Oshkosh Beer Show #26 - Lazy Monk Brewing

This week, we get into a couple of stellar beers from a small brewery in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Lazy Monk Brewing was launched in 2011 to brew quality beers in the tradition of the finest Bohemian and German breweries. Lazy Monk is definitely fulfilling that mission.

Then & Now: From Paine Lumber to Fox River Brewing

A couple of pictures. The photo on top was taken just about 100 years ago. The camera was facing northeast from the Congress Ave. bridge. The image it captured shows the Paine Lumber Company. The lower photo was taken this past Wednesday from about the same vantage point. It shows the Fox River Brewing Company Restaurant and Taproom.

Edward Paine with his sons Charles and George opened their first lumber mill in Oshkosh in 1853. It evolved into the Paine Lumber Company, which became the world's largest manufacturer of wood sashes and doors. At its peak in the 1920s, Paine Lumber was the largest employer in Oshkosh with more than 2,000 workers.

Crippled by the stock market crash of 1929, Paine Lumber closed in 1934, then reopened in 1937. In 1959, the company was sold to Louisville's General Plywood Corporation, which closed the plant again in 1971. Local investors re-opened the mill in 1972, but the company went bankrupt ten years later. In 1982, most of the mill was the demolished. The River Mill Condominiums, shown at the far left in each of the images is the only portion of the factory remaining.

In 1995, the Fox River Brewing Company and Fratellos Restaurant was built upon the vacated grounds of the old mill. The brewery and restaurant opened on December 15, 1995. It was the first brewery launched in Oshkosh in 82 years. Fox River is now celebrating the 20th Anniversary of its opening.

Vestiges of the Paine Lumber Company remain. The current Oshkosh Door Company traces its lineage back to the original Paine Lumber Company.

The row houses built by Paine Lumber in the mid-1920s as homes for millworkers still stand along Summit Ave.

And the former Paine Thrift Bank on Congress Ave. is now the offices of the Supple Group, the parent company of Fox River Brewing.

Over the past few weeks I've been thinking a lot about Fox River Brewing. If all goes well, I'll show you why here next Monday.

In the meantime, here's something cool... Fox River has been posting its tap lists on its website. If you click the beer names on the list, most will open the brewmaster's data sheet for the beer. If you're into digging down into the guts of a beer, these data sheets are amazing. I wish more breweries would do this sort of thing. Check it out right here.

Oshkosh Beer Show No. 25 - Celebration with Kevin Bowen of Fox River Brewing

After a week off, we’re back with one of our favorite guests – Kevin Bowen, brewmaster for Fox River Brewing Company in Oshkosh and Appleton. In this episode, we drink Sierra Nevada Celebration Fresh Hop IPA, a beer that inspired Kevin to become a brewer. A lot of ground covered in this conversation, including what's happening at Fox River as the brewery celebrates its 20th Anniversary this December.

Barley’s Beer Sampling Series Continues Wednesday Night

Round two of this season’s Beer Sampling Series at Barley & Hops gets underway at 7 p.m. tomorrow night (Wednesday, December 2). The featured brewery this time is Amherst’s Central Waters Brewing Company.

You know the drill by now: You nab a ticket and from 7-10 p.m. you get to sample all the craft brew, spirits and wine you care to. Nate at Barley’s lines up dozens of different craft beers for these events with the feature brewery typically bringing in a few rare treats we don’t usually see in Oshkosh.

Tickets are available at Barley’s. They’re $20, if you grab them in advance (that would mean, like today) or $25 at the door. Either way it’s a steal. For more info check out the Facebook Event page here.

A History of Oshkosh's Holiday Beers

We'll start with a couple of beer bottles separated by about 50 years, but linked by tradition. On the left is a bottle of Chief Oshkosh Holiday Brew. Judging by the label, this bottle is from the mid-1960s. On the right, we have Bare Bones Christmas Tail Ale. This bottle was filled in the early morning hours of Friday, November 27.

