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Drewrys Brewery: Celebrating History with Cream Ale

In 1933, when the United States was deep in the throes of the Great Depression, patience with the thirteen-year-old “noble experiment” of Prohibition had waned. It had turned millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens into scofflaws and provided a huge source of income for organized criminals who were only too happy to cater to the public’s thirst. One of the earliest acts of newly inaugurated President Franklin Roosevelt, who had campaigned on a pledge to end Prohibition, was to shepherd through Congress the Cullen-Harrison Act, which again legalized beer with an alcohol content of 3.2 percent or less by weight (4 percent by volume). The night before he signed the bill, the President remarked to guests at a small dinner, “I think this would be a good time for beer.”

The act took effect on Friday April 7, 1933. Grateful for the opportunity to reopen, and seeking publicity, brewers in at least four cities sent beer to the White House on that day. Two cases were shipped by chartered airplane on behalf of seven Milwaukee breweries. Notable among the other beers was one brewed in Evansville, Indiana, with the intriguing name of Drewrys Canadian Ale.

Born in the UK

How a beer with a name associated with Canada had a role to play in US history is an interesting story, one that like so many other North American brewing legacies begins with immigration. E. L. (Edward Lancaster) Drewry was born in England, in London in 1851. His interest in brewing came naturally, as his father was a brewer. In 1857 the family immigrated to St. Paul, Minnesota, where they founded the North Star Brewery and young E. L. learned the trade. By 1874 he was able to find a position as manager of a brewery in Pembina, Dakota Territory. Today it is a quiet small town in North Dakota near the Minnesota and Canadian borders, but at the time it was a rollicking frontier settlement.

There were even greater opportunities farther north. The nearest place of any size was 70 miles away in the growing Canadian city of Winnipeg, and in 1877 Drewry again moved in order to take over the lease of the Redwood Brewery that had closed. In 1881 he purchased the brewery outright, and a year later production was 20,000 barrels. Business grew with the booming city’s population. Drewry was civic-minded and took an interest in his adopted hometown. He was elected to the city council and became Winnipeg’s first parks chairman; he also served in the Manitoba Legislature. In 1927 he helped to found Western Breweries Limited, a consortium of several Canadian breweries, including his own.

Southern Exposure

By the early 1930s, it was apparent that Prohibition would end in the US. Drewrys was among the Canadian brewers who had not ceased operations and now eyed the large potential market just to the south. The preferred choice would have been to create a US subsidiary and brew in the US, which would avoid import duties on foreign beer and enable distribution from a US location. However, at the time US law limited foreign ownership of US breweries. The alternative was to enter into a licensing agreement with an existing US brewer, which is exactly what Drewrys did with Sterling Brewers of Evansville, Indiana. Production at Sterling continued under license until 1936. By then Drewrys had decided the best strategy was to create a separate American company under majority American ownership, and the newly incorporated Drewrys Ltd. USA purchased the Muessel Brewing Co. of South Bend, Indiana, which had reopened but had not prospered after Prohibition’s repeal. The Muessel beers were discontinued and equipment was upgraded so that brewing of the Drewrys brands could begin.
Meanwhile, E. L. Drewry died in 1940. The original brewery in Winnipeg was closed and Canadian operations absorbed into Western Breweries, which eventually became part of Molson Breweries (now Molson Coors). Drewrys survived south of the border, where it became solely an American beer. They continued to acknowledge its Canadian roots, however, with the figure of a red-uniformed Mountie that appeared on labels and cans into the 1970s.

Rumor has it that the Mountie disappeared when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police filed an objection, but there is no record of this. The brand developed a regional following in an area of the Midwest bounded roughly by northern Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois. The most popular of their beers was Drewrys Extra Dry lager. Drewrys was one of the first brewers to stress drinkability, a trend that continues into today with American light beer. Ads as early as the 1960s foreshadowed a more modern slogan for another popular beer, boasting that Drewrys was “less filling, more satisfying!” They were also one of the first brewers to use aluminum cans, and pointed out that the lighter cans (and by extension lighter beer) allowed them to float in a cooler. Another campaign marked one of the rare times a brewery promoted a specific brewing ingredient, touting Drewrys as “the beer with Fuggle hops.” One radio commercial featured “the Fuggle Hop” as a dance craze with a catchy beat.

