is what I make the beer
out of, and I have some
specialty malts, as well,
that I'll order when I'm doing
a recipe, but these are mostly
base malts.
Most of the beer comes from
these guys.
This here is a kegerator --
a couple of soda kegs in here.
They're five-gallon kegs.
That's what most home brewers
use when they start kegging
their beer.
It's perfect.
You do a five-gallon batch,
you have a five-gallon keg.
Everything fits perfectly.
>> Pete Lengyel is a member
of the Brooklyn Brewsers,
a group of some 80 home brewers
from Brooklyn.
>> Brooklyn home brewing
has exploded.
It's absolutely huge right now.
When I started, there was not
any shops in Brooklyn.
>> Now, you might think these
home brewers would be happy
to buy their malt, hops,
and everything else online,
but if that's what you think,
you just don't know home brewers
and you just don't know
Brooklyn.
>> At the time, there were no
home-brew shops in New York,
any of the five boroughs.
So we had a built-in market
ready to go, and people just
kind of hooked onto it, and
we've been growing ever since.
>> Benjamin Stutz, whose
Brooklyn Homebrew in Park Slope
opened in 2009, has become
a mecca for home brewers.
>> A big part of the job
is just walking people
through the process --
you know, introducing them
to the equipment, how it's used,
teaching them about ingredients,
and people like coming into
a shop because they can get
a face-to-face answer.
It really makes a difference.
♪♪
>> There is this feeling
that we're kind of recapturing
something.
Brooklyn is like that
in general.
All the neighborhoods are kind
of growing out, and people
are moving back and
revitalizing, and brewing's
part of it, too.
>> And if you think
the breweries in Brooklyn
are looking down at
the home brewers, think again.
>> They're totally on board.
They help us out.
I organize speakers for my club,
for my home-brew club,
and I've had all the local
breweries come in.
>> Among those breweries
that are hosting and encouraging
the home brewers is
the Coney Island Brewery,
which began operations in 2011.
Now, if you're wondering
why you haven't seen an ad
for the Coney Island Brewery
on the Super Bowl, or at least
a billboard on the BQE,
there's a pretty good reason.
>> We are the smallest
commercial brewery in the world,
Guinness Book World Records,
and it's just a fun, fun time.
It's kind of our test kitchen
in a way, where we get to
experiment with all kinds
of beers.
>> And if a beer is going to
have the brand name
"Coney Island," it should come
as no surprise that the style
of beers being brewed can be
as fun-filled as a ride on
the fabled Cyclone
roller coaster.
[ Riders screaming ]
>> We've done a Caramel Apple
IPA, which everyone loved.
That was real interesting,
but, yeah, we try to keep it
weird, [Chuckling] I guess.
♪♪
>> There's no getting around it.
The eclectic diversity of
the borough combined with
the centuries-old tradition
of making your own beer --
you can only call it a match
made in Brooklyn.
>> The kind of people that are
drawn to Brooklyn in general,
very kind of maybe artsy
and artisanal-type people.
People are into all kinds
of weird hobbies, like gardens
on the rooftops, chickens,
making all kinds of things
these days, making their own,
I don't know, clothes and foods
and beer.
It kind of just falls in line,
and just -- it's perfect
for Brooklyn type of people,
I'd say.
♪♪
>> That's not the only thing
perfect for Brooklyn-type
people.
So are growlers, which is how
beer used to be bought fresh
from the breweries when patrons
rushed the growler from
the brewery back to their home.
>> And it kind of died out
for a while, and now it's coming
back, where you can refill
a glass jug.
They're various sizes now,
but standard is 64 ounces.
You can fill them up with
draft beer and then reuse them.
There's nothing to throw away.
The kegs are returned to
the brewery, the glasses get
reused, so it's a nice
environmental thing, as well
as a good way to get fresh beer.
>> You can, once again, rush
the growler at Beer Street
in Brooklyn.
Beer Street in the Williamsburg
neighborhood is turning a whole
new generation on to fresh
tap beer to go, as well as an
eclectic variety of brews
that you can't find anywhere
else in the five boroughs.
♪♪
And you remember that old
Otto Huber Brewery in Bushwick?
Well, that, too, is getting
a new lease on life.
♪♪
>> This particular space we're
in, we'll just be serving beer,
but the other side, the second
part of our project, which is
called "The Well," we will
actually be brewing beer
and have a full beer garden
in the back, as well.
