With the number of American breweries now exceeding 8,000, more and more beer businesses are looking for novel ways to compete for drinkers’ taste buds and attention. Some businesses may try transforming their taprooms into community spaces. Some host comedians, or game nights, or other themed events. And some breweries advertise their taprooms as something more.
Take, for example, Pabst Brewing Company, whose rebranded taproom and pilot brewery, Captain Pabst Pilot House, is home to—among other things—a full-scale concert venue. Other breweries have taken the philosophy of providing their guests with unique experiences, like running a beer-themed hotel complete with taps in every room. BrewDog opened its DogHouse Hotel in Columbus, Ohio in 2018, pitching its accommodations as the ultimate experience for the craft beer fan.
Although these efforts may seem to represent the latest wave in craft beer’s evolution, they have surprising historical precedent. From the outset of the 19th-century brewing industry in Milwaukee, the breweries there—dominated by the “Big Four” of Miller, Pabst, Blatz, and Schlitz—sought to entice their customers with unique experiences, ranging from simple beer gardens to extravagant amusement parks, hotels, and resorts.
By examining these efforts, we can gain insight into the beer tourism of yesteryear, and see that, while modern breweries have greatly evolved when it comes to providing drinkers with new attractions, they still have a long way to go if they want to match the innovations of pre-Prohibition Milwaukee.
One of the main attractions in the early days of Milwaukee’s brewing industry doesn’t seem especially exotic: the humble beer garden. With many of Milwaukee’s 19th-century immigrants coming from Germany, beer gardens quickly became a fixture of the city’s culture, and still hold a place in its beer scene today. Those early Milwaukee beer gardens existed primarily as community gathering places, much as they did in the old country.
One brewery, owned by Fred Miller, had a thriving beer garden that was well-known throughout the region. Miller had bought his brewery operation (which included the on-site beer garden) in 1855 from Charles Best, brother of Phillip Best, whose brewery would later become Pabst.
To say Miller’s Plank Road Brewery was on the outskirts of Milwaukee would’ve been an exaggeration. In the 1850s, it was in the middle of nowhere. Most patrons who visited the brewery in the early years were businessmen and workers traveling on the Watertown Plank Road, which passed right by the venue. In order to lure thirsty patrons from the city, Miller needed to make his brewery a destination.
“Miller’s Garden was mecca for numberless people as the weather was delightful … Seated at a rustic table beneath leafy bower, men and women, staid and middle aged, during pauses in the friendly conversation, sipped their amber lager.”
He did this by reopening the Bests’ beer garden in 1858. The open-air space comprised a large pavilion atop a bluff that overlooked both the brewery and the surrounding Menomonee River Valley. Visitors to the beer garden could watch as wildlife frolicked through the wild rice marshes that lined the river—a far cry from the increasingly industrial city. Miller also added a lush garden to the hillside around the pavilion, further making for a peaceful and quaint retreat.
Getting people to make the several-mile journey to visit the beer garden in an era before automobiles required clever thinking from Miller. Every weekend, he chartered an omnibus—a large, horse-drawn carriage—to shuttle guests from the congested city to his country beer garden for an afternoon of beer-filled relaxation. An account from 1873 in the Milwaukee Sentinel describes the scene: “Miller’s Garden was mecca for numberless people as the weather was delightful … Seated at a rustic table beneath leafy bower, men and women, staid and middle aged, during pauses in the friendly conversation, sipped their amber lager.”
However, this charming scene would not last. Unfortunately, a fire destroyed most of the Miller Garden in 1891. By 1909, its last remnants were torn down.
By the end of the 19th century, as Milwaukee became more industrialized and its beer industry became a national force, breweries offered ever more lavish experiences for their patrons. In doing so, they moved even further into the realm of tourism.
