THE BEGINNINGS
- Of Bavarian Brewery
THE BEGINNINGS
- Of Bavarian Brewery
ADS - From Newspapers
8A3. BAVARIAN BREWING CO. PLANT No. 1 (1949)
STOCK HOUSE et al BLUEPRINTS, Photos & Info.
Please know that the plans shown below are best viewed on a large monitor or, at a minimum, a laptop or iPad; not a smart phone.
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The Other Buildings
Besides the Brew and Mill House (10A & 10B shown in gold) presented in the previous section, 8A1, Brew House Blueprints..., there were several other buildings that comprised the brewery complex. These included Stock Houses, Wash House, Racking Room, Bottling Department, Boiler House and other buildings. Blueprints with accompanying photos and information for these structures are identified on the Plot Plan and Aerial Photo below. Unfortunately, only the Brew / Mill House remain.
The BLUEPRINTS FOR EACH STRUCTURE
In the following, blueprints are provided for each of the buildings identified on Plot Plan and aerial photo above, except for the Brew House, which has previously been addressed. These plans provide the ability to analyze the use of each floor, the equipment utilized and the former operations of the brewery. Exterior and interior photos of these other structures of the brewery accompany the blueprints.
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The Stock Houses
Including the Main Stock House (3A), the Rack House (3B) and the Wash House (3C)
These three structures are shown separately on the Plot Plan, but they were built at the same time starting in 1903, and they were often simply referred to collectively as the Stock House. The sign that says "Stock House," shown in the first photo below, is on a three-story structure plus an upper floor for ventilation (3A), which adjoined the Brew House. In front of it is a four-story structure identified as the Rack House (3B) on the Plot Plan, but as mentioned, it may have more commonly been known as a (smaller) Stock House. This is because there was only a Racking Room on the first floor of this structure, however, Ale Stock Cellar C was on the second floor, and Fermentation Room B was on the third floor. From a practical standpoint, the workers at the brewery probably referred to specific Fermenting Cellars (A-C) or Stock Cellars (A-E) rather than referring to a structure by a specific name. As shown on the floor plans, these structures had access to one another and also to the Brew / Mill House.
STOCK HOUSE (3A)
This four-story structure included a possible ventilation area on the very top (not shown on the plans), Fermentation Room A on the third floor, and Stock Cellars A and B on the first and second floors, respectively, consisting of beer storage tanks. It may seem strange that floors above ground were called cellars. However, before there were advancements in refrigeration, both fermentation and storage tanks were located underground in lager cellars where cooler temperatures were easier to achieve and maintain. Once refrigeration improved and fermentation and storage could be provided in buildings above ground, the floors in these structures were still often called cellars or occasionally rooms. The last photo below showing open wood barrels, which required a skimming process, is believed to be from Fermentation Room/Cellar A.
RACK HOUSE or the STOCK HOUSE ADJACENT (3B)
Including the Racking Room
On the north side of the Stock House mentioned above (3A) was an adjoining four-story structure, referred to as the Rack House on the blueprints. It contained a Racking Room on the ground floor, an Ale Stock Cellar C on the second floor, and a Fermentation Cellar B on the third level. The Racking Room was so named as multiple kegs could be placed on a rack and filled with beer simultaneously. The second floor not only served as an Ale Stock Cellar, but also contained a yeast tank and a few water tanks; and the east side of this floor also contained lockers for the workers. The third and fourth floors of this structure had smaller footprints than the first two levels. Shown below is an exterior photo of the Racking Room, blueprints of all the floors of the Rack / Stock House, and interior photos of the different floors.
WASH HOUSE (3C)
Including the Filter Room, Retail Office & Pitch Shed
Unlike the other structures that were multi-stories, the Wash House was a single-story structure used as to wash kegs and barrels. A Filter Room was in the back where the beer would have any undesirable particles removed and to improve its clarity. The Wash House was off of Lehmer Street and is shown in the first photo below. It was next to a Retail (& Shipping) Office, which was added shortly after the first photo shown for the Stock House (3A) above was taken. The Wash House conveniently adjoined the Racking Room where the barrels were filled with beer after they were washed. The second photo below shows the Pitch Shed behind the Retail Office and the last photo shows the equipment used for washing the kegs.
Stock House Addition (11)
aka the Fermenting House
The sign on this four-story structure indicated this was another Stock House, even though the blueprints referred to it as the Fermenting House - possibly incorrectly. Even though the third floor contained Fermentation Cellar C, the second and first floors were for beer Stock Cellars D and E, respectively. The fourth floor was a Brine Room providing refrigeration and probably additional ventilation. Since this structure was built around 1913, about a decade after the original Stock House, and due to its signage, it is often referenced herein as the Stock House Addition.
