Stevens Point Brewing Company

My friend John Harry has a new book out entitled Stevens Point Brewing Company. It’s about the history of just that.

Inside, I came across this...

That’s Christina Wahle in a photo probably taken in the mid-1880s. She moved to Oshkosh with her husband Franz Wahle in 1867. They bought land at the south end of Doty Street and launched what would later become the Glatz Brewery. Their son Frank was an early partner in the bar now known as Oblio's.

The Wahle's came to Oshkosh from Stevens Point where in 1857 where they had helped establish what is now Stevens Point Brewing. That connection between brewing in Oshkosh and Stevens Point runs fairly deep (see HERE and HERE, for example).

As I’ve been reading Harry’s book I haven’t been able to keep from thinking, what would Peoples Brewing or the Oshkosh Brewing Company be like today if they had managed to survive like Stevens Point Brewing has? It’s made for an interesting, unintended, subtext. This is a book well worth checking out.

Lorenz Kuenzl in Stevens Point

Back when I was working on the Breweries of Oshkosh, I kept digging around trying to figure out what Lorenz Kuenzl was up to before he came to Oshkosh to take over the brewery on Harney Ave. I knew he had been in Stevens Point. I figured he probably worked as a brewer there. But I could never find confirmation of it. Until now...

August Lutz spent several days in Oshkosh last week visiting his old friend Lawrence Kenstzl, who for two years was employed in Andrew Lutz's brewery in this city as head brewer. Mr. Kenstzl now has a brewery of his own in Oshkosh and is doing well.
– Stevens Point Journal; July 26, 1884

The butchered spelling of Kuenzl's name is creative. No wonder I couldn’t find this. Here’s a picture of the Lutz Brewery as it looked when Lorenz Kuenzl was its brewmaster. By the way, the old Lutz Brewery is now the Stevens Point Brewery.

After finding the 1884 article, I did a little more digging. Turns out Kuenzl’s wife, Barbara, was related to the Lutz family. Here’s a picture of Lorenz and Barbara Kuenzl with their children. This would have been taken in Oshkosh in the early 1880s.

The Lorenz Kuenzl link to Stevens Point adds a second, direct connection between the Stevens Point Brewery and brewing in Oshkosh. The other, as I wrote here in June, is that the Point Brewery was launched by Franz Wahle, who later moved to Oshkosh and established what became the Glatz Brewery.

Here’s something else. In 2011, I was on a mission. I asked the same question to dozens of Oshkosh natives old enough to have drunk Chief Oshkosh or Peoples Beer. I’d ask if there was a current beer that reminded them of either of those Oshkosh beers. I got all kinds of answers. Only one response occurred with consistency. Point Special Lager reminded people of Chief Oshkosh.

Let’s follow that thread back. During the early 1870s, Lorenz Kuenzl was the brewmaster for what became the Stevens Point Brewery. Kuenzl moved to Oshkosh in late 1874. He launched the Gambrinus Brewery here in 1875. Kuenzl’s brewery merged with two others in Oshkosh to form the Oshkosh Brewing Company. Kuenzl became OBC’s first brewmaster. OBC was the maker of Chief Oshkosh Beer.

Kuenzl was dead by the time Chief Oshkosh came out. I can’t help wondering, though, if his influence was still there when Chief was being brewed. He had, after all, laid the groundwork for the brewery’s beers. Is this the original source of the flavor similarity between Chief Oshkosh and Points Special Lager? Rampant speculation, I know. But for me that’s part of the fun of this stuff.

Should you feel moved in the near future to pick up a pack of Point Special Lager, you’ll find it in commemorative packaging. Point is celebrating its 160th anniversary this year. The current Special Lager can is wrapped in artwork used in the early 1900s. That’s when Gustav Kuenzel was running Point Brewery. His name is on the commemorative can.

In addition to their similarly spelled last names, Lorenz Kuenzl and Gustav Kuenzel were both born in Bohemia. Lorenz in 1845. Gustave in 1869. Both also trained as brewers in Bohemia. I’ll bet if you traced their bloodlines back far enough you’d find they merge at some point. Somebody else will have to figure that one out.

Lorenz Kuenzl came to America in 1871. He was in Stevens Point soon after. He moved to Oshkosh in late 1874 and never left. Lorenz Kuenzl died here in 1897.

