History of American Beer
The following is a growing list of key milestones throughout the history of American beer.
Year Beer Milestone
1587 Virginia colonists brew ale using corn.
1607 First shipment of beer arrives in the Virginia colony from England.
1609 American "Help Wanted" advertisements appear in London seeking brewers for the Virginia Colony.
1612 Adrian Block & Hans Christiansen establish the first known brewery in the New World on the southern tip of New Amsterdam (Manhattan).
1614 The first non-native American is born in New Amsterdam, (perhaps the first non-native American male born in the New World) in Block & Christiansen's brewhouse. Jean Vigne grows up to become the first brewer born in the New World.
1620 Pilgrims arrive in Plymouth in the Colony of Massachusetts aboard the Mayflower. Beer is extremely short on board ship and the seamen force the passengers ashore to ensure that they will have sufficient beer for their return trip to England.
1632 The West India Company builds a brewery on Brewers Street in New Amsterdam led by Governor Van Twiller.
1633 Peter Ninuit establishes a brewery at Market Field on Manhattan Island.
1634 Samuel Cole is the first to be licensed in Boston to operate a tavern.
1637 First authoritatively recorded brewery in the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the control of Captain Sedgwick.
1639 Sergeant Bauleton is placed in charge of a brewhouse in Providence, Rhode Island.
1670 Samuel Wentworth of Portsmouth obtains the first license to brew beer in New Hampshire.
1683 William Penn's colony erects a brewery at Peonshury near Bristol, Pennsylvania.
William Frampton erects the first brewery in Philadelphia on Front Street between Walnut and Spruce at the Dock Street Creek.
1734 Mary Lisle, the first known "brewster" in America, takes over her late fathers Edinburgh Brewhouse in Philadelphia, which she operates until 1751.
1738 Major William Horton builds the first brewery in the deep south at Jekyll Island, Georgia.
1754 George Washington enters a beer recipe in his notebook.
1762 The Theory and Practice of Brewing by Michael Combrune is published. This is the first attempt to establish rules and principles for the art of brewing.
1765 The British Army builds a brewery at Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh, PA). The first brewery west of the Allegheny mountains.
A brewery is built in the French colonial settlement of Kaskaskia in what is now Illinois. It is the first brewery outside the 13 colonies.
1772 A mixture of dark to light malts called "Porter" is concocted in England. Exports begin to America but it fails to gain popularity.
1774 Robert Smith begins a modest ale brewing venture at Saint John & Noble Streets in Philadelphia. Through relocations and buy outs, the Robert Smith brand will survive until 1986 - 212 years.
The Single Brothers Brewery and Distillery opens in the Noravian religious settlement of Salem, North Carolina.
1775 Revolutionary War measures by Congress include rationing to each soldier one quart of Spruce Beer or Cider per man per day.
1789 George Washington presents his "buy American" policy indicating he will only drink porter made in America.
Massachusetts passes an Act encouraging the manufacture and consumption of beer and ale.
1792 New Hampshire agrees not to tax brewing property.
1793 Philadelphia produces more beer than all the other seaports in the country.
1808 Nembers of the Congregational Church in Moreau, Saratoga County, New York form a temperance society.
1810 132 operating breweries produce 185,000 barrels of beer. Population of the country is 7 million.
Jacques Delassas de St. Vrain begins brewing in St. Louis, Missouri (brewery destroyed by fire in 1812).
1815 The American Brewer and Maltster by Joseph Cappinger is published.
1819 A steam engine built by Thomas Holloway is installed in the brewery of Frances Perot in Philadelphia. This is the first engine to be used in beer production in America.
Nathan Lyman starts the first brewery in Rochester, New York.
1820 Brewers report business off due to increased consumption of whiskey.
1826 American Society for the Promotion of Temperance formed in Boston (also known as the American Temperance Society).
1829 American Temperance Society has 100,000 members.
David G. Yuengling opens a brewery in the Pennsylvania coal town of Pottsville. It continues in 1995 as the oldest operating brewery in the United States, still owned by the Yuengling family.
1830 Jacob Roos builds the first brewery in Buffalo, New York.
1832 Secretary of War Lewis Cass cancels the ration of liquor to the military.
1833 William Lill & Co. (Heas & Sulzer) start the first commercial brewery in Chicago and produce 600 barrels of ale in their first year.
Membership in the country's five thousand temperance societies exceeds one and one quarter million.
1836 United States Temperance Union meets in Saratoga, New York and changes name to American Temperance Union. Principle of total abstinence or "Teetotalism" is introduced.
