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• 1 media/biergarten.jpg 2017-02-23T09:29:30-08:00 Beer Gardens and the Picnic 14 Ethnic Foods in Beer Gardens plain 2017-04-26T12:25:39-07:00
  The great majority of beer gardens in rural areas sprang up out of a need for farmers and day laborers would toil all week in the fields, by the time Sunday came around they were all ready to relax and enjoy the company of others after church with food and drink. Local farmers would open their fields to the community to come picnic and drink beer. Children would play games as adults listened and danced to polka music played by their friends and neighbors, beer gardens were a community gathering every Sunday. There were no underground caverns where the beer was stored as had been the case in the Old World, and breweries were not selling beer to the community. These gardens were little more than picnics where the community would come together, bringing their own homebrews and food. Beer was undoubtedly the center piece of these gatherings, if not, we may be calling these events community picnics rather than beer gardens.
  
  
  The beer gardens became more popular, not only for farmers but the general public, business minded men created beer gardens to meet the demand.  In large cities beer gardens were created in large halls with frescoes of images of Old World beer gardens where the affluent would frequent. The entertainment became more sophisticated and more games were offered. Even bowling lanes were constructed. These daft businessmen designed menus with salty foods to increase beer sales, had professional musicians perform and many attractions. 
  
  In Wisconsin, competition was so fierce, "Lueddemans's Garden, for example, once featured a 'daring and beautiful' female performer who set fire to herself and plunged 40 feet into the river below, much to the delight of on-lookers." (Yesterday's Milwaukee) The vast majority of beer gardens in Wisconsin were run by the Breweries, with the largest being Schlitz Gardens.
  
  
• 1 media/Immigration_by_country.jpg media/20130620beergardenstory.jpg 2017-03-16T09:24:42-07:00 Beer Gardens and German Immigrants 12 The Relationship Between the Two plain 2017-04-24T17:16:21-07:00
  Beer gardens were brought to America by German immigrants as well as other Eastern Europeans. Immigrants were drawn to America for the promise of opportunity, land and a new start. There were also push factors that helped these people make the decision to leave their homelands such as war, religious persecution, economic turmoil, political unrest. German immigrants tended to settle in areas which had a similar climate to Germany. This gave them the opportunity to grow the same crops they had in Germany, wheat, barley, hops among others. A problem many German-Americans faced was a lack of quality beer. Germans had mastered the craft of making lagers, a pure delicious form of beer. The German-Americans worked hard throughout the week and each and every Sunday, after church, they would gather in parks, gardens or even on farms to enjoy beer, games, music and family in a uniquely German manner which was commonly called the beer garden. 
  
  The Americans of English decent favored ales, ports and India pale ales, none of which suited the German-Americans' taste. Germans started out small, making home brews and selling them to the local community in all parts of the colonies. After the Revolutionary War German-American beer became more popular mainly due to the high standards of the brew-masters. The German brews were renowned for their purity at a time when there were no standards regulating the quality or safety of commercially sold beer. Germans began large breweries in New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and eventually St. Louis. Wisconsin brewers began mass producing beer due to a high demand in New York City and Chicago. The location of Milwaukee made it ideal to serve this demand with high quality ingredients, pure water, and low shipping costs so Milwaukee brewers could keep prices competitive. The market expanded quickly for the Wisconsin beer barons and Milwaukee became the beer capitol of the world.