The Chelsea Standard
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Beer bottle provides clues to the past
By George Sparrow, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: May 29, 2008
The next artifact from the Pierce Lake Interurban collection I was able to research provides a lesson on the beer-brewing history of Ann Arbor, prior to Prohibition.
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This amber beer bottle, partially broken at the stem (see photo), measures 7 inches at the tip of the broken stem, with a bottom diameter of 2-1/2 inches.
In an arc just below the shoulder are the words, "Michigan Union Brg. (Brewing) Co." Underneath those words in the arc appears an eagle, facing left atop a Union shield. Underneath the shield are the words "Ann Arbor, Mich." and "Registered."
Next appear the enigmatic words, "Pure and Without Drugs or Poison." On the reverse side of the bottle, just above the bottom rim, appears the inscription, "MBRG Co."
Ann Arbor has had a long history of breweries within its city limits.
Peter Broehm and John Royer founded the most successful of those, on South Fourth Avenue, between Liberty and West Madison streets. Broehm soon bought out Royer and he then purchased another (City Brewery).
In the late 1870s, after Broehm's passing, Frank Ruck purchased the brewery from Broehm's widow. The main, two-story building and basement occupied an area of 1,800 square feet.
In 1880, it was purchased by Chris Martin and Matt Fischer. It was during their ownership that the brewery grew from 3,000 to 30,000 barrels by 1906.
In 1902 brick buildings replaced the old wooden structures with a four-story brewing house. The name was changed to Michigan Union Brewing Company as a tip of the hat to the local Bartenders and Brewers Union.
Martin was the brewmaster and Fischer was the foreman of the bottle shop. Getting the product to the customer was mostly a matter of delivering to saloons and restaurants in town.
Teamsters in the early years made regular deliveries to outlying areas with weekly trips to Dexter and Saline. In 1915, after purchasing a locally made Star truck, Milan and Whitmore Lake were added to the list.
Records of the company, located in the Ann Arbor District Library, do not reveal when or if deliveries were made to Chelsea.
Prohibition brought an end to the beer-brewing part of the company in 1920, and like many breweries of the time it switched over to the manufacturing of ice cream until 1932, when it was purchased by Charles Ackerman.
He began to brew beer in that year and renamed it the Ann Arbor Brewing Company, which remained open until 1947.
Two years later the building and company closed, ending the brewing of beer in Ann Arbor until the last decade of the 20th century.
As to the date of the manufacturing of the bottle, the earliest is easily determined because it has a seam running from the bottom up the side.
This means that it was made by an automatic bottle machine, which was developed in the early part of the 20th century.
The closest I could come to the actual date was 1905 or '06, depending on the source you happen upon.
Further evidence of the date of manufacture is the admonition on the side of the bottle, "Pure and Without Drugs or Poison."
In the early part of the 20th century, Congress raised great concerns about the content of liquids offered for sale to the public due to several scandalous episodes involving deaths and/or permanent debilitating results from the ingestion of some of these items.
At the 1904 St. Louis Exposition, proponents of a "pure food act" set up a booth next to prominent food manufacturers and displayed colored silks made from the dyes used by major firms in their food products.
In 1906, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act. It set the standard for drugs included in food products as additives; for example, if a product contained any of 11 ingredients such as morphine or opium.
A common over-the-counter product prior to the Act was laudanum, which contained a full gram of opium in a pint-sized bottle of whiskey!
This would help date our bottle as later than 1906. Then the next question to be resolved was to find the last possible date our bottle could have been made.
Little did I anticipate what a long journey this would be. An obvious end date would be 1919 with the passage of the 18th Amendment (Prohibition). But I wanted to narrow it down even more. I went to the University of Michigan Graduate Library in Ann Arbor looking for help.
I found several books on beer labels but they were not of much help; the labels pictured were not identified by year.
Needing more help, I looked on the Internet for a Web site. I found americanbreweriana.org, which led me to several experts to whom I addressed my questions with varying results. But before I could do so, I was told that I had to become a member.
So now I am an official member (No. 9276) of the American Breweriana Association Inc.
I asked Bob Kay, an expert on beer labels, the question of when this bottle might have been made.
"I am not really sure, but I think those statements were optional on beer labels," he answered.
What to do? Here is my best guess, based on the information I have presented.
This bottle was made between 1906 and 1918, with the better view being closer to the earlier date.
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