>> That's Josh Richholt,
President of The Wick --
Wick, as in Bushwick.
He's got a 20-year lease
on the building, and he plans
to not only put a nightclub
there, but a brewery, as well.
>> I think it's just going back
to the heritage of the site.
You know, I mean, it would be
a shame to have a place that
looks like this, that was built
for what it's built for
and not have a brewery
be part of the project.
So we've been able to partner up
with a really well-done,
successful brewery, and we'll be
brewing beer shortly.
♪♪
>> From Bay Ridge to
Brownsville, from Cobble Hill
to Carroll Gardens, and
everywhere else you look
in the borough, Brooklyn is
back.
And what's the future for
Brooklyn?
And for that matter, what's
the future of beer brewing
in Brooklyn?
>> It's wonderful that now
craft beer is becoming so
popular with the new hip class
that's coming, that's in
Brooklyn, and continues to come
into Brooklyn because it's
bringing brewing back
to New York in this way
that's completely consistent
with what beer has become.
>> I think we're gonna see
more and more varieties being
made by more and more breweries,
and so I think we have a lot
to look forward to.
>> The future of beer is bright
across America, and particularly
in Brooklyn.
We have unprecedented choice.
There are more breweries
producing beer today
than there were in 1900,
and they're ever-expanding.
>> I think in the next
five years in Brooklyn,
you're gonna see a lot more
breweries opening up.
It's not easy 'cause the rent's
so high and the space
limitation, but you're gonna see
breweries and you're gonna see
brew pubs.
>> Everywhere in the country
where a brewer has gotten
a foothold and has built
a company, others have followed.
It's just kind of interesting
that it happens here in
Brooklyn, which has this
amazing history of brewing.
>> The stars are in alignment
for Brooklyn to do better --
and it already is --
in the next quarter century.
♪♪
>> A new day has dawned
in Brooklyn, and with each
new day on tap comes more
promise that things around here
are going to be okay.
[ Riders screaming ]
And it just might be
that it's a result of beer --
Brooklyn beer --
whether it be from any one
of the craft breweries here
or the home brewers who have
brought their love of beer
to the borough or to
the specialty shops
like Beer Street.
These modern-day Brooklyn
brewers have brought a passion
for beer and a respect for its
history in Brooklyn combined
with an unbridled enthusiasm
that would have brought a smile
to the faces of the old German
brewers who walked these very
same streets more than 100 years
earlier.
>> As of today in Brooklyn,
there are actually 13 operating
breweries.
Some of them are small,
operating out of a commercial
kitchen, but other ones are
actually in full production
mode.
So it's really gone from ups
and downs.
So we went from this almost
10-year period of being nothing,
of the companies just trying
to really bring an inferior
product with some nostalgic
names in there, to, actually,
Brooklyn turning around and
to going back into mostly
craft beer, but really
becoming a brewery force.
The future of Brooklyn
is bright.
Brooklyn's always bright.
If you're from Brooklyn,
it's the greatest place to live
in the world.
>> As I stand here today
in the heart of Brewers Row
in Brooklyn, I can't help
but wonder, what would
Otto Huber think about all this?
What would the Schaefer
or Liebmann family say?
What would the Piel brothers do?
My suspicion is that they
would do the same thing
that we're all doing,
and that's raising a glass
to our modern-day brewers
of Brooklyn.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
[ Music stops ]
Can you sing the Rheingold
jingle?
>> Sure.
Am I going to?
[ Chuckling ] No.
>> Oh!
>> I can't sing.
>> I'll sing it with you.
>> ♪ My beer is Rheingold,
the dry beer ♪
♪ Think of Rheingold
whenever you dry beer --
buy beer ♪
♪ It's not bitter, not sweet
♪ It's the extra-dry treat
♪ Won't you try Extra Dry
Rheingold Beer? ♪
♪ Boom, boom, boom
♪♪
>> ♪ My beer is Rheingold,
the dry beer ♪
♪ East Side, West Side
♪ End of town and down
♪ Rheingold Extra Dry Beer
is the beer of great renown ♪
♪ Friendly, freshening
Rheingold ♪
♪ Always happily dry
♪ The clean, clear taste
you want in beer ♪
♪ Is in Rheingold Extra Dry
>> ♪ From Lexington to Madison
and on both sides of Park ♪
>> ♪ They ask for
Rheingold Extra Dry ♪
>> ♪ Before and after dark