The Far West Structures
Bottling House (5), Boiler House (6) & Government Cellar
These structures appeared separate from the other group of buildings that formed the brewery complex and were located on the far west side of the site. This much smaller group of buildings powered the brewery and also processed beer for sale in bottles and cans. They primarily included the Bottling House (aka the Bottling Department and formerly the Engine Room before Prohibition) and the Boiler House as depicted in the blueprints below. A tunnel between the Racking Room in the Stock House, which contained both utility and beer lines, led to the Government Cellar in the Bottling House. This was one of two Brewery Tunnels that existed after Prohibition. The Government Cellar contained a flow meter that calculated federal and state taxes the brewery needed to pay. When a brewery had buildings that were separate from one another, having tunnels with such lines made it much easier to maintain and repair them than if those lines were buried underground. It also allowed employees to avoid inclement weather and the vehicle traffic moving above. The plans and photos of these structures are described below.
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BOTTLILNG HOUSE (5)
aka Bottling Department
Formerly the Engine Room, this structure was converted to the Bottling Department after Prohibition, with wide ground level doors and a platform added for loading and unloading purposes. It is believed that in the process of reopening after Prohibition, some mechanical items that were previously in this structure were located to bottom floor of the Brew House. Refrigeration units were also added to the roof of the Bottling House. In addition, the bottling line was extended to a back portion of the Boiler House for soakers and cleaning bottles that were returned. After the bottles were cleaned, they were filled, capped and processed through a pasteurizer. The state tax paid was indicated on the top of each bottle cap, can or keg label, and differed depending on whether the product would be sold in Kentucky, Indiana or Ohio, and upon the bottle size, e.g. 12 oz. or a quart. The same labels for beer and ales could be used for labels for Indiana and Ohio, but different labels were needed for Ohio to indicate whether the alcoholic content was 3.2% or less, or over 3.2%. Therefore, it was important to coordinate the capping, labeling, boxing and shipping of the bottles and cans so that those being sold in Ohio had different labels and caps compared to those sold in Kentucky and Indiana. Behind the Boiler House were adjoining buildings with storage rooms and a cooler room.
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BOILER HOUSE (6)
aka Boiler Room
This structure with an interior height of two stories was situated at the far west side of the brewery property. It contained two boilers, which provided the main power to the brewery. It also contained a brine tank, a zeolite tank and a water tank. Next to the Boiler House was the tall stack (4), which was 153 feet heigh.
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GOVERNMENT CELLAR
Behind and under the Bottling Department was Government Cellar. It had five storage tanks and a government flow meter that calculated the tax for the beer than went into these tanks. The beer would then flow into bottles or cans in the Bottling House, or to the kegs in the Racking Room back through the aforementioned tunnel. Since the beer was shipped to three different states (IN, OH & KY), different state taxes, besides a federal tax, were required.
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In November 1948, approvals were provided to install new tanks, including those steel and glass-lined storage tanks installed in the Government Cellar of the Bottling House building depicted below.
c. 1948. The photos above show the installation of five 240 BBL storage tanks in the Government Cellar of the Bottling House at the Bavarian Brewery. In the upper row, the first photo shows four tanks in front of the Brew Houses. The upper middle photo shows one of the tanks before being placed into the Bottling House. The next image shows a crane that was used in the process. In the lower row, please note that the middle photo depicts the Spent Grain Tank attached to the Brew House. This was used to dispose of the grain materials from the brew tank. Please click the images to enlarge. (Source: Schott Family Collection.)
SUMMARIZING THE BREWERY OPERATIONS
The brewing process began in the Brew House (10A), which is the curved part of this structure, and behind it in the Mill House (10B). However, both parts were sometimes simply referred to as the Brew House. Grains and hops needed to produce the beer were delivered to the ground floor Receiving Room through a garage like entrance. It was on the west side of the Mill House next to the former ice house. The grains included corn grits and a variety of barley malts. Elevators then transported the ingredients to the upper floors of the Mill House, which was above the Engine Room. The malt was milled on the fifth floor and funneled into Malt Bins, where portions of the different malts were processed via hot water to become a malt mash on the fourth floor. The corn grits were cooked with hot water, also on the fourth floor, and became cereal mash. Both the cereal and malt mashes were combined to form a wort that went into the Lauter Tun on the third floor, which allowed for the separation of liquid wort from residual grains. The grain residue left over from the Lauter Tun, referred to as spent grain, was transferred to an outside tank attached to the second floor of the Brew House where it could be funneled into a truck and used as animal feed. The remaining liquid "sweet" wort then went into the Brew Kettle on the second floor, and hops were added from the second floor Hop Room. Below the brew kettle on the first floor was a cooler and a hop strainer that allowed spent hops to easily be placed in a bin next to the Receiving Room. This process of top-down brewing, beginning on the upper floors, was assisted through the use of gravity, and consequently, called a gravity system. (See section 8A2 - Brew House Blueprints.)
