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23-768: Falstaff Brewing's earliest form was as the Lemp Brewery , founded in 1840 in St. Louis by German immigrant Johann Adam Lemp (1798–1862). Over the next 80 years, the Lemp family was devastated by personal tragedies as it built its beer empire over the caves of St. Louis . It adopted its famous "Blue Ribbon" moniker quickly, as an 1898 trial proved when it took the Storz Brewing Company of Omaha to court for tying blue ribbons on its bottles and won. The Lemp Brewery company closed in 1921 and sold its Falstaff brand to

46-574: A grocer ; however he abandoned this dream when he realized his grocery store was more popular for its lager beer than for its groceries. In 1840, Adam Lemp closed his grocery and opened a brewery and saloon , then known as the Western Brewery. During the 1840s, Lemp moved the brewery to a larger complex in south St. Louis and began training his son, William J. Lemp, to take over the operations. The elder Lemp died in 1862, with his estate being valued at $ 20,000. William J. Lemp then took over

69-419: A few buildings and constructed a new building in the southern corner of the property in approximately 1950. The Lemp Brewery Complex currently consists of 27 buildings that have been semi-occupied by various tenants for light industrial, commercial, and warehousing uses, office space, and artist studios since approximately 1980. The extensive basements under the buildings were also used for several seasons during

92-451: Is built upon a complex of natural caves which were once used for the lagering of beer by early German brewers. Caves are naturally cool, which was especially attractive to brewers before the advent of refrigeration. Several breweries were built atop these natural caves, which were altered to suit their purposes. Stone arches and brick ceilings prevented water seepage and uneven cave floors were paved with brick. In addition to being used for

115-561: The Falstaff Brewing Corporation , producer of Falstaff Beer . German immigrant Anton Griesedieck brought his family brewing tradition (dating from 1766 in Stromberg, Germany ) to St. Louis in about 1866. He owned a series of breweries, employing his four sons, including Henry Jr. and Joseph "Papa Joe", and nephew Henry L. Griesedieck, who would later found Griesedieck Western Brewery Co. The four sons established

138-699: The Falstaff Brewing Corporation . The brewery complex property consists of 27 buildings on a 13.7-acre (0.055 km ) site in the Marine Villa neighborhood. St. Louisian Steve DeBellis has been the owner of the Lemp Brewing Company trademark since 1988. Johann Adam Lemp was born in 1798 in Eschwege, Germany , and two years after his arrival in the United States in 1836, he moved to St. Louis. He sought to make his fortune by becoming

161-665: The Narragansett Brewing Company of Rhode Island proved disastrous, with the state government of Rhode Island pursuing an antitrust case against them. The Supreme Court found in Falstaff's favor in United States v. Falstaff Brewing Corp. (1973), but the company never recovered. Fortunes declined throughout the 1970s as consolidation swept the beer industry. The company was bought in April 1975 by

184-664: The 1990s as a Halloween haunted house and were rented out for rave parties. The main building is now abandoned. In 1939 the struggling Central Brewing Company of East St. Louis Illinois renamed itself as the Wm. J. Lemp Brewing Company. For 6 years they existed as the Lemp Brewery before changing their name again, to the EMS Brewing Co., in 1945. The brewery would soon close as a branch of Falstaff in 1949. In 1987 St. Louis beer historian Steven J. DeBellis put Lemp beer back on

207-574: The Lemp Family, the Lemp Mansion , included a tunnel through the natural cave system leading to the Lemp Brewery. The Lemp Family would use this tunnel to go to work. The Lemp Brewery Complex was purchased by International Shoe Company in 1922 and they occupied the complex until approximately 1980. Although most of the buildings originally constructed by the Lemp Brewing Company remain on the property, International Shoe Company had demolished

230-715: The National Brewery Co. in 1891, which later became part of the Independent Breweries Company in 1907. Henry Jr. ran IBC for four years until he quit to help his five sons Anton, Henry, Raymond, Edward and Robert found Griesedieck Brothers Brewery Co. in 1911. GB made non-alcoholic beer and soft drinks during Prohibition but closed its doors by 1920. For the next 13 years, the Griesedieck Brothers would anxiously bide their time before they could once again brew what would become

253-781: The National Brewing Company of New Orleans in 1937; the Berghoff Brewing Company of Fort Wayne , Indiana , in 1954; the Galveston-Houston Brewing Company of Galveston , Texas , in 1956; San Jose, California in 1952-1973; and the Mitchell Brewing Company of El Paso in 1956. By the 1960s, Falstaff was the third-largest brewer in America, with several plants nationwide. The 1965 acquisition of

