The Milwaukee Post

By TOM JOZWIK Special to The Post MILWAUKEE – Have you ever wondered how the captains of Milwaukee's best- known industry – brewing – coped with Prohibition, that 14-year period during which the professional manufacturing of alcohol was outlawed in the United States? The Blatz Brewing Co. produced chew- ing gum. The Pabst Brewing Co. turned to cheesemaking, and the A. Gettelman Brewing Co. made snow plows. As for "the beer that made Milwaukee famous," Schlitz's 1919 to 1933 production story is on display for the next year at the Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear, 839 N. 11th St., Milwaukee. The museum special- izes in artifacts re-creating the period between World War I and World War II in a 19th-century building that once housed the offices of attorney Avrum Chudnow, a col- lector of all sorts of memorabilia. The namesake museum's permanent exhibits include the Saxe Brothers Theater, stores, a doctor's office, a barbershop and the recently added Badger Cigar Co. A flier available at the museum summa- rizes the displays and says of the "Schlitz Brewery: Prohibition Era" temporary exhibit: "Like most major breweries dur- ing the era of Prohibition, Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co. manufactured non-beer prod- ucts. Because of its sweet taste, malt extract was marketed for baking and desserts. However, it quickly was used in the production of home-brewed beer. The Schlitz line of sodas and mixers were used to mask the taste of the illegally made, poor quality alcohol. They also built a brand new factory (a portion of which still stands, on North Port Washington Road) to make candy and chocolates. All these prod- ucts disappeared once National Prohibition was ended in April 1933." The story of the C h u d n o w - S c h l i t z connection pre- dates the museum's 2012 opening. In a previous incarna- tion, Chudnow Director Steve Daily was employed at the M i l w a u k e e Historical Society. There, Daily met a retired city worker named Len Jurgensen, who fre- quently visited the society to research the history of local breweries. J u r g e n s e n informed Daily of his all-things- Schlitz collection. He said the collec- tion was assembled through "rummage sales and flea mar- kets," networking with former brew- ery employees, gifts from friends and acquaintances and membership in col- lectors clubs. "These things, after a while, find you," Jurgensen said. After taking charge of the Chudnow, Daily, realizing "there (was) no museum in town that (showed) beer history on a big scale," attempted to do something about that. He contacted Jurgensen, an Oconomowoc resident, and ultimately arranged for a yearlong (through May 2015) exhibit of Schlitz artifacts, most of which had never been on public display. Historian first Jurgensen, Daily said, "likes to consid- er himself a brewery historian first and a collector second." Be that as it may, the Oconomowoc man likely has, in Chudnow curator Joel Willems' estimation, the world's largest collection of Schlitz memo- rabilia. The collection, which started with a single serving tray, even includes a beer wagon such as a circus parade might fea- ture; the wagon is not among artifacts on loan to the Chudnow, although there is hope Jurgensen might bring it to a muse- um event before the exhibit closes. Daily recalled asking Jurgensen why he'd confined his collection to the Schlitz brand. "'That seemed to be what I could find at the time,'" Daily said, quoting the collector's matter-of-fact response. And so, on exhibition at the Chudnow are wooden Schlitz beverage cases and an unusual Prohibition-era bottle of Schlitz beer whose label warns that the contents are "for medicinal purposes only." The bot- tle, said Willems, just might be the rarest item in the Jurgensen collection. (Such bottles could be obtained at pharmacies, but only if prescribed by physicians, for tension and the like.) There also are ads and bottles, tins and boxes borrowed from Jurgensen, supple- mented by an occasional old Avrum Chudnow possession like an outdoor tav- ern sign. Visitors are transported to the time of Prohibition via posters hawking and specimens representing Schlitz-made frosted caramels (17 3/4 cents a pound), jelly beans (13 3/4 cents), Eline's chocolate bars ("more nutritious than meat"), cocoa, chocolate-covered fruits and nuts, and marshmallows. And to wash it all down, there was Schlitz Club Soda, Grapy Drink, Milwaukee Club Ginger Ale and more. Breweries were permitted to produce near beer with an alcoholic content of less than 1 percent. Schlitz did this, but appar- ently there wasn't much call for the imita- tive beverage. Home brewing of stronger stuff was legal (as long as the brew was not sold) and, as Daily noted, "they esti- mate a lot of people made their own home brew." Beermaking how-to pamphlets seem- ingly were among the most popular of the Milwaukee Central Library's holdings during Prohibition. There was a constant waiting list of prospective borrowers, Willems related, and some who reached the head of the list checked out the beer brochures but never returned them. With Prohibition's repeal, Schlitz went right back to beer production, and under- standably so. "They never really broke even on the (candy) business," Willems said – even though Schlitz had gone so far as to add one-time Hershey Co. candymakers to its payroll during the beer-banned years. May 30, 2014 • Milwaukee County Post • 13 When beer was banned Local museum displays man's Schlitz memorabilia collection from Prohibition years Submitted photos This image shows labels that the Schlitz Brewing Co. produced for its malt syrup to market it to the different ethnic groups. The malt syrup was produced in such quantities that it accounted for much of the revenue that Schlitz was making from its brewery operations during Prohibition. Oconomowoc resi- dent Len Jurgensen loaned the items to the Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear for its exhibit,"Schlitz Brewery: Prohibition Era." It will be on display through May 2015. A display case at the Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear holds rare bot- tles of soda and near beer that Schlitz pro- duced during Prohibition. 237598061

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