In a clear attempt to attract visitors, the big Milwaukee breweries—Blatz, Miller, Pabst, and Schlitz—all held associations with hotels as a means of projecting industry dominance. In Thomas Cochran’s 1948 history of Pabst, “Pabst Brewing Company: The History of an American Business,” he posits that: “Captain Pabst’s policy of establishing expensive retail outlets such as hotels and restaurants rested ultimately on the expectation that the association of Pabst Beer with certain smart places would create a demand for it everywhere.”
Pabst employed this strategy to break into the coveted New York City market. According to Cochran, the business used its posh hotel in NYC to compete with 1890s New York beer baron George Ehret’s 1,000 brewery-owned saloons, known as tied houses. The Pabst Hotel positioned the brewery’s beer as an exclusive—even glamorous—new option for New York drinkers. Pabst also made similar investments in Chicago and San Francisco.
Hotels were additionally used by Milwaukee breweries to show dominance closer to home. Miller maintained an inn above its on-site tavern, while Blatz and Schlitz provided high-end accommodations in downtown Milwaukee (Blatz literally positioned its hotel next to the seat of municipal power, City Hall). Meanwhile, Schlitz operated the European Hotel on downtown Milwaukee’s notable Grand Avenue for three years, starting in 1886. The venue was so successful it was renamed the Schlitz Hotel.
The Schlitz Hotel quickly became the epicenter of Milwaukee high society. Cherry woodwork complemented the 85-foot-long hotel barroom, complete with stained-glass windows looking out on a bustling Grand Avenue, a street which the city’s wealthiest citizens frequented.
“Captain Pabst’s policy of establishing expensive retail outlets such as hotels and restaurants rested ultimately on the expectation that the association of Pabst Beer with certain smart places would create a demand for it everywhere.”
As the hotel became more successful, the decision was made to expand on the structure. In 1896, the Schlitz Palm Garden was born. An indoor beer garden at its core, it was also a symbol of the city’s brewing supremacy.
At the time, palms were a fashionable Victorian accessory that explored notions of exoticism. The plants were meant to telegraph far-away lands, and the themed venues became places where visitors could display their wealth and savvy. Such was the purpose of the Palm Garden (and the Palm Room at Captain Pabst’s Mansion, on the other end of Grand Avenue): if you couldn’t afford palms at home, a visit to the Palm Garden was an affordable alternative. Conversely, rich patrons felt right at home among the Palm Garden’s opulence.
Following the Schlitz Palm Garden’s opening on June 4th, 1896, the Milwaukee Journal proclaimed, “Jolly Gambrinus never had such a temple - palms twenty-five feet high - eight hundred electric lights.” Featuring massive arched ceilings, the venue was a cathedral to beer. Large double doors opened into the luxury of the Schlitz Hotel dining room for overflow crowds, furthering the display of extravagance.
Today’s drinkers can imagine what it may have been like to eat at the Palm Garden, thanks to a menu preserved at the Milwaukee County Historical Society. Both wealthy patrons and those looking for affordable entertainment found themselves at home. The Palm Garden catered to a more affluent crowd with menu items like an Imperial Westphalian Ham, which went for 60 cents. (For comparison, some Christmas dinners at nearby establishments might cost 60 cents for a multi-course meal.) If you just wanted a beer and a snack, however, a sandwich would cost between 15 and 35 cents, supplying you with enough sustenance for plenty of Schlitz Beer.
The notoriety of the Schlitz Palm Garden soon spread, and the venue became a must-see Milwaukee attraction for visitors from other Lake Michigan ports like Chicago. Musicians, dancing, and plenty of beer—one account says 40 barrels were consumed per day—became part of the Schlitz Palm Garden’s mystique.
The Palm Garden also attracted the day’s movers and shakers. On Christmas Day, 1914, famed illusionist Harry Houdini ate dinner there with his vaudeville co-stars, as they were performing at the Majestic Theatre next door. President William McKinley made a stop at the Palm Garden, as did Woodrow Wilson. The Palm Garden was so successful that Schlitz tried to replicate the design not only within the city of Milwaukee—a second Palm Garden building still exists in the southside Walker’s Point neighborhood—but also across the nation, with Palm Gardens erected in places like Bismarck, North Dakota and Chicago.
However, Prohibition later claimed the Palm Garden at the Schlitz Hotel. The venue was so tied with the beer culture of Milwaukee that the Milwaukee Sentinel reported that, on the eve of Prohibition, a lone trumpeter walked in the Palm Garden and began playing “Taps”—effectively signaling the end of an era.
The Schlitz Hotel was later converted into retail spaces, while the Palm Garden turned into a movie theater, and remained one until the building was demolished in 1964. The magic of the space was not to be recaptured, even after Prohibition’s repeal.
While Schlitz and Blatz promoted themselves through hotels located in Milwaukee, Pabst—though it owned a hotel downtown—also sought to cater to guests thirsty for both beer and adventure at its Whitefish Bay Resort. The Village of Whitefish Bay, just a few miles north of Milwaukee on the Lake Michigan shore, was very much a sleepy fishing community until 1888, when Frederick Pabst spent $30,000 building the summer pleasure attraction. The resort comprised a luxurious pavilion, a beer garden overlooking Lake Michigan, and an amusement park, complete with a ferris wheel. On summer Sundays in the 1890s, it drew as many as 15,000 people each day. The construction and further popularity of the resort led to a building boom in Whitefish Bay, which is now an affluent suburb of Milwaukee.
Pabst also knew that the key to retaining customers was to provide them with unique experiences closer to home. Since both Blatz and Schlitz had parks, Pabst had to have one, too. These were not the leafy enclaves we think of today. Instead, the breweries’ parks were full-scale marketing endeavors, with plenty of opportunities to drink beer on the side. Blatz Park touted its restaurant in a secluded, wooded setting, where guests could watch canoe paddlers drift by on the river that ran through it. Pabst Park bragged that it was on the highest point in Milwaukee, and thus had the best views to complement its famous beer. Pabst Park also had an amusement park complete with a funhouse called Katzenjammer Castle, and a mile-long toboggan ride that invited riders to coast on a figure-eight course featuring replicas of the North Pole and Venice, as well as artificial waterfalls.
“The venue was so tied with the beer culture of Milwaukee that the Milwaukee Sentinel reported that, on the eve of Prohibition, a lone trumpeter walked in the Palm Garden and began playing ‘Taps’—effectively signaling the end of an era.”
Live music was also a large draw. Schlitz Park offered 12 weeks of German opera every summer between 1885 and 1893 in the park’s concert hall. Captain Pabst wanted to take advantage of this musical trend, and sponsored Das Neue Deutsche Stadt-Theater (The New German City Theater) in 1890, later changing the name to the Pabst Theater. While Captain Pabst was in Europe in 1895, he received a telegram that the theatre had been decimated by fire. So important was this cultural landmark to both Milwaukee and the Pabst brand that Captain Pabst saw to it that the venue was rebuilt at once.
While the German-speaking plays and operas disappeared during the anti-German sentiment of World War I, the Pabst Theater did not. Though it is no longer affiliated with the brewery, it is the only structure from this article that has survived to the present day. It remains a reminder of the unconventional ventures and marketing schemes that the breweries of old Milwaukee invested in—all to try and convince the public that their brand was truly the best.
Of course, these weren’t the only attempts to solidify brewing dominance in Milwaukee. And yes, there were other breweries in other cities that also attempted large marketing schemes. But these venues represented a pivotal moment in time—one during which four of the largest companies in the beer industry existed in a single locale. Not unlike today’s breweries, which are fiercely competing for beer drinkers’ attention, the breweries of pre-Prohibition Milwaukee found it necessary to not only present their customers with a fine product, but to serve up memorable experiences as a means of surviving and thriving.
Words, John HarryIllustrations, Araña Schulke
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