Fifth Ward Breweries

For most Oshkoshers, the name Fifth Ward Brewery means one thing. This place:

Fifth Ward Brewing Company, 1009 S. Main St., Oshkosh.

But this isn’t the only Oshkosh brewery to have carried the Fifth Ward name. That name goes way back. A couple of maps will lead us where it all started.

Oshkosh map collector Matt Hostak recently shared with me his comprehensive archive of 19th century Oshkosh maps. Among the first items I went looking for was an illustration depicting the footprint of the original Fifth Ward Brewery. It didn't take long to find. Here's a map from 1858 showing the earliest representation on record of the Fifth Ward Brewery.

The Fifth Ward Brewery on Lot 18 of block 109; north side of Algoma Blvd., just south of Vine Ave.
From Harrison's Map of 1858.

Lot 18 was purchased by Tobias Fischer and Christian Kaehler in 1857. By early 1858 their brewery was up and running. That same year, Fischer moved to St. Louis leaving the Fifth Ward Brewery to Kaehler.

From the 1872 Oshkosh City Directory.

Here's another map from Hostak's collection. This pinpoints the exact location of Kaehler's expanded brewery. This is from 1872 when the brewery was at its peak.

From the Stranahan Bros. 1872 Map of Oshkosh.

The original Fifth Ward Brewery closed in 1880. Then, some 130 years later, this happened...

Ian Wenger (at the kettle) and Zach Clark (right) making homebrew in 2013.

That basement where Zach Clark and Ian Wenger taught themselves to make beer is at 842 Prospect Avenue. The two of them were drawing up plans to start a brewery before they had even finished their first batch. They decided to call it Fifth Ward Brewing Company; an homage to the old brewery that once stood in their neighborhood.

The image below has a piece from the 1872 map superimposed over a recent satellite view of that area. The red arrow on the right side of the image points to the home where Ian and Zach began homebrewing in 2012.

In 2017 – almost 160 years after Kaehler and Fischer had launched the original Fifth Ward Brewery – Clark and Wenger began making beer at their new Fifth Ward Brewing Company on South Main Street.

September 2017. Zach Clark (left) and Ian Wenger in their new brewery.

During its peak years, in the early 1870s, the original Fifth Ward Brewery produced approximately 500 barrels of beer a year. Today's Fifth Ward Brewing Company is on track this year to surpass that mark for the first time. We have a long and vital tradition of beer making in Oshkosh. It's a living thing!