United Beverage Co., Menominee (1919-1933)

     Only the genuine "old timers" can remember the 18th or "Prohibition Amendment" to the United States Constitution which forbid the manufacture, sale, possession or consuming of alcohol beverages with a "kick" in it.
     All of this is to introduce a story that appeared in the Menominee Herald
on Nov. 13, 1922, about the conversion of the Leisen and Henes brewery and the Menominee (River) Brewing Co. Brewery into a firm called the "United Beverage Co." Here is the story:
     "Despite the fact that in all of 1916 the State of Michigan went arid by a
very large majority vote of it's citizens, and state after state voted to oust
beverages of all sorts that contained alcohol; that the legislatures in some 36
states afterwards ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution -- despite all of this, there is in Menominee today thousands of gallons of the best beer, genuine amber fluid, up to five or six percent alcohol by volume.
     "Just think of it , you fellows with the unquenchionable thirst, real old
beer actually in your midst! But, as the Ancient Mariner said, 'Water, water
everywhere, but not a drop to drink' -- so it is with this beer.
     "While it is not everywhere, it is here, and not a drop can trickle down the throat of the most parched individual. Strange as it may seem, hundreds pass daily within a stone's throw of this one-time thirst quencher, little realizing
that only a few steps would bring them alongside of immense stores of the fermented, undistilled extract of choice grains that have been aging (lagering) until the percentage of alcohol has been several times exceeded the Volsteadized creal drink called "near beer." As the Ancient Mariner would say today: 'Boys, there's a long DRY summer ahead of us.'
     "Furthermore, this beer is made exactly the same way to the minutest detail as it was made when advertised around here as 'The Best What Is,' or the The Beer That Made Milwaukee Jealous.' And remember those labels, 'Old Craft Brew, 'Silver Cream,' or 'Golden Drops'; or would you rather remember the 16-ounce bottles of this good stuff that used to be delivered to your door at a cost of product and delivery, of only 50 cents for a dozen bottles?
     "But, if the United Beverage Co. sold or gave away one bottle, glass, cup, or even one drop, it would cost them the $10,000 bond they have posted. Thus, there is nothing that exemplifies the 'so near and yet so far' as the barrels of four, five, six and even greater percent beer, that are waiting to be de-alcoholized.
     "To be de-alcoholized, the regular 'good' beer is returned to the kettles
and the alcohol is boiled out of it until less than one-half of one percent remains. It is then carbonated and put in bottles and barrels. There are two or three other ways to make the cereal beverage -- (the W.C.T.U. even refuses to refer to it as 'near beer') but neither satisfy our local brewmaster, Mr, H,G, Miller, who came to us from President Harding's home city of Marion, Ohio,
     "For a while the Badger State was not affected by the voluntary state
bans on alcholic beverages, the United Beverage Co, incorporated under the
laws of the State of Wisconsin in 1918, and built a bottling plant, refrigerator,
and ice houses at 1701 Pierce Avenue in Marinette, but then the entire nation went dry upon the passage of the 18th amendment, bottling was returned Menominee on January 5, 1921."
     The United Beverage Co., not wanting to lay off men, kept them employed in Menominee from 1916 until 1921. By then, according to the officer of the United Beverage Co., The hard struggle was the keep the plant agoing, but most of the obstacles have been overcome and the company is doing a thriving business. It now serves a much larger territory because of the 13 breweries that operated in the Upper Peninsula before prohibition, only two others are operating -- one in Sault Ste. Marie and the other one in Escanaba. Gone are five in the Copper Country, one in Iron Mountain, one in Bessemer, one in Marquette, one in Ironwood and a smaller one in Escanaba besides the two that became one in Menominee.
     Like many breweries, United Beverage also added a line of carbonated
soft drinks called "pop" which gave punsters their famous line --"We don't know where mom is, but we have pop on ice." Menominee's pops were orange, strawberry, raspberry, cherry, peach, lemon sour, lemon soda, cream soda and root beer. They also made Indian Rock Ginger Ale, grape cider and a product we had never heard of called "Birch Beer," which was sold in kegs or bottles.
     The 1922 officers of United Beverage were Frank Erdlitz, president and
general manager; Wolfgang Reindl, vice president; John Henes, secretary; and Joseph Leisen, treasurer. John Lewitz was the auditor.
     As for "Near Beer" -- we still think Will Rodgers evaluated it best when he said "The fellow that named it was a durned poor judge of distance"

Revised: December 30, 2006