1837 Rice and Kroener establish the first brewery in Evansville, Indiana.
1840 Philadelphia brewer John Wagner introduces lager beer.
1844 The Fortmann and Company Brewery introduces lager beer to Cincinnati.
Jacob Best starts a brewery in Milwaukee which later becomes the Pabst Brewing Co.
1846 Maine passes prohibition law.
1847 John Huck and John Schneider start the first lager beer brewery in Chicago.
1848 John Roesele starts a lager beer brewery in Boston.
Unrest in Germany causes many Germans to emigrate to America.
1849 August Krug forms a brewery in Milwaukee which evolved into the Schlitz Brewery.
Adam Schuppert Brewery at Stockton and Jackson Streets in San Francisco becomes California's first brewery.
1850 Mathias Frahm establishes Davenport, Iowa's first brewery.
431 breweries in the country produce 750,000 barrels of beer (31 gallons per barrel). The population is 23 million.
1852 George Schneider starts a brewery in St. Louis, Missouri. This brewery is the seed of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery.
San Francisco has 350 bar rooms to serve the hard-drinking population of 36,000.
Henry Saxer starts a brewing business (City Brewery) in Portland, Oregon Territory. This brewery was later owned by Henry Weinhard.
Prohibition comes to Vermont.
Prohibition adopted in Massachusetts (repealed in 1868).
Rhode Island enacts prohibition (repealed in 1863).
Territory of Minnesota enacts a short-lived prohibition.
1853 Prohibition voted in for Michigan.
1854 Prohibition begins in Connecticut.
1855 German brewer William Menger starts a lager beer brewery in San Antonio, Texas. This is the first brewery in that city.
Prohibition adopted in New York, New Hampshire, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, and the Nebraska Territory.
1856 The Benedictine Society of Saint Vincent's Abbey opens a commercial brewery in their Monastery near Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
1857 The largest brewery in the West is the Chicago brewery of William Lill and Michael Diversey.
1859 Solomon, Taecher & Co. start Colorado's first brewery, the Rocky Mountain Brewery.
1860 1269 breweries produce over one million barrels of beer for a population of 31 million. New York and Pennsylvania account for 85% of the production.
1861 Internal Revenue System introduced.
1862 Ernest Weisgerber builds Idaho's first brewery (in Lewistown).
Internal Revenue Act taxes beer at the rate of one dollar per barrel to help finance the government during the Civil War.
37 New York breweries form an association that would officially become the United States Brewers Association in 1864.
1863 161,607 barrels of beer are produced in the New England states.
Thomas Smith, Christian Ritcher, and Henry Gilbert found the first brewery in Montana Territory (Virginia City).
1865 Mathew Vassar, a prominent Poughkeepsie, New York brewer, founds Vassar College, the first privately endowed school for women.
National Temperance Society and Publication House formed in Saratoga, New York.
1866 Internal Revenue issues stamp regulations requiring application of tax stamps to barrels of beer leaving the brewery.
Levin & Co.'s pioneer Brewery in Tucson is the first to operate in the Arizona Territory.
1867 Prohibition efforts in Iowa and New York fail.
3700 breweries in operation in America producing 6 million barrels of beer.
1868 John Siebel opens a brewing school which later becomes the Siebel Institute of Technology.
Publication of the monthly magazine The American Brewer begins in January.
1869 Prohibition Party organized in Chicago.
Another prohibition law enacted in Massachusetts (repealed 1875).
Best Brewing Co. (later Pabst) begins expansion in Milwaukee with the purchase of Charles T. Melms' Brewery.
1871 A number of Chicago breweries destroyed by fire started by Mrs. O'Leary's cow: Doyle & Co., Huck, Jerusalem, Lill & Diversey, Metz, Mueller, Sands, and K. G. Schmidt.
1872 Anheuser adopts A and Eagle trademark.
First brewery workers' strike in New York City.
Prohibitionist presidential candidate James Black draws 5608 votes.
1873 4131 breweries (record number) produce 9 million barrels of beer.
Adolphus Busch begins bottling of beer for large scale shipments at the Anheuser Brewery in St. Louis (bottling was not new - only the magnitude of this venture).
1874 Woman's Christian Temperance Union formed.
1875 First lager beer in California brewed by Boca Brewing Co. in Boca.
1876 Louis Pasteur publishes "Studies on Beer" showing how yeast organisms can be controlled.
1877 George Ehret of New York is the largest brewer in the country.
1879 Ballantine adopts three ring trademark.
1880 Frederick Salem authors "Beer, Its History and Its Economic Value as