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I am sure that most of you dear readers will know by now that there is going to be a new business coming to downtown Steubenville soon. If all goes to plan, next year we will be enjoying drinks at the new OYO Brewing Company on Market and S. Fourth St. This brewery will be the first in Steubenville since about 1919 but our brewing past goes back to our very beginnings as a community. I thought it would be interesting to look at our brewing heritage here in town.
A number of years ago I purchased a book called Brewing Beer in the Ohio Valley by Dr. Robert A Musson. This book is part of a series that explores brewing in the Buckeye State. According to his website, Dr. Musson has published quite a few regional history books that all seem super interesting and worth the read. The copy I have covers East Liverpool, Steubenville, Martins Ferry, Bellaire, Marietta, and other points south along the river. I am not sure that I realized just how many breweries used to be here in our stretch of Eastern Ohio. That is not to mention the breweries that were located on the West Virginia side.
The first mention of a brewery that I could find was a note in The Western Herald of Oct 27, 1815. The text explains that "The brewery will be in operation this winter and it will want to send its porter and beer down the river." This article was in regard to a new steamboat in Steubenville that would be able to transport goods via river traffic. There was a distillery in Steubenville even earlier than this first brewery and it was established in 1798 by a Mr. P. Snyder. This distillery was located at the head of Adams St and is now the location of Famous Supply. This formerly was the location of the City's last brewery as you will read. This early operation lasted only a few years until about 1800. Mr. Snyder seemed to do other work in Steubenville as the story goes because in 1803, he was very famously buried alive when a well he was working in collapsed at Market Square, today just across Market street from the Jefferson County Courthouse. According to a few sources it took them two to three days to extract him.
According to Musson that first brewery, The Steubenville Brewery, did begin operations in 1815 and was operated by Andrew Dunlap on North Third St. Their offerings included Strong Beer, Common Beer, Strong Ale, Fine Pale Ale, Porter and Table Beer. This list, reproduced in the Musson book, was published in March of 1817 from the Steubenville Western Herald. The operation lasted a good number of year although it was sold a few times. At one point it was owned by Steubenville founder Bazaleel Wells. In 1846 the city's first brewery was sold to make way for a tenement.
In 1819 another brewery was established by Alexander Armstrong on Water St. near Washington St. This brewery had a few different operators over many years but by the 1830's or 40's the brewery was leased to Joseph Basler. He moved the operation to a new location on S. High Street by 1852.
For us at Fort Steuben, this brewery is especially important as it was located almost right in the middle of the reconstructed fort, naturally after the original fort disappeared. Joseph and Max Basler along with their father Joseph Basler Sr. occupied several dwellings on the east and west side of S. High St. The Basler's were immigrants to the US from their native Baden, Germany and upon arriving in Steubenville they engaged in a variety of businesses but most importantly worked to establish a brewery. Basler had at one time leased the Steubenville Brewery in 1836. In 1852 a new brewery building was erected directly across S. High Street from the Basler's and Judge Miller's place with the number 130. Judge Miller's home is currently being excavated in the dig in
Historic Fort Steuben. Basler's business did a good trade in Steubenville for a number of years. In 1875 though, disaster struck when a 2-ton boiler exploded on the upper level of the brewery practically destroying the building and several neighboring residences. The explosion ejected the iron boiler over three hundred feet away. Luckily no one was seriously injured in the blast. The buildings were rebuilt, and work began again until 1883 when a fire partially destroyed the facility. That unfortunately spelled the end of the Basler brewery.
Musson mentions another brewery that was established by Ernhart Shaffer a native of Wurttemberg, Germany on Third Street in 1859. It seemed to be successful as it moved to Third and Washinton St in 1862 and was producing at one time close to 1,000 barrels annually. It closed, according to Musson circa 1877.
The most well-known and longest lasting brewery in town was no doubt the City Brewery. This brewery was established in 1860 near the location of the first distillery in 1798 at Adams and S. 9th street. The brewery was established by John Butte an immigrant from Ahlen, Kassel, Germany. Carl Miller wrote a fantastic article in the Herald Star, Feb 28, 1996, about our city's breweries said that "in order to achieve the cold temperature necessary for aging lager beer, Butte excavated cellars 100 feet deep into the solid rock hillside adjacent to his brewery." There were a series of owners and operators of the brewery from the 1870s through 1896 when John Buehler purchased the business. Buehler modernized and expanded the operation by adding artificial refrigeration making the cellars obsolete, but he was not finished updating the site yet. According to Miller, Buehler built a new brewhouse, stock house and a new power plant for the operation. Miller goes on to say that Buehler added a new bottleing plant "adjacent to the brewery, and, in 1907 Buehler introduced a bottled beer called Steuben Brew. The new Steuben Brew became the feature product among the brewery's other brands - City Brew, Pale American, and Select." Before this, beer made in Steubenville was sold mostly in kegs.
In 1908 though trouble was brewing (no pun intended) for local brewery's, not just in Steubenville but in the state of Ohio in general. In that year the Rose Law was passed by the state legislature allowing individual counties to vote to close public saloons. Jefferson County voted by a wide margin to become dry resulting in the closure of 141 saloons in the county of which around 80 were in Steubenville. Miller says that illegal saloons and speakeasies popped up throughout the county and the brewery was cited as a source of the trouble. Buehler was still permitted to manufacture beer and sell it to other counties and to private homes. In 1910 the brewery was idled until the law was retracted. By 1912, Jefferson County voted to relegalize saloons and the brewery reopened as the Steuben Brewing Company. This iteration was short lived as in 1918 Ohio was voted dry with sales of alcohol becoming illegal in May of 1919. After this, the brewery made soft drinks and near-beer as the Steuben Beverage Works. Later it was leased to produce malt syrups but by 1924 all operations ceased. After the end of prohibition in 1933, Miller says that there was momentum to reorganize the brewery as the Fort Steuben Brewing Co. by members of the Steubenville Pure Milk Co. who then owned the buildings but plans never went forward. Buehler and his son Charles who was working then with the company moved to Peoria, Ill and eventually became a high ranking official of the Pabst Brewing Co. The old City Brewery complex is still in existence as it has been the home of Famous Supply since 1960.
With the opening of OYO Brewing Company, Steubenville will once again be the home of a local brewery continuing a tradition started way back in 1815 and that's something to toast.