Old Breweries Converted into New Craft Breweries

We toured the Yuengling Tampa plant recently. They still have the original brew house for show/tours. It has a mass press (! That is cutting edge for some new breweries) and 2 550 bbl kettles.

The have put a new brew house online in the last year. 2x750 bbl kettles, a cereal cooker, and a mash lauter tuns.

The ownership was Schlitz, Strohs, Pabst, Strohs, Yuengling.

 

True, but the topic starter was looking for "converted" breweries, not breweries that had necessarily been "taken over."

 

Emerald City Brewing Company is located within the Rainier Brewery complex in Seattle.

 

Yeah, that was a strange deal - Pabst and Stroh "traded" breweries (just like baseball players!). Pabst had been involved in the infamous 3-way deal in which they bought Olympia (then Oly-Hamm-Lone Star) and Heileman bought Pabst, kept the brands and breweries they wanted (Lone Star, Blitz-Weinhard, Pabst's Georgia brewery, etc) and spun off a new "Pabst Brewing Co.".

At the same time, Stroh was under pressure from the DoJ's Anti-trust Div. to divest itself of some of it's capacity after buying all the Schlitz breweries/brands. So, they traded breweries - the former Hamm brewery in St. Paul, MN went to Stroh (Schlitz had closed Milwaukee before selling to Stroh, so they needed more mid-West capacity) and Pabst got a new southern home in Tampa since Heileman kept their most modern brewery in Pabst uh Perry, Ga.

I guess getting the old Hamm brewery also contributed to Stroh closing their flagship brewery in Detroit soon after.

A few years later, as Pabst continued its downhill slid after being bought by S&P's "brewery killer" Kalmanovitz, Stroh bought Tampa back, and both companies began to contract brew each others brands in regions where the other had no brewing capacity. And that's how Pabst wound up running, for a short time, the Allentown, PA area brewery that Boston Beer now owns. Pabst was so dependent on contracting by then, when Stroh closed they had no east coast facility. Soon after, Pabst went "all contract" or, to use their phrase, became a "virtual brewery", after closing Pearl in TX and selling the PA brewery to Diageo.

And others - like reefer-bob, barbaracas and Sixpoint - changed/broadened the topic. It was the latter's comment to which I was replying.

 

This bears further investigation.

Temptations...Stones just covered it.

 

Yep, you are correct Sir!!

 

Bube'
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1860/

 

My history may be off on this, but wasn't the original Smuttynose Brewery (or maybe it was Portsmouth) the site of the old Frank Jones Brewery?

 

You should give the tour!

 

Not an exact answer to the question, but somebody needs to take over the Jax Brewery in NOLA. Seems like somebody could make a killing by refurbishing and reopening there.

 

Wisconsin has a few:
Potosi in Potosi
Minhas in Monroe...was Huber and then Berghoff
Leinenkugel's in Chippewa Falls...same brewer, just more craft offerings
City in La Crosse...was G. Heileman's
Point in Steven's Point...same brewer, just more craft offerings

 

Yeah, I've been saying that for years - especially considering it's location (on the Mississippi and the edge of the French Quarter), its beauty and unusual (for a brewery) architecture, and the fact that it's already something of tourist site.



Shocking that Pabst (which probably owns the brand - if it's still registered - via their ownership of Pearl, since Pearl bought the brand when Jax folded) doesn't at least make (well, have Miller make or simply re-brand) a Jax draught to offer to local bars. IIRC Abita has used the name for special events' "one-off" beers?

 

In my recent return to NC (spent 5 years in Wilmington), I picked up some foothills and was very pleasantly surprised. Jade fucking ruled.

 

I was in New Orleans about 2 years ago and remember someone working the bar at Jax telling me the original brewery was shut down because they used contaminated water from the Mississippi throughout the 70's. Honestly, there is no legit source of water around NOLA for a good brewery and for a brewery to clean the water or purchase clean water would negate any profits they make.

 

And for those of you who are going to comment on breweries not using tap water..obviously. But they also dont use bottled water. So cleaning water still costs money.

 

Jesskidden squared me away on the hx at that site--see above.

Jade IPA is one of my favorites--now bottling it when they can catch up.

 

I looked at the NOLA city water report, it meets Tier One standards. Was there recently and the water tasted fine, even tough the source is the Mississippi.

Maybe @jesskidden can say more on why they closed.

Stone uses about half RO water. Many breweries treat the water, Yuengling in Tampa does (they have wells in a limestone aquifer, so not great for brewing). Read this for technical background if you are interested. Water

 

Yea the bartender at Jax said the water was definitely up to par now but back when the brewery was operating it was seriously impaired. Cool link though!

 

Lost Nation Brewing is in the old Rock Art Brewery building.

 

Indiana City in Indianapolis is in the building where the "Home Brewing Company" was located from 1880 - 1920.....