Brewers in Oshkosh have been making special beers for the holiday season for more than 100 years. In all likelihood, the local take on that tradition probably goes back even further.

It would have been unusual for the brewers who arrived here from Germany in the late 1840s not to have carried on with the custom of making a heartier brew in celebration of the season. But if they did, they weren't spending money advertising their special brews. Perhaps they didn't need to.

The first evidence I've been able to find of an Oshkosh brewer touting its holiday beer comes from 1913 when Peoples Brewing announced its first seasonal beer in a half-page advertisement published in the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern. The beer was made from "the richest grain grown in Wisconsin" and Saaz hops from Bohemia.  Here's that somewhat rough looking ad from December 20, 1913. As always, click the image to enlarge it.

Most often these holiday brews were simply amped versions of the brewery's flagship beer. The beers were made stronger from a heavier grist of malt and a corresponding increase in hops. They were more expensive to brew, but as a "thank you" to their customers, brewery's here would offer the seasonal specialty at the same price as their standard beer.

The Oshkosh Brewing Company (OBC) was a late comer to the Christmas beer tradition. The brewery didn't begin producing a winter seasonal until 1935. At OBC, they described their Holiday Brew as a strong pilsener "Brewed from an old, original, German formula." The beer was usually released a few days before Thanksgiving and was often sold out by January.

Oshkosh Daily Northwestern; November 22, 1955.

Here's a better look at the Holiday Brew label...

With the closing of Peoples Brewing in 1972, the Oshkosh holiday brews went into hiatus. It wasn't long, though, before the custom was revived by homebrewers. Among those who helped to resurrect the tradition was Oshkosh homebrewer Al Jacobson. A founding member of the Society of Oshkosh Brewers, Jacobson began brewing an annual Christmas beer in the early 1990s.

Like most homebrewers and craft brewers, Jacobson was more influenced by the English tradition than the German. The brewers of Medieval England made winter ales generously spiced with ingredients such as nutmeg and cinnamon. Jacobson, put his own spin on that practice. In 1995, beer writer Todd Haefer described Jacobson's holiday brew as, "A dark ale which contains a jalapeno or serrano pepper in each batch and cinnamon."

Jacobson in his native element sampling holiday beers.

After the 1995 opening of Fox River Brewing Company (FRBC), holiday beers began being brewed commercially again in Oshkosh. Over the years, the brewery has produced both English and German styles of christmas beer. Fox River's holiday seasonal from 2003 was a German-style lager, a nod to previous generations of Oshkosh brewers. Named High Octane, the beer was nearly 10% ABV.

In recent years, FRBC has taken more of an English approach. Its current holiday seasonal is Vixen’s Vanilla Cream Ale. At 5.9% ABV, this is a moderately robust winter seasonal flavored with Celyon cinnamon, Korintje Cassia cinnamon, Madagascar vanilla bean extract, whole bean Madagascar vanilla and California orange peel. It's a beer that reminds me of sweet, vanilla christmas cookies.

Oshkosh's newest brewery has now joined in the tradition. This past Friday, Bare Bones Brewery released Christmas Tail, its first seasonal beer. It also happens to be the first beer Bare Bones has bottled. In keeping with the local bent, they hired a student from UWO to design the label.

Bare Bones brewmaster Lyle Hari has created a dark ale that straddles English and Belgian styles of winter brew. Made with English malts, molasses and brown sugar, the beer is spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and ginger. The Belgian yeast it was fermented with accentuates the spicing. At 7.5% ABV, Christmas Tail is a true winter warmer.

Left for dead some 40 years ago, Oshkosh's holiday beer tradition is now as vital as it has ever been. For me it's one of the great pleasures of being a beer drinker in this city.

An Oshkosh Water Report for Homebrewers

For homebrewers only... Here’s a new water report for the City of Oshkosh that comes to us courtesy of Mike Schlosser. In anticipation of the opening of HighHolder Brewing Company, where Mike will be the brewmaster, he’s had a complete water report worked up using Oshkosh city water.

