36 Old Style

Introduction

Old Style, is a beer originally called Golden Leaf. it was bought by a man by the name of Heileman which changed the beer to Old Times Lager then finally changed to Old Style in the 1902 and has remained as Old Style ever since

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Origins

Old Style is known for its “kraeusening”  as they put it, double fermentation process that is typical of bottle fermented beers, which the brand says gives their lager more of an “extra carbonation and complex richness” than other beers. Another interesting fact is that Old Style had a sponsorship deal in 1950 with the Chicago Cubs making it “the beer of choice at Wrigley Field In the 1970s”

Key Milestones

In 1969, designer Roy Wilson and the G. Heileman Brewing Company had a series of metal containers, holding all together a total of 22,220 barrels of beer, next  to their La Crosse brewery. The tanks were painted in the colours of a six-pack of Old Style. For publicity the tanks were named the “World’s Largest Six-Pack”

King Gambrinus is considered the guardian of beer and brewing, and is used as the mascot of Old Style along with many other beer companies.

Old Style debuted as the #71 beer on the list of top 100 beers by the Cold Cans podcast

Brewing Science and Industrialization

• there was some slowing in production during the second world war when which had the company impacted by the extreme rationing going on in the country. as well as this during WWII, the company had took a whole new approach to brewing and marketing.
• heileman then tried buying other breweries, which had immense backlash. So then the company began exploring into a whole new set of industries such as baking, snack foods, and mineral water, with such products such as a heileman original, la croix. The brewing capabilities of the now iconic heileman, ” combined with their supplemental industries, peaked at fourth place in 1983, behind anheuser-busch, miller, and stroh brewery company.”
• Old Style is known for its “kraeusening”  as they put it, double fermentation process that is typical of bottle fermented beers, which the brand says gives their lager more of an “extra carbonation and complex richness” than other beers. Another interesting fact is that Old Style had a sponsorship deal in 1950 with the Chicago Cubs making it “the beer of choice at Wrigley Field In the 1970s”
•  Kumm had introduced a German-style beer festival modeled on the hit Oktoberfest in Muncih, as well as a beer by that name to the La Crosse region to support and attempt to increase the sales of Heileman beers. a fun fact about these events was that “The La Crosse, Wisconsin, Oktoberfest USA celebration was trademarked with the federal government that same year.” (Wikipedia) there was a time between the end of the second world war and 1971, where the company had made major moved and had managed to jump from 39th in the brewing industry to a huge bump up to the 15th

WWI and WWII

As stated above there was some slowing in production during the second world war when which had the company impacted by the extreme rationing going on in the country. as well as this during WWII, the company had took a whole new approach to brewing and marketing. Heileman began producing several new labels, which these were all not nearly as well done as their previous two Beers, Old Style Lager and Special Export. back in the era of world war 1 though after the death of Henry Heileman, the heir to the company, in 1895, a man by the name of Emil T. Mueller who was Johanna’s (who was also the wife of Heileman) son in law became the Vice President of the company, which is interesting because he was only one level of authority behind only Johanna, which is an interesting fact because she was one of the first female CEO’s in the history of the United States. around the time of Henry’s death Heileman had began the process of developing the iconic Old Style Brand. a few years go by and in 1902, the company was booming, they were producing around 160,000 barrels of Old Style Lager.  this was also the year that the company had decided to vote in a union, the last brewer in La Crosse to do this, this was a smart move because this move allowed the company to expand even further. which is extremely impressive that all of this was done during such a dark period in history.

Beer Style

  as the prohibition was nearing and everyone could see it clearly, the end of Prohibition, the Heileman family members sold  all of their shares of their up and coming company to the Paul Davis Company of Chicago in 1933, the Paul Davis company who had taken the company name and used this company as The G. Heileman Brewing Company Incorporated or (INC for short) and this brand new company president signed the very first and important, stocks of Heileman this very same year. going through the entirety of the 1930s, this company kept getting bigger and bigger and would  expand their facilities to get to where they needed to be with the huge increased production needs. There  was a major upgrade in the mid 1930s following a brand new production of a very special beer for the company “Special Export” , Heileman’s second house brew. Whereas the iconic Olde Style Lager was standing at only about  4% alcohol level, this new Special Export was over 6%.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, September 19). G. Heileman Brewing Company. Wikipedia. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Heileman_Brewing_Company

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Heileman_Brewing_Company

https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/old-style-the-chicago-beer-that-isnt/