The resulting liquid "bitter" wort from the brew kettle was cooled and transferred to one of the open oak barrels in Fermenting Room/Cellar A, located on the top floor of the Stock House (3A), where yeast was added from yeast tubs on this level. During this process, it was necessary to occasionally skim the top of the barrels. Once the fermentation process reached the conditioning phase, the liquid was transferred to a tank in either Fermenting Cellar B, located on the third floor of what was called the Racking House (3B) on the Plot Plan, or Fermenting Cellar C on the third floor of the Fermenting House aka the Stock House Addition (11). Having Fermenting Cellars on the upper floors also made it easier to provide ventilation required due to the fermenting process. This ventilation was augmented by vents that appear to be small windows on the top floors of the Stock House shown on the aerial photo. This probably contributed to the unique "beer smell" or odor that emanated from the brewery. Once the Fermenting process was over, which could take about a month, the beer was funneled via beer lines to storage tanks below in one of five Stock Cellars (A-E), located on the first and second floors of the aforementioned three buildings.
When the beer and ale were ready for distribution, conduit lines transported these liquids to the Filter Room (situated behind the Wash House and Racking Room) where unwanted particles were removed. Afterwards, carbonation was added as needed, and a clear and sparkling beverage was created. It was then transferred through tubes / hoses via a tunnel from the Racking House to the "Government" Cellar where appropriate beer taxes were calculated. The beer and ale were then forwarded to the bottling line or the (cone top) canning line (beginning in 1948) in the Bottling Department (6), or to the Racking Room, on the first level of the Rack House (3A), to be filled in kegs. The ale was processed similarly, but never canned. (A separate flat top canning line for beer was not added until about 1955.) In order to supply kegs for the Racking Room, most kegs were recycled and returned to the adjacent Wash House (3C) on Lehmer Street where they were then cleaned and prepared to be refilled. ​The Pitch Shed located next to the Wash House was originally used to tar wood barrels to prevent them from leaking, but later it seems the shed was used to help process metal kegs for washing. Empty bottles were also returned off of Lehmer Street to the Bottling Department where they were soaked, cleaned, filled, capped (crowned), pasteurized, labeled, packed and shipped. A Retail and Shipping Office next to the Wash House and in front of the Pitch Shed controlled trucks with cases and kegs of beer going in and out of the brewery.
Essentially, brewery access was separated into two parts: The grain delivery and an office access were from W. 12th Street, and the return of bottles/kegs and the shipping of beer were from Lehmer Street. Management was primarily located in offices on the second and third floors of the Brew - Mill House. Access to nearly all other structures, as well as an entrance to the Brew House, was from Lehmer Street. The aforesaid operations were supported via the Engine Room on the bottom of the Mill House and the Boiler Room (5) next to the Bottling Department. In addition, refrigeration was supplied by condensers on top of the Bottling Department with cooling also supplied by the Brine Room, on the top floor of the Stock House Addition / Fermenting House. (See the blueprints, photos and information in this section.)
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The other blueprints for Plant No. 1 are under section 8A2 for the Brew House, and section 8A1 for the Site Layout and Plot Plan.
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PLANT NO. 2 (Former Heidelberg Brewery)
For information about the second Bavarian plant, please see 8B. Plant No. 2 Floor Plans & Equipment.
In comparison to Plant No. 1, which could produce about 225,000 barrels annually in 1949, Plant No. 2 could produce a little more than one-half this production, or about 120,000 barrels annually. However, the Bavarian Plant site, building size and stock storage was slightly more than twice that of Plant No. 2.
SOURCES:
Timothy Holian, for copies of the blueprints and the 1966 Auction Catalog for the brewery, which provided various interior photos.
Behringer-Crawford Museum, for aerial photos and interior photos from the Schott Family Collection.
The Kenton County Public Library for exterior photos.
L. Ried Schott for various photos and the editing / revision of most photos.
C.B. Truesdell, (The History of) The Bavarian Brewery, 1954. (Unpublished manuscript.)
The Riedlin and Schott families, for information.
Dave Gausepohl, who provided information on the gravity system used by the brewery.
Newspapers.com and Cincinnati Enquirer.
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The background is an aerial photo of th Bavarian Brewing Co. Plant No. 1 around 1950.
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