This report is derived from water drawn on the South Side, but it ought to provide a reliable baseline for all of us brewing with city water. Time to unleash that inner geek...

Fifth Ward Brewing Company Update

Back in April, I wrote about the plan of Ian Wenger and Zach Clark to launch a new brewery named Fifth Ward Brewing Company on Oregon St. in Oshkosh. Clark and Wenger are still at it, but some aspects of their original plan have changed.

The building Clark and Wenger were trying to secure at 611 Oregon St. is no longer an option. It was recently sold to another party. They've now shifted their focus to a building located at 1009 S Main St., previously occupied by Canteen Vending Services.

1009 S Main St.

Clark and Wenger have an agreement to purchase the building contingent upon site-plan approval, variances and the like required by the City of Oshkosh. The building is large enough, 7,500 square feet, and well suited for a brewery. And it's an area that could sorely use this type of development.

"We'll be the first ones to have to redevelop one of these sites down here," Wenger says. "Anything we do to it will make it look a thousand times better than what it looks like now.

The re-design they've had drawn up for the space includes a sizeable taproom looking out onto S. Main and a beer garden behind the building. They're also considering re-opening a blocked-in entrance to the building and replacing it with glass to allow a view into the brewhouse from the street.

Overall, the S. Main property is a better prospect for the venture than the original site on Oregon. "Not getting that building turned out to be a blessing in disguise," Wenger says. "It worked out really well."

Equally important at this point is that Clark and Wenger have now raised the capital needed to move the project forward. "We have all of our financing in place at this point," Wegner says. "We'd like to close on the property at the end of January or early February. And right now, we're looking at putting in our down payment on equipment in January."

The lead time required for delivery of a full brewhouse will be at least five to six months. With that and the work required for converting the building into a brewery, Clark and Wenger could possibly have Fifth Ward operational by late summer 2016.

I'll post more on the progress of Fifth Ward as things develop.

Wilbur Strottman and the Ruin That Became Chief Oshkosh Beer

Wilbur Strottman

If Wilbur Strottman were alive, I'm sure he'd resent the title of this post. The last thing any brewmaster would want to be associated with is the trashing of a beer. And to be fair, the blame for the deterioration of Chief Oshkosh Beer wasn't entirely Strottman's doing. He may have been steering the ship when Chief Oshkosh crashed, but he wasn't charting its course. That responsibility fell to his boss, Oshkosh Brewing Company president, David Uihlein.

In any case, the degrading of Chief Oshkosh Beer began under Strottman's watch. When he left Oshkosh in 1967, the best-selling beer Strottman had been given stewardship of was in ruins. It was an unexpectedly bad end to what had been an unlikely beginning.

Wilbur Strottman was born on October 27, 1913 in Readlyn, Iowa. The son of a blacksmith, he was the second generation of his family born in America; his grandparents having emigrated from Germany. Strottman was six years old when Prohibition began and 20 when it ended. His formative years occurred at a time when beer was illegal. Yet as a young man, he developed the itch to become a brewmaster.

In 1933, the 19-year-old Strottman left Iowa for Chicago where he attended the Siebel Institute of Technology. With the repeal of prohibition in 1933, the school was again focusing on brewing sciences. Strottman must have done well. He was eventually hired by Siebel as an instructor teaching chemistry, biology and practical brewing to aspiring brewers.

Strottman's credentials weren't solely academic. In the mid-1940s he returned to Iowa to work as a chemist for the Blackhawk Brewery in Davenport. In 1953, Strottman was named brewmaster and plant superintendent of the brewery. A year later, he left Iowa and moved to Oshkosh.

The home at Oak and Tennessee street in Oshkosh where Strottman lived

On August 17, 1954, Strottman became the brewmaster for the Oshkosh Brewing Company (OBC). The position had to have seemed a golden opportunity to him. Unlike most regional breweries in 1954, OBC was growing prodigiously. Its success hinged on a single beer known throughout Wisconsin: Chief Oshkosh.

