Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1926-01-21
Breweries Idle or
Otherwise Used

the brewery buildings of the middle
west today stand desolate and Tor
lorn. The remaining fifty per cent
have been converted into cereal
beverage manufactures, cold storage
warehouses or Industrial plants.
The utility of huge watts and 1reez-
ing plants has been confined 10 re-
lated manufactures-dai products,
chemicals and pharmaceuticals. ice
cream and fruit-juice soft drinks.
Many of the breweries have been
remodeled directly for making olner
beverages; some have leased their
stables or subdivided their establish
ments into storage sections.
Freezing apparatus. with extensive
and elaborate cooling coils and pip.
ing systems, has lain idle in seVerai
Chicago plants, where suitable In
dustries have not been applied. The
employment of their vast floor space
has accounted for much of their con-
vertibility.
A large number of Illinois brewers
have complied with prohibition reg
ulations by de-alcoholizing their
product, and continuing to follow
the profession.
Six of st. Louis twenty-one brew
ing plants are turning out non-in-
toxicating beverage, mostly on
small scale, one is under paddock for
violating the Volstead act, three are
being used for other purposes and
the remainder are idle.
Anheuser-Busch, Inc, among the
largest manufacturers of beer in
pre- prohibition days. is now the
e. tx.f~ faot a.
real beverage. but its volume output
is only 20 per cent as great and
loo men are employed instead of
1000.
The Lemp brewery has been
turned into a shoe factory. The
Green Tree brewery will be used as
factory. A third plant is used for
cold storage.
The other plants are on the
market but do not sell readily be-
cause their architecture is such that
they are not easily converted.
The extensive plants of the Kan
sas City breweries have been sold.
One unit is now flour mill, one a
chemical plant, one a bakery and
two are used by ice companies. The
only other large brewery at Kansas
City, the Muehlebach, is turning out
near beer.
st. Joseph had two large breweries
and several small ones when the
Volstead act went into effect. The
small plants were closed Immediately
and the others sought other lines of
business.
Such breweries in Kentucky as
still are in operation have been, con-
verted principally to soft drink fac
tories and cold storage plants. In
the cellars of one brewery, however.
were housed the menageries of two
circuses.
Mushrooms bloom in the Stygian
vaults of Louisville plant. Where
once engine strived to change malt
and hops into a tonic brew, para
site fungi now bring substantial in
come to the owner through their
delectable delicacy. ~
Two-thirds of Indiana's brewing
establishments have undergone con-
version-a coal yard, a milk supply
house, a wholesale grocery building
and a chemical plant replacing some
while others have been RACED to
permit new building.
A Wisconsin firm makes cheese in
winter and near-beer in summer.
~ ~ VI anu IlldlG beverages OF
legal alcoholic content, have prcvid-
ed other uses, while many are I'M
tenanted.
Idleness shares with TRANSFORMED
tlons into creameries, produce houses
and cereal drink plants in Iowa
brewerieS. -
Little metamorphosis has been
evidenced in Minnesota, where the
active breweries of today are used
TO manufacture milder beverages.
or the two existing Oklahoma ter
ritorial brewing plants. one was re-
made into an ice plant, and the
other abandoned.
A single brew comes out Of Texas.
An hotel, bicycle shop, and meat
storage room have accounted for one
Houston brewery; ice, butter and
warehouses, for others.