Koehler Beer and Prohibition

Written and researched by Steven Mooradian

Koehler Beer and the Prohibition Era 

Steven Mooradian 

Hello! Welcome to this episode of the Hurstories, a history podcast presented by Mercyhurst students. My name is Steven Mooradian and I will be your host for this episode. 

 

Any good Erieite will tell you, there’s a church on every street, and a bar on every corner.  

Erie’s long history with beer extends to the first large waves of immigration, bringing their brewing practices with them, none more locally famous than the Koehler family. 

Their persistence through 13 years of prohibition propelled them into local legend, and the Koheler name remains a staple in northwestern Pennsylvania. 

Erie, Pennsylvania has been a Mecca for immigrants for over a century and a half. Groups of Italian, Polish, German, Irish, Russian, Greek, and other European immigrants have historically found a small slice of Erie to call home. Even more recently, large contingencies of Nepalese, Bhutanese, Syrian, Central African, and Latin American groups have found their sanctuary and safety in some of the same areas. Though Erie’s population has decreased significantly since the mid 20th century, these groups are almost single-handedly keeping those numbers steady. There is truly a connection between the success of immigrants and the success of Erie. 

Erie has a small, urban center. It is centrally located between three major cities: Buffalo, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh. And it was a center of commerce and industry for a better part of the 19th and 20th centuries, perfect for establishing economic success in anything from paper to beer. When immigrants arrive they bring their interests and talents, making Erie one of the most diverse cities in America for well over a century. 

Charles Koehler, a Dutch immigrant who arrived in Erie in the mid 1800’s, knew Erie held for him some of these opportunities. He worked for Frederick Dietz, who owned a brewery at 17th and Parade Street. Dietz died in 1858 and Charles took it over, though he left only a few years later in 1862 to begin a new brewery with his sons at 26th and Holland. Charles son Fred inherited the business, but it was his other son Jackson Koehler, who would take the family name and make it a brand.1  

The first brewery built at the site of 21st and State Streets in Erie in 1855 was by George Frey and Peter Schaaf. Frey was himself an immigrant, from Germany, and is credited with introducing the lager style of beer to the Greater Erie-Buffalo region.2 

Schaaf would go on to find a new partner several years later, a man by the name of Henry Kavelage, who in 1863 became the sole owner of the operation and named it Eagle Brewery. 

Twenty years after, in 1883, Jackson Koehler purchased the brewery, calling it the Jackson-Eagle Koehler Brewery. 

Erie in the 1880’s had multiple brewing operations, consisting of four lager plants, one ale, and one porter breweries. They all shared the market, but it didn’t take long for Jackson Koehler to surge to the top of the game. In 1890, Jackson commissioned Louis Lehle, a Chicago architect to design the new brewery. 

On April 1, 1899, several of those other breweries, the Fred Koehler and Co. (Jackson’s brother), Cascade Brewery, National Brewery, and Eagle Brewery merged under the command of Koehler now going by the name Erie Brewing Company.

The Koehler name became synonymous with beer in the Erie region. 

The brewery ran with few flaws for years, until the bombshell hit. 

Prohibition became the law of the land, cemented as the 18th amendment to the US Constitution in 1920. 

Prohibition was particularly tricky in PA. Lots of working-class people, meant both strong adherence and strong resistance. Labor Unions were some of the fiercest opponents of the eighteenth amendment. However, other unions were avid proponents of prohibition, because labor leaders felt that with their workers boozed up, gave them a disadvantage on negotiations. 

Gifford Pinchot, a successful conservationist running for governor during the lead up to prohibition ran under the pretense that he would strictly enforce the prohibition laws. 

Unsurprisingly, he drew much of his support from groups like the Women’s Anti-Temperance Movement, which led the charge against prohibition, but also from several types of unions and farmers. 

Pinchot won his election in 1923, just three years after the 18th amendment was adopted, and served as Governor of Pennsylvania until 1927. 

He began cracking down on the prohibition laws, however, to his dismay, crime and usage increased while the enforcement of the law decreased dramatically by police departments.

Whether it was a direct defiance of the governor, or simply lazy police work, is unclear, but needless to say, prohibition wasn’t going as planned for Governor Pinchot. 

Despite his overall failure on prohibition, Pinchot won again in 1931, serving a nonconsecutive term until 1935. He also helped to establish the PA Liquor Control Board and hoped to deter alcohol use by making it quote, “as inconvenient and expensive as possible”. 

Meanwhile, rum-running and bootlegging were becoming a massive industry along the Lake Erie border. 

The proximity to Canada made it easy for smugglers to get across the international border in a hurry. Canada had no prohibition laws.8 Boats would speed across the lake, pick up cargo in places like Port Dover, Ontario and other lakefront towns, and come back to Erie or the Pennsylvania lakeshore. These trips were so frequent, it has been suggested there are hundreds of unopened bootlegged alcohol bottles at the bottom of Lake Erie. Much like the prohibition era on land, the policing of the waters was so ineffective, it was essentially non-existent. 

Even today, restaurants and bars in Erie, like Rum-Runners Cove, Smugglers Wharf, and the former Bootleggers Bar and Grille pay homage to this history.  

President Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill in March of 1933, legalizing the sale and consumption of wine and beer and by December of the same year, the 18th amendment had been repealed and the 21st amendment ratified, ending prohibition. 

Prohibition forced the closure of breweries for Koehler and many others; however, Koehler was so popular, that in 1933, the year prohibition ended, he reopened the Erie Brewing Company resuming normal operations.  

Prohibition was viewed as a complete failed experiment. The usage of alcohol was not eliminated and may very well have even been elevated. The implementation of the eighteenth amendment also brought forth several unintended consequences.  

Many marginalized groups were targeted. Anti-alcohol meant anti-immigrant as Europeans like Germans, Polish, Irish, and Dutch were the primary brewers. 

Catholics were also notable drinkers and the 1920’s saw a great resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan as well as other extreme sects of White Anglo Saxon Protestant vigilantism. Organized crime including the likes of Al Capone and other notable gangsters was also elevated, in this time period.  

As for Koehler, the brewery operated normally until the 1970’s when the it was closed down in 1978. 

The historic building sat empty for many years, and unfortunately for history, the complex was demolished in 2006. 

However, in 2018, two brothers Bruce and Bryan Koehler, brought the name back. 

They are unsure if they are directly related to Jackson Koehler, but they are sure of their connection to Erie. 

They’re from Pittsburgh but their grandparents lived in Millcreek and remember passing the plant as kids, even remarking that Koehler is the only beer their family drank. 

The brothers operate the new Koehler Brewing Company out of Grove City, PA, about an hour away from Erie. The Koehler brand is still one of the most recognizable in Northwestern Pennsylvania. Many families tell stories of drinking Koehler beer with their loved ones and Koehler memorabilia is highly sought after. Though the building does not exist anymore, the original Eagle Brewery sign survives and can be seen inside the BrewERIE at Union Station, which preserves some of Erie’s brewing heritage.  

The survival of Koehler, bootlegging, and the prohibition era in Pennsylvania is just a snapshot of the Roaring 20’s, but it’s a legacy that the Erie region is true to, and in a lot of ways is proud of. 

With its recent reemergence, generations of Erieites can kick their feet up, drink a Koehler, and tell stories, just as their fathers and grandfathers did.  

Something has to keep those bars open! 

We’ll see you next time on Hurstories, until then, I have been Steven, and thank you for listening.