This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas. Ward sent me a link to a story on the Austin American-Statesman about the history of the Spoetzl Brewery. It talks about the two major figures in the history of Shiner beer, Kosmos Spotezl and Carlos Alvarez of Gambrinus:
This year, the business that eventually came to be known as the K. Spoetzl Brewery is 100, having survived Prohibition, two wars against the homeland of the founders, fickle changes in taste and the demise of the vast majority of small local breweries — once there were as many as 7,000, compared with about 1,500 today — that had sprung up in most every community. Over the century, Spoetzl has had at least two saviors, one from Bavaria and another, almost eight decades later, from Mexico.It's an interesting read, and interesting for me as someone who has only known Shiner as The Texas Beer (screw that Lone Star crap). It chronicles Shiner's history from its founding, to Prohibition, to its acquisition of an identity in Austin, to its purchase by Gambrinus in 1989, which led to the brewery's expansion and the transformation of Shiner into what it is today.
Labels: News, Spoetzl Brewery
