Breweries of Wisconsin
The breweries of Wisconsin were born out of a demand for pure beer that could not be met in large cities. The breweries in New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago were unable to meet the demand for beer in the fast growing cities during the Great Migration. Their inability to meet demand opened new markets for brewers in Wisconsin. Milwaukee, with access to shipping harbors, was destined to become the boom town for the beer business.
The German-brewed beer which came out of Wisconsin was much more pure and flavorful than beer produced in New York and Philadelphia which were the leading producers on the eastern seaboard. "During much of the eighteenth century the urban water supply was so unclean...people had to depend on beer." The purity was a marketing tool used by the larger breweries in Wisconsin but their ability to produce beer at a low cost and ship it cold, due to the abundant availability of Wisconsin ice, kept them competitive with local breweries from Chicago to New Orleans.
The business of beer boomed in the 1840s. In 1844 over one thousand German immigrants settled in Milwaukee each week, most finding jobs in the breweries of the city. This population boom also made a ready market for German lagers, which was the most popular beer produced in Wisconsin and easily in Milwaukee. There was a explosion in German immigration during this period throughout the country. German-Americans drank beer in great quantities, "in 1850 they had brewed just 36 million gallons, by 1870 their output had soared to more than 550 million." The expansion in the market for lagers and the increase of good cheap labor poised Milwaukee to become the beer producing capitol of the world. The brewers formed the United States Brewers' Association, a collection of German-American brewery owners aimed at fighting off temperance movements and protecting the business interests of the industry, which happened to be the fifth largest industry in America at the time.