The recipe for Chief Oshkosh Beer had been developed in 1950 by A. Thomas Schwalm, OBC's brewmaster and the son of the brewery's president Arthur L. Schwalm. It was a 4.5% ABV Classic American Pilsener made from an ingredient list simple enough to scratch out on a napkin – malted barley, corn grits, hops, water and yeast. The beer was an immediate success.

The 1950s label for the Oshkosh Brewing Company's new pilsener

Sales of Chief Oshkosh spiked. Production at the brewery increased by nearly 50% within four years of the recipe being introduced. OBC parlayed its increased revenue into investments in the brewery. When Strottman arrived he entered a brewhouse that was state of the art to make beer for a brewery nearing its peak.

He did well. Production at OBC continued to climb during the early years of Strottman's tenure. By 1959 output at OBC reached an all-time high of 63,165 barrels. Strottman was given his due. He was the highest paid employee of the brewery earning $8,000 in 1960 (the equivalent of approximately $64,000 today).  But change was in the wind.

In 1961, the Horn and Schwalm families sold their controlling interest in OBC to David Uihlein, a member of the family holding controlling interest in Schlitz Brewing. Uihlein was a trained brewer and his influence was felt immediately. He changed the label for Chief Oshkosh, but more importantly directed Strottman to change the beer behind it.

The 1960s Chief Oshkosh label

The Chief Oshkosh Beer of the 1960s was a prototype of the sort of beers micro-brewers of the 1980s would denounce when lamenting the pitiful state of American lager. Like many American beers of the period, Chief Oshkosh was laced with adulterants to be brewed on the cheap.

The recipe Strottman formulated was a convoluted stew heavily reliant on pre-processed adjuncts. It was anything but the traditional lager the brewery purported it to be. Hop extracts, corn syrup, powdered dextrins, and soy flakes all eventually found their way into the Chief Oshkosh recipe. This wasn’t a phenomenon unique to OBC. Countless American breweries were treading this same, dismal path.

A portion of Strottman's brewer's log from 1964

The reformulation of OBC's flagship brand was born out of Uihlein's desire to slash costs. Nothing escaped his scrutiny including the beer OBC's reputation and existence depended upon. Chief Oshkosh fell victim to Uihlein's cost cutting. Sales fell in tandem. By the end of 1961 production was off by nearly 3,000 barrels.

The brewmaster appears to have shared Uihlein's vision. A 1963 Brewers Digest article described Strottman as a "sales" type of brewmaster. It was an approach that gained him the absolute confidence of his boss. Their relationship reached its culmination in 1963 when Uihlein appointed Strottman vice president of the brewery. The new VP maintained his brewmaster position and continued tinkering with his recipe for Chief Oshkosh.

Strottman (left) and Uihlein in the OBC brewhouse

To counter the falling sales of Chief Oshkosh, OBC expanded its distribution network and began producing three other brands of beer – Badger Brew, Liebrau and Rahr's Beer of Green Bay. It was to little effect. In 1966, production fell below 50,000 barrels, the lowest output at the brewery in 15 years. Uihlein, concentrating on his business interests in Milwaukee, was spending less and less time in Oshkosh. The decline accelerated. Strottman wanted out.

His exit came in 1967. In April that year Strottman resigned as brewmaster of the Oshkosh Brewing Company. He moved to Milwaukee and took a position with Pabst Brewing. Six months later he was dead. Wilbur Strottman passed away unexpectedly on October 13, 1967. His death occurred two weeks shy of his 54th birthday.

A well-worn pocket reference published in 1933 and used by Strottman during his brewing career

Uihlein left OBC in 1969, selling his majority stake in the company to a coterie of brewery employees. The decline of Chief Oshkosh Beer continued unabated. A series of brewmasters rotated through the brewhouse. Each of them adhering to the basic composition of Strottman's reformulation of the beer.