Times Were A-Changin’

Drewrys made one acquisition in 1951 with the purchase of Atlas Brewing in Chicago. Two of Drewrys major shareholders also owned an interest in Associated Brewery Co., which resulted in 1962 from the merger of two Detroit breweries, Pfeiffer and E&B, which had acquired other smaller brewers. They offered Drewrys a stronger distribution network and the opportunity to expand, and in 1963 Drewrys was folded into Associated. Production at the South Bend brewery was 1.25 million barrels in 1965. The 1960s and ‘70s were a period of major consolidation for American brewers as regional players jockeyed to become national brands. By 1972 Associated found itself a target of Wisconsin brewer G. Heileman, which was swallowing up regional brands in a major expansion move. Heileman had excess capacity at other breweries, and one of their first actions was to close the South Bend facility. More than 300 workers lost their jobs; today the building and site remain empty, still awaiting redevelopment efforts. Ironically, production of Drewrys beers was shifted to the former Sterling brewery in Evansville, where they had originally been brewed following the end of Prohibition.
In a highly competitive market, Heileman stressed low price, and so Drewrys became a “value-priced” brand aimed at budget-minded consumers. It was one of the earlier beers offered in the 40-oz. (1.18-liter) bottle that has become a staple for low-income beer drinkers.

Heileman itself struggled in the 1980s, eventually filing for bankruptcy reorganization and selling off some of its brands and assets. Among these were Drewrys and the Evansville brewery. After a brief closure in 1988, a group of local investors that included three former brewers purchased and reopened the brewery under the name of the Evansville Brewing Co.

They continued to brew Drewrys, along with other brands and contract beverages, until 1997, when they sold the company to Pittsburgh Brewing. The last can of Drewrys left the brewery in November 1997 when it closed its doors. Pittsburgh Brewing never resurrected the brand. Beset by its own financial woes, the company shuttered its flagship Pittsburgh brewery in 2007. Today its beers are contract brewed at the former Rolling Rock brewery in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, now owned by City Brewery of La Crosse, Wisconsin.

By the way, if you are wondering what happened to those beers sent to the White House by grateful brewers to mark the end of Prohibition back in 1933, it is unlikely President Roosevelt himself ever drank any of them. Instead they were donated to the National Press Club “with the President’s compliments,” where thirsty journalists undoubtedly enjoyed them after toasting his popularity. We homebrewers can only follow FDR’s advice: “I think this would be a good time for a beer.”

Let’s Play Concentration

No records have surfaced for the recipe for the original Drewrys Canadian Ale, but it is likely to have been an American cream ale, a style common in North America after the end of Prohibition and which persists today in a few commercial examples — most notably Genesee (Genesee Brewing Company) and Little Kings (Hudepohl-Schoenling). Drewrys portfolio of brands also contained 20 Grand Cream Ale in the 1950s.

Typically cream ales were brewed by ale brewers to compete with the mass market lagers that were achieving great popularity. North American ingredients, including six-row malt, corn as an adjunct and American hops, were the norm. Cream ale is relatively light in flavor and body, with only a little of the fruitiness associated with other ale styles. Hopping is low to moderate, and the emphasis is on drinkability. In general this is a dry beer, but it may have a slight sweetness in the finish from the corn. In my earlier article on Old Style (July-August 2012), I discussed kräusening, which was associated with that brand through its advertising. In this article, the associated brewing angle is high gravity brewing.

It’s common for commercially produced American light beers to be brewed using this method, which involves brewing a strong version of the beer then diluting it to working strength post-fermentation.
The advantage of such brewing is that larger volumes of beer can be brewed with a brewery’s vessels, both on the hot (mashing and boiling) and cold (fermenting) sides of the process. As fermenter space is at a premium in breweries, there are strong economic incentives to brew in this manner. However, this requires careful planning before the fact. The recipe needs to be designed for dilution; otherwise the beer could easily be watery and thin-bodied, lacking in both malt flavor and hop character. For homebrewers, there is no economic incentive to brew this way, but there are times he or she may want produce more beer or simply learn another brewing technique. If you try this at home, there are two main considerations — how strong to make your concentrated beer and how to deaerate your dilution water.

Typical commercial practice for brewing American Pilsners around 11 °Plato (OG 1.044) is to make and ferment a 16 °Plato (OG 1.064) wort, then dilute the beer to 11 °Plato (OG 1.044) at packaging. Higher gravity worts would result in too much ester production during fermentation, so brewers do not attempt to brew the absolute strongest beer they could possibly manage. For homebrewers — who can use this technique to “expand” any style of beer — it’s best to pick a specific gravity for the strong beer for which you know you can run a relatively clean fermentation. Also, you will have a higher probability of success at home if you don’t try to expand your batch volume beyond about 20% — for example, from 5 gallons (19-L) to 6 gallons (23 L).

