Joseph Baumgartner of Camden City Brewery

 

       Mr. Joseph Baumgartner was born on February 19, 1859 in the Arndorf District Office Kötzing, Bavaria, learned the brewing trade after finishing school and came to America in 1882. After starting his own brewery in Latrobe, Pa. and Sioux City, Ia., which he sold on extremely favorable terms, Mr. Baumgartner came to Camden in 1904 and began building the famous Camden City Brewery in May at Fillmore, Bulson and 6th St. The first beer was brewed in February 1905. The article is already well established in most of Camden’s, Gloucester City’s and other local pubs. The brewery is built according to the most modern plans, equipped with the very latest machines, has its own large cold storage, wash house, bottle filling department, etc. and has an output of 75,000 barrels per year. The total cost of building and operating the Camden City Brewery was approximately $300,000. 

       Since 1885 Mr. Baumgartner has been married to Miss Margaretha Bräutigam from Hof in Bavaria. The marriage resulted in five sons and three daughters. Three sons are already active in the brewery and promise to emulate their father and do good business.

       Mr. Baumgartner is a member of almost all Camden clubs and has made many friends through his jovial, easy-going nature. He likes to socialize with his countrymen. The inauguration of the brewery in May 1905 turned out to be a great celebration for the entire population of Camden. The beer tasting turned out very cheap and established the rapid upswing of Mr. Joseph Baumgartner's Camden City Brewery.

- from the book Hervorragende und Fortschrittliche Deutsch-Amerikaner von Philadelphia (1906)

More info on he Camden City Brewery can be found here:  

http://www.dvrbs.com/beer/CamdenBeer.htm

Philip Hildenbrandt of the White Bear Brewing Company

 

       Philip Hildenbrandt (aka Philipp Hildenbrand), one of the most respected citizens of Philadelphia, was born in Hesse in 1853 and came to America in 1872. He immediately found a job at the Sommers Brewery in New York and worked there for nine years before he became a master brewer. In 1885 he finally left that brewery to join the Metropolitan Brewing Company as a partner. Three years later he sold his business share there and attended the brewing school (First Scientistic Station for the Art of Brewing) in New York for four months and after this period he received a 1st class diploma and a recommendation to John F. Betz & Son, Philadelphia, in whose brewery he served as superintendent until 1897. 

       At this time, Mr. Hildenbrandt was homesick. He traveled to Germany to visit his elderly parents whom he had not seen in 25 years. After staying there for four months, he returned to Philadelphia. With John C. Doyle he went from here to Arkansas, where he participated in the purchase of a large property, which soon after became known as the Little Rock Brewing and Ice Company. In the first year the company had sales of 10,000 kegs of beer and sold no less than 25 to 30 tons of ice a day. The breweries in the neighboring towns saw that the young company was becoming dangerous to them, and after a year of existence they bought the brewery for an enormous price. The brewery passed into the hands of the Anheuser-Busch and Lemp breweries.

       In 1891, Mr. Hildenbrandt returned to Philadelphia and acquired the Albert Wolf Brewery, No. 3702 North 6th Street, which he continued under the name The White Bear Brewing Company. The brewery made tremendous progress in a short period of time. 

       In 1879 Mr. Hildenbrandt married Miss Leonora Belser, a young New Yorker from a distinguished family.

       The Rifle Club, the Canstatter Volksfest-Verein, the Bavarian and Hessen-Verein count Mr. Hildenbrandt among their most popular and most enthusiastic members. Everywhere he knows how to make real friends; His acquaintance is a big one and his popularity is that of a real, hard-working, progressive German-American citizen of Philadelphia.

-from the book Hervorragende und Fortschrittliche Deutsch-Amerikaner von Philadelphia (1906)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/104747398/phillipp-hildenbrand

 

A Lot Of Breweries and Saloons in 1888

These are some basic advertisements for some of the breweries, brewpubs, saloons and other businesses that existed in Philadelphia in the year 1888.

Some Lost And Forgotten Breweries of 1885

Here are a few forgotten breweries that existed in 1885. These are from ads in the German language press of the day.

01). A. Sonnenmair's Pennsylvania Lager Beer Brewery and Saloon at 312 South 4th Street below Spruce.

02). Ferdinand Schaefer's Northern Liberties Brewery at 338/340 Brown Street.

03). George Gindele Brewery and Saloon at 1026 Girard Avenue.

04). Hermann Rose's Southwark Brewery and Saloon at 805/807 South 11th Street.

05). J.F. Schauffele's Brewery at the North East corner of 2nd and York Streets.

06). John Welde Brewery and Saloon at Broad and Christian Streets. (John Welde would later form a partnership with John Thomas and start the Welde & Thomas Brewing Company, at Broad and Fitzwater Streets, which later joined with 5 other breweries to form the Commonwealth Brewing Company).

07). Joseph Gindele's Lager Beer Brewery and Saloon at 1204/1206 North 8th Street.

Adam Wolf brewery fire c. 1870

Some Weisbrod & Hess ads

The Weisbrod & Hess Oriental Brewery ad is from the 1890s. The Ginger Ale ad is from the 1920s.

Bergner & Engel Bock Beer, Root Beer and building fire.

The Bock Beer ad is from the 1890s. During Prohibition B&E leased a part of their brewery to the Primalt Products Company of Chicago to produce Dr. Swett's Root Beer. The article about the fire is from 1938. The brewery closed and was abandoned in 1928.