Chief Oshkosh Beer tanked. In 1969 production fell to 33,613 barrels. In 1970, less than 30,000 barrels were brewed. In 1971, the Oshkosh Brewing Company closed. The brand was purchased by Peoples Brewing and continued to be brewed until 1972 when Peoples went out of business. It was the last, shallow gasp of what had once been an iconic Wisconsin beer.

Oshkosh Beer Show #24 - Upper Hand Brewery

​This week, we're drinking three beers from Upper Hand Brewery of Escanaba, MI. Upper Hand was launched in 2014 as a division of ​Bell's Brewery. We're just beginning to get Upper Hand's beer in Oshkosh. It's good stuff, check it out...

Let's Ask the Brewmaster

Beginning in 1957, The Oshkosh Brewing Company (OBC) presented a sequence of ads in the Daily Northwestern aimed at educating its customers about the basics of beer. The ads featured OBC brewmaster Wilbur Strottman answering simple questions about various aspects of beer and brewing. Perhaps most striking about the series is its rudimentary nature. It's clear that much of the tribal knowledge about beer that had once existed in Oshkosh had been lost.

The Brewmaster ads ran at the dawn of a dark age for beer in America. By 1957, the overwhelming majority of beers produced and consumed in the U.S. were of a single type - lightly hopped, pale lager brewed with a percentage of corn. The same held true In Oshkosh. Though the city's breweries were producing more beer than ever, there was little variety among the beers they made.

In 1957, Oshkosh's two breweries, OBC and Peoples, each produced just three types of beer. In Spring, the breweries would release a bock beer that remained on the market for no more than two or three months. With winter would come the strong, holiday seasonal beer that saw a similarly limited release. For the remainder of the year it was back to the pale, light lager that had come to dominate the palate of beer drinkers.

Of course, it hadn't always been this way. Prior to the 1900s, breweries in Oshkosh typically produced a range of beers throughout the year. For example, when the Oshkosh Brewing Company formed in 1894, its first ads, often in German, showed the brewery producing six types of beer. And there was no need to explain to the consumer that a Weiner beer was an easy drinking amber or that Culmbacher was a black, rich lager. In 1894 beer drinkers in Oshkosh new these things.

An 1894 ad for the Oshkosh Brewing Company. The brewery's six brands of beer are in highlight.

The narrowing of variety had been gradual. In the early 1900s breweries here began focusing ever-more intently on pale lager. The beer was a symbol of modernity, progress and purity. And beer drinkers flocked to it. With the arrival of Prohibition in 1920, the trajectory was fixed. A generation came of age with beer no longer a part of everyday life.

When beer became legal again in 1933, the connection to the past had been effectively severed. The appreciation for various styles of beer had been lost. Beer increasingly came to mean one thing: pale, light lager. In 1957, that meant the answers to questions such as "What is Bock Beer?" were no longer common knowledge.

Which brings us to these ads. Here's one from November 1957, answering the question just asked.

Here's Strottman explaining what makes a beer a Lager Beer.

Here's one made more interesting by what it doesn't say. Notice how there's no mention of corn being used in the production of Chief Oshkosh. Like Strottman, most brewers of the era preferred not to mention their use of corn as an ingredient.

I like this next one. Strottman clues us in on why draft beer is superior to bottled beer.

This one kills me. It's about beer freshness. Notice the complete disregard for the consumer. They don't need to know how damned old the beer is!

It's almost 60 years since these ads appeared and we're more confused than ever. The incredible variety of beer that's now available has left the majority of consumers utterly bewildered. I see it all the time at beer depots in Oshkosh. I tend to notice it at Festival more than at other places here. You see these people standing in front of that open cooler with a stunned look as they gaze up and down the rows of IPAs, stouts, wheat beers, etc... Then they go grab a sixer of Spotted  Cow.