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276-564: The S&;P Company, owned by Paul Kalmanovitz . In the interim, Chicago White Sox announcer Harry Caray endorsed the brew in live TV commercials, many times with a glass of beer in his hand and sipping it. Kalmanovitz also owned General Brewing, Pabst , Pearl , Olympia , and Stroh's . That year, the company ranked 11th in sales nationally and the original St. Louis plant was closed. The brewery Falstaff bought in San Francisco in 1971

299-610: The brand name became a licensed property of Pabst, which continued to produce Falstaff beer through other breweries. Selling only 1,468 barrels of Falstaff in 2004, Pabst discontinued production of Falstaff in May 2005. Lemp Brewery The Lemp Brewery was a beer brewing company established in 1840 in St. Louis, Missouri that was acquired by the Griesedieck Beverage Company in 1920, which subsequently became

322-481: The brewery and purchased the property that would become the Lemp Brewery complex in 1864. This property at 3500 Lemp Avenue, still stands in St. Louis today. After the implementation of Prohibition in the United States in 1919, the Lemp Brewery was unable to continue its beer brewing operations, and its near beer product (known as Cerva) was not profitable. In 1920, the Lemp Brewery's factory complex and brands were sold to other beer brewing companies. The brewery

345-556: The brewery then named Griesedieck Beverage Company. Griesedieck Beverage was renamed the Falstaff Corporation and survived Prohibition by selling near beer , soft drinks , and cured hams under the Falstaff name. Falstaff Brewing was a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange , which was rare for a brewing industry in which families closely guarded their ownership. When Prohibition

368-805: The market as an American adjunct lager . The Lemp Brewing Co. currently contract brews Lemp beer through the Stevens Point Brewery in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. 38°35′28″N 90°13′3″W  /  38.59111°N 90.21750°W  / 38.59111; -90.21750 Griesedieck Brothers beer Griesedieck Brothers Beer is a historic St. Louis beer brand that has been reintroduced after years of absence. The Griesedieck family once owned three St. Louis-area breweries, Griesedieck Brothers Brewery, Griesedieck Western Brewery Co. in Belleville, Illinois (producers of Stag Beer) and

391-525: The most popular beer in St. Louis. After prohibition ended, the heirs of Henry Jr. kept Griesedieck Brothers while the heirs of Papa Joe ran Falstaff. Starting in 1947, Griesedieck Brothers sponsored the St. Louis Cardinals radio broadcasts with Harry Caray until the Anheuser-Busch brewery bought the team in 1953. Shortly after Anheuser-Busch bought the team, it renamed Sportsman's Park as Busch Stadium and introduced Busch Beer. This new beer

414-422: The nation, with production over 1,000,000 barrels per year. Falstaff thus moved all production into the former GB plant. Falstaff's peak production year was 1966 at 6,000,000 barrels, declining thereafter. When Falstaff got hit with court costs involving the acquisition of Narragansett beer, the company had to sell. Paul Kalmanovitz purchased the company in 1975 and moved the headquarters to California. By 1977,

437-414: The old GB plant was closed down. Through various mergers and acquisitions, Pabst Brewing Company eventually acquired the Falstaff brand but quit production in 2005. Family descendant Raymond A. Griesedieck, son of Henry A. Griesedieck (the last president of the original Griesedieck Brothers), incorporated the new Griesedieck Brothers Brewery Company in 1992. By 2002, Griesedieck Brothers Beer re-emerged in

460-399: The storage and lagering of beer, such naturally cool places were sometimes employed as beer gardens , places for entertainment. The Lemp Brewery consists of 27 buildings on a 13.7-acre (55,000 m ) pie-shaped site bounded by Cherokee Street on the north, Lemp Avenue on the west, and South Broadway on the southeast. The first brewhouse was constructed in 1865. When it was constructed by

483-457: Was closed just a few years later, in 1978. Subsequent closures included New Orleans in 1979, Cranston and Galveston in 1981, and Omaha in 1983. The Vancouver, Washington, brewery that began producing Falstaff in 1975 closed in 1985, with the entire operation relocated to Zhaoqing , China, and reopened there as a Pabst brewery. After the 1990 closing of the last Falstaff brewery in Fort Wayne ,

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506-534: Was repealed in 1933, the first two cases of beer made by the brewery were airlifted from nearby Curtiss Stienberg Airport to the governors of Illinois and Missouri. After Prohibition, the company expanded greatly. Its first acquisition was the 1936 purchase of the Krug Brewery in Omaha , which made Falstaff the first brewery to operate plants in two different states. Other facilities bought in this period included

529-451: Was sold at new low prices and significantly dug into Griesedieck Brothers sales. When Edward Griesedieck, the last remaining original Griesedieck Brother, died in 1955, the company looked at its options. In 1957 Griesedieck Brothers was sold to its cousins at Falstaff, and production under the GB name stopped almost overnight. The Griesedieck brewery, at that point, was the most updated brewery in

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