Spoetzl Brewery
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Spoetzl Brewery | |
|---|---|
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| Location | Shiner, Texas |
| Owner | Gambrinus Company San Antonio, Texas |
| Year opened | 1909 |
| Active Beers | |
| Shiner Bock | Bock |
| Shiner Blonde | Lager |
| Shiner Light | Light Lager |
| Shiner HefeWeizen | Hefeweizen |
| Seasonal Beers | |
| Shiner Kölsch | Kölsch |
| Shiner Dunkelweizen | Dark Hefeweizen |
Known as the "Little brewery in Shiner," the Spoetzl Brewery is an American brewery located in Shiner, Texas that is wholly owned by the Gambrinus Company. The brewery is most well known for producing Shiner Bock, a dark Czech-style beer. Long a regional favorite, particularly among college students, Shiner Bock is now distributed as far west as California, as far north as Alaska and as far east as Virginia.
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[edit] History
The Shiner beer has had several starts, stops, and name changes. It has been brewed under the following names:
- Shiner Brewing Association 1909-1914
- Home Brewing Company 1914-1915
- Petzold & Spoetzl 1915-1918
- Spoetzl Brewery and Ice Factory 1933-1934
- Spoetzl Brewery 1934-Present
[edit] Beginnings
Shiner, the oldest independent brewery in Texas, has been incorporated since 1909. A group of businessmen incorporated Shiner Brewing Association and placed Herman Weiss in as the companies first Brewmaster. In 1914 the founders offered the plant for lease, a German immigrant brewer named Kosmos Spoetzl learned of the operation and co-leased with Oswald Petzold with an option to buy in 1915. Before this business venture Spoetzl had attended brewmaster's school and apprenticed for three years in Germany, worked for eight years at the Pyramids Brewery in Cairo, Egypt, and then worked in Canada before moving to San Antonio in search of a better climate for his health. He came to Texas with the recipe for a Bavarian beer made by his family from malted barley and hops.
[edit] Surviving the "Great Experiment"
During Prohibition, Kosmos Spoetzl kept the brewery afloat by selling ice and making "near beer." After Prohibition only five of the original 13 Texas breweries were still intact. When the Prohibition laws were repealed larger beer plants, such as Anheuser-Busch, moved to Texas making life harder on the smaller independent breweries, but Spoetzl kept things small and simple never going more than 70 miles for business.
[edit] Modern times
In the 1970s and 1980s the brewery's Shiner Beer and Shiner Bock had less than 1 percent of the Texas market. In 1983 Spoetzl produced 60,000 barrels of beer. Production was only 36,000 barrels in 1990. Sales improved after Carlos Alvarez of San Antonio acquired the brewery in 1989: Production grew to 100,000 barrels in 1994. Ten years later, production was nearly three times as large as in 1994.[1]
[edit] 100 Year Celebration
Beginning in 2005, Shiner began producing a yearly brew to celebrate their upcoming anniversary. The centennial program develops one special beer each year that is only brewed from September through December. By mid-December the beer production is stopped and that beer is retired. Each beer is named after the age of the brewery, thus in 2005 the beer was named Shiner 96, the 2006 beer Shiner 97, and 2007's beer will be Shiner 98. The program will end in 2009 with Shiner 100. Below is a listing of each beer and their respective style:
- Shiner 96 — Märzen/Oktoberfest Ale
- Shiner 97 — Bohemian Black Lager
[edit] Current line of products
Shiner currently produces five beers year around and two seasonal brews. Below is Shiner's detailed information on each beer.[2]
[edit] Active beers
- Shiner Bock — Shiner's flagship beer. Bock has been brewed since 1913, almost as long as the Spoetzl Brewery has been in business. However, it wasn't until a few decades ago that Shiner began producing Bock year around. Bock was considered a lent beer, and therefore was only made around the holiday. Today 80% of the beer made at the Spoetzl Brewery is Bock.
- Shiner Light — Shiner Light is Shiner's first ever light beer, so needless to say they were very careful on selecting the right formula. Every bottle of Shiner Light is signed by a citizen of Shiner, Texas as an official approval that Light is good enough to carry the Shiner name. Before release, Shiner Light went through a "yes or no" taste-testing ballot by all the residents of Shiner, Texas. Shiner Light has the lowest production numbers out of all of the year around beers.
- Shiner Blonde — Blonde is the direct descendant of Shiner's earliest brew. Although Blonde has carried numerous names, such as Shiner Special and Shiner Texas Special, the recipe has been virtually unchanged since it was first brewed in 1909. For this reason, Blonde carries Brew Kettle No. 1 on its label.
- Shiner Hefeweizen — Hefeweizen is brewed with orange and lemon peels and pure Texas clover honey. Unfiltered, this cloudy brew is a classic Bavarian Wheat beer and is the only beer brewed that is not pasteurized. The character on the label is "Flip", who smiles at you when you pour Hefeweizen into a glass, which is the recommended way of serving it.
[edit] Seasonal beers
- Shiner Dunkelweizen — Dunkelweizen is a dark wheat ale, named to reflect the beer's German heritage. The bats on the logo are another tribute, they show the Mexican Free-tailed Bats of Austin, which was the first major city Shiner was "exported" to. Dunkelweizen was formerly known and sold as Shiner Winter Ale until 2005.
- Shiner Kölsch — Kölsch was fashioned after the legendary Kölsch beers of Cologne, Germany in the 1800s. Although the recipie is from Germany, the beer's horney toad is a nod to Shiner's Texas home. Kölsch was formerly known and sold as Shiner Summer Stock until 2005.
[edit] Trivia
- When visiting Austin, Texas in 1996 for a week long film festival, director Quentin Tarantino quipped that he was "draining the town of Shiner."[3]
- Shiner Bock is the number 1 selling Specialty beer in Texas.
- Shiner Light is the number 2 selling Specialty beer in Texas.
- Shiner Bock is the number 4 selling Specialty beer in the US.
- In the The X-Files episode "Je Souhaite", while watching Caddyshack at Mulder's apartment, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are shown drinking Shiner Bock beer.
[edit] Images
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[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.shiner.com/about/history.html -History of Shiner Bock from the Brewery website.
- ^ Shiner Product Coaster Pack. Spoetzel Brewery. August 15, 2005.
- ^ Hornaday, Ann. "Tarantino's film festival hits home with Austinites." Austin American-Statesman. Aug. 10, 1996. Page E-1.
[edit] External links
- Shiner.com - The official website.
- Gambrinus.com - Owning company's official site.
- TexasBreweries.com - Unofficial history.