Gustav Kuenzel took a more circuitous path. He came to America in 1890. He went to Milwaukee, working in breweries there before moving on to Stevens Point. He bought the Point brewery from Andrew Lutz on July 8, 1897.

In 1902, Gustav sold the Point Brewery and bought a brewery in Hastings, Minnesota. He was there until Prohibition. Then he moved to Canada where he could continue making beer. When Prohibition ended, Gustav came back to the states. He ended his career at the Dahlke Brewing Company in Westfield, Wisconsin. He died in 1937. Now that is a life!

Here’s a wonderful picture of Gustav Kuenzel at the Dahlke brewery. You have to love a brewer who drinks from a brass mug. You may notice he’s missing the index finger on his left hand. He lost it in a brewing accident.

The Stevens Point Brewery survived. The Oshkosh breweries didn’t. The Point Brewery never lost its focus on its local market. The last of the Oshkosh breweries – OBC and Peoples – turned from their home market as they strove to increase distribution regionally. It didn't work. In the end, that’s what killed them.

The Roots of Point's 160th Anniversary Ale

Stevens Point Brewery released its 160th Anniversary Ale earlier this month. I was surprised Point would brew an ale to commemorate the date. This brewery built its reputation on lager beer. I had a couple pints of the beer at Chester V's. And thoroughly enjoyed it. I wanted to know more about it.

The recipe for 160th Anniversary Ale was found in the brewery's archive by Point brewmaster Gabe Hopkins. I contacted the brewery and was told the recipe was dated 1905. There weren't many Wisconsin breweries making ales in 1905. Lager beer was king here at this time.

I've been sifting through old, Point Brewing Co. ads from the early 1900s. I can't find any mention of an ale being made at Point during that period. Here's a typical Point ad from 1903.

At the turn of the century, the word beer was synonymous with lager. Especially in Wisconsin. Ale was treated as a distinct category. In the 1903 ad, Pink's Pale isn't identified as either beer or ale.

Here's an ad from 1908 that seems intentionally ambiguous. The two beers are referred to simply as Brew. These could be ale or beer.

Perhaps the brewery thought such distinctions were meaningless. I've seen other ads where it's implied that Pink's Pale was beer as opposed to ale. But I haven't seen any case where it's made explicit. And I've never seen an ad from the years around 1905 indicating Point was making ale.

That doesn't mean Point didn't brew an ale. As I mentioned, lager beer was all the rage in Wisconsin in 1905. Ale was thought of as less refined. Old fashioned. If Point was brewing an ale they may well have thought it better to not brand it as such.

The thing is, Point Brewing started out making ales. Below is an ad from 1859. This appeared two years after George Ruder and Franz Wahle launched their partnership and what would become Point Brewing Company.

Stock Ale. Lager Beer. No dancing around there. However, these days when we hear Stock Ale, we tend to think of strong, English-style beers. But "Stock" was a term applied to any ale or beer that was aged.

The Stock Ale Ruder and Wahle were brewing probably had nothing to do with England. Both men were German immigrants. Ruder was from Nuremberg in Bavaria. Lager Beer country. Wahle was from the north where, in his time, ale was predominant. Ruder and Wahle's Stock Ale was probably along the lines of what's now called an Altbier. An ale that undergoes a cold aging or "lagering" period.

That brings us back to Point's 160th Anniversary Ale. The brewery's description of the beer says it was "brewed using a traditional German-style all-malt recipe." According to brewmaster Gabe Hopkins, the beer most resembles the Düsseldorf Altbier style of warm-fermented beers brewed in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia region.

The North Rhine-Westphalia region is where our man Franz Wahle hailed from. Wahle left Point in 1867. Was his influence still being felt there in 1905?

It would seem this type of beer is embedded in Point's DNA. You don't need to know all this stuff to enjoy the beer, but it certainly doesn't hurt. For me, it makes the experience richer.

One last thing. As I mentioned in a post the other day, that when Franz Wahle left Stevens Point, he came to Oshkosh and began brewing here. We may have more of a connection to this beer than you'd guess. But that's usually how it works with beer. What's right under our nose is often more than we imagine.

Point's 160th Anniversary Ale is only available on draft. As of this morning, it's still on at Chester V's.