NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. And needless to say, it sold well and helped keep Anheuser-Busch in business until Prohibition was over.Ĭopyright © 2015 NPR. Needless to say, many took the warning for exactly what it was - instructions to brew your own. Warning - do not add the yeast to the other ingredients or risk fermentation. It was sold together with baker's yeast, and the label said this. One especially shrewd piece of diversification by Anheuser-Busch was that corn malt syrup. Meanwhile, Budweiser became a national favorite. SIEGEL: The Lemp Brewery ended up looking like a maze of vacant catacombs under a mansion that the locals declared haunted. ![]() And the debris you see is actually not debris. And you can see the evidence of the lights - the old light fixtures here. Louis and decided to - after their dinner, perhaps - to retire to this nice and cool chamber. And back in the days when there was really no air conditioning in houses, the Lemp family, I'm sure, entertained the high-powered people of St. There's a door in the back there you can see, and that led to a spiral staircase that goes to the surface, which was the location of the first Lemp mansion. PALAMAND: This was a natural chamber that was converted into a theater for entertainment of the Lemp family and their friends. SIEGEL: The Lemps even turned one part of a cave right under their mansion into a luxurious recreation center. PALAMAND: Barrel vault - that's the best way to describe them. SIEGEL: These are virtually semi-circular chambers that run down - oh, my gosh - it must be 40 yards or so. This area we're in was part of the natural caves but has been heavily modified. PALAMAND: So these are the old lagering chambers. In the years before Prohibition, the Lemp's were among the richest beer barons in St. His sister shot herself, and years later, his brother would do the same. Lemp's father had shot himself 18 years earlier. The place has been shut down since the family gave up brewing. SIEGEL: Shashi Palamand is the current owner of what's left of the Lemp Brewery complex - 23 buildings. SHASHI PALAMAND: So we're headed into the third basement of building five, which is the oldest building in the complex and was used, basically, for the heart of the operation, which was the actual brewing of the beer. Before artificial regeneration, this is where lager beer was kept chilled. And last year, we were given a rare tour of the caves and chambers underneath the complex which hasn't produced beer since Prohibition began. ![]() Louis is where the Lemp family used to brew Falstaff beer. ![]() ![]() Not far from Anheuser-Busch headquarters in St. We are deep underground in dank caves and basements that could be the set of a horror movie. I saw what happened to the local competition that wasn't so confident or clever. I saw one measure of Anheuser-Busch's cleverness. They brewed low-alcohol beer and Budweiser barley malt syrup. They diversified into soft drinks and refrigerated railroad cars. From the start, the Busch family had acted with confidence that it would outlast the 18th Amendment. SIEGEL: It took a clever brewer to survive the national ban on alcohol. UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) This Bud's for you. addressed the American people by radio in 1933, he personified a remarkable piece of corporate survival - the survival of 13 years of prohibition.ĪUGUST BUSCH JR.: April the 7 is here, and it's a real occasion for thankfulness, marking a newfound freedom for the American people, made possible by the wisdom, foresight and courage of a great president, with the corporation of an understanding Congress. The fact that the name Anheuser-Busch is still in use at all is a tribute to its old owners, the Busch family.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |