I put this one on the list because I’ve always meant to go on a Cincinnati ArchiTREKS tour, which is an architectural tour of Downtown. However, this year these tours are only being offered to groups by request. This is a perfect example of why you should not put things off until “someday”. Seize the day and stuff. Because like canned pumpkin season (more on that next week), all good things must come to an end.
So I’ve been scouting Groupon for a suitable alternative. I had heard good things about the Cincinnati Brewery Tours and found a two-for-$16 deal for the Prohibition Resistance Tour. This is put on by the Brewery District Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation and starts at the Moerlein Malthouse Tap Room on Moore Street.
The tap room is in a cavernous space with long “beer hall” style tables and benches. Moerlein will always hold a special place in my heart because their “OTR” is the first craft beer I had when I learned WHAT IS UP and traded in Coors Light for the finer things in life.
The tour starts with the usual stuff: Cincinnati was founded in 1788, formerly known as Losantiville, Over-the-Rhine gets its name from the canal which ran along present day Central Parkway and reminded the German immigrants of the Rhine river, Italianate architecture is characterized by its decorative cornices and lintels. The stuff all good Cincinnatians have heard one time or a hundred.
But that’s where my prior knowledge ended and things got interesting.
The theme of the tour is that Over-the-Rhine’s rise and fall and current rebirth are all linked to the beer industry. Mike, our tour guide, started by painting a striking picture of a neighborhood originally built for 50,000 people. He had us imagine residential, industrial, and commercial uses co-mingling on streets teeming with people, animals, carts, and carriages.
He then outlined the importance of the neighborhood’s breweries to the economy. All told, Cincinnati had 36 breweries--half of those in OTR and half of those on McMicken Street, or “Brewers’ Boulevard.” Much of the beer brewed in the city was consumed locally. While the average per capita beer consumption in the United States was like 18 gallons a year, in Cincinnati it was 40 gallons.
These figures are based on my recollection--I wasn’t taking notes although I should have been knowing that I would need to repeat these details here.
Also, I just did the math and calculated that I drink approximately 30.66 gallons of beer a year, which is almost double the national average but not even close to local standards.
Mike talked about the tough conditions for the brewery employee which included long work days, dangerous conditions, and low wages. Although the beer barons were known for being philanthropic, they weren’t so generous with their own employees. Some of the workers were paid in beer, which made the working conditions even more dangerous.
As we descended below ground into an old lagering cellar, we learned a little bit of “beer science”, which unfortunately for me went in one ear and out the other. I just asked Donnie if he remembered why the lagering cellars needed to be built so far below street level and we couldn’t agree about whether it was to prevent or promote fermentation. We know it needed to be forty degrees, but why?
Obviously, we will never be home brewers.
I do remember that the invention of refrigeration made the lagering cellars effectively obsolete and most of them were covered up and are now being rediscovered as the neighborhood is redeveloped.
We also learned that the bottling operations were required by law to be across a public right-of-way from the breweries. This is because it was easier to tax beer by the keg than by the bottle. Eventually, an act of congress allowed brewers to connect their bottling facilities to their breweries and so many of them built tunnels like this one to avoid having to cross the busy streets.
And then Prohibition. Imagine what happens to a neighborhood built around an industry that is suddenly, well, prohibited. But today, Cincinnati is practically the epicenter of the craft brewery boom. Rhinegeist, Hudepohl, Rivertown, Mad Tree, Fifty West, Rock Bottom, Listermann, Mt. Caramel, Blank Slate, Sam Adams. And those are just the ones I can think of without Googling.
Rise up, Cincinnati! And cheers.
-K.
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