One major concern in high gravity brewing is that oxygen dissolved in the dilution water will promote rapid oxidation. Commercial brewers have specialized equipment to thoroughly deaerate their dilution water. Homebrewers, however, will have to rely on simpler methods.

At room temperature, water that is exposed to air will hold about 9 ppm oxygen (at equilibrium). If it is boiled and quickly cooled (no splashing), it will contain less than 1 ppm oxygen. To further deaerate the water, you could bubble either CO2 or (preferably) nitrogen through the water. The gas bubbles rising through the water will partially scrub it. Nitrogen works better for this as it produces finer bubbles. Boiling alone may be sufficient if you plan to expand the volume of your batch by only 10–15% and then drink the beer within a few weeks. See the recipe below for more detailed instructions on this technique.

American Cream Ale Recipe
Genesee My Butt

(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.047 FG = 1.008
IBU = 17 SRM = 2­–4 ABV = 4.6%

Ingredients

5.0 lbs. (2.3 kg) 6-row pale malt
2.25 lbs. (1.0 kg) flaked maize
1.75 lbs. (0.79 kg) Vienna malt
0.75 lbs. (0.34 kg) crystal malt (10 °L)
4.8 AAU Liberty hops (60 mins)
(1.2 oz./34 g of 4% alpha acids)
4.0 AAU Liberty hops (5 mins)
(1.0 oz./28 g of 4% alpha acids)
Wyeast 2112 (California Lager), or White Labs WLP810 (San Francisco Lager) yeast
Alternate yeast:
Wyeast 1056 (American Ale), or White Labs WLP001 (California Ale,) or Fermentis US-05

Step by Step

Single infusion with a 60-minute saccharification rest at 149 °F  (65 °C). Boil wort for 75 minutes. Ferment at 65 °F (18 °C).

Genesee My Butt

(5 gallons/19 L,
extract with grains)
OG = 1.047 FG = 1.008
IBU = 17 SRM = 2­–4 ABV = 4.6%

Ingredients

5.0 lbs. (2.3 kg) American lager
liquid malt extract
1.5. lbs. (0.68 kg) Light liquid
malt extract
0.75 lbs. (0.34 kg) crystal
malt (10 °L)
4.8 AAU Liberty hops (60 mins)
(1.2 oz./34 g of 4% alpha acids)
4.0 AAU Liberty hops (5 mins)
(1.0 oz./28 g of 4% alpha acids)
Wyeast 2112 (California Lager), or White Labs WLP810 (San Francisco Lager) yeast
Alternate yeast:
Wyeast 1056 (American Ale), or White Labs WLP001 (California Ale,) or Fermentis US-05

Step by Step

Steep crystal malt in approximately 1.5 quarts (1.5 liters) 150 °F (65 °C) water for 30 minutes before adding the resulting “tea” to the boiling kettle with additional heated water and the extract. Boil wort for 60 minutes. Ferment at 65 °F (18 °C).

High Gravity Brewing Option:
These recipes — or just about any 5-gallon (19-L) homebrew recipe below ~14 °Plato (OG 1.056), really — can be brewed to yield 6 gallons (23 L) of beer. First, multiply the amounts of all the ingredients in the 5-gallon (19-L) recipe by 1.2. This will yield the equivalent 6-gallon (23-L) recipe. However, brew the beer as you would a 5-gallon (19-L) batch. (Your original gravity in this case will now be 1.056) Be sure to pitch an adequate amount of yeast — yeast from a 3.5-quart (3.5-L) yeast starter should suffice for these beers. Ferment the beer on the cool side of the yeast strain’s recommended range. Immediately before packaging, boil a little over a gallon (~4 L) of water, then cool it rapidly. Bubble CO2 — or, preferably, if you have a nitrogen tap in your brewery, use nitrogen — through the water for about 20 minutes. (Finer bubbles are better for this procedure.) Bottle or keg the beer and let it condition. Once it’s ready, consume within a few weeks as it is not suited for long aging.
Here is a popular cream ale recipe courtesy of homebrewer Scott Abene of East Kingston, New Hampshire. The beer can be brewed in the usual manner, or by using high-gravity brewing techniques to yield an extra gallon (3.8 L) of beer.

 

 

Issue: September 2012