![[Photo: Schmidt Brewery, Saint Paul]](images/content/schmidt_brewery.jpg)
Site submitted by: Steve Lee
River Mile 842.00 — Right Descending Bank
History
Industry
A bit off the river on 7th Street.
In 1855 Christopher Stahlmann's Cave Brewery opened at Fort Road and Oneida, using the area's cool natural springs and caves. Caves were excavated deeper, allowing Stahlmann's to produce 40,000 barrels of beer by 1884 (Brueggeman, Gary. December notes). In 1855 the North Star Brewery started on Dayton's Bluff. Jacob Schmidt's daughter married Adolph Bremer, who joined the brewing business, and who moved the North Star Brewery to West Seventh Street in 1899, where the Stahlmann Brewery had been operating. Therafter it was called the Jacob Schmidt Brewery. Otto Bremer, a banker, joined his brother. The Schmidt Brewery was rumored to have continued brewing real beer through Prohibition, providing it to the infamous Green Lantern Lounge, which was frequented by gangsters and politicians. Adolf Bremer's son Edward was kidnapped by the Barker-Karpis Gang in 1934. Edward was released after payment of a $200,000 ransom. The Bremer family sold the Brewery in 1955 (Bremer Foundation Web site; Maccabee, Paul. pp. 183-204).
In 1975 new Grain Belt owner Irwin Jacobs sold the Grain Belt label and distribution network to G.Heileman Company, then the owner of the Schmidt Brewery. In 1990 the Schmidt Brewery was closed. But in 1991 a new group of investors formed the Minnesota Brewing Company, and brewed beers such as Landmark, Pig's Eye (named after St.Paul's Founding Father), and McMahon's Genuine Irish Potato Ale. The new owners also bought the rights to the Grain Belt label from Heileman (Lonto, Jeff. pp. 30-40). The Company joined a movement towards producing fuels from grains by opening Gopher State Ethanol on the site. Gopher State ferments corn to alcohol to be added to gasoline. This can be an even more odorous process than was beer brewing. Gopher State's odors have triggered numerous neighborhood complaints and lawsuits. In 2002 the brewery operations were closed, and the Grain Belt recipe and labels were sold to the Schell Brewery in New Ulm. Thus the Grain Belt Beer story, which started on Minneapolis' Brewery Flats, then went to NE Minneapolis, then migrated to St.Paul along Fort Road, has continued, still in Minnesota. Now that all brewing and ethanol operations at the site have closed, various schemes for use of this site are being floated.
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