Harrison, New Jersey, is a relatively small community separated from the Ironbound section of Newark by the Passaic River. Even today, the city still retains much of its charm and culture developed through its rich history. It’s a city which refused to be overshadowed by its behemoth neighbor, Newark. Wave after wave of immigrants passed though Harrison: English, German, Irish, African, Italian and Portuguese. Some stayed and some moved on, but each left its mark. Somehow the community managed to integrate and preserve the best of each group’s diversity, and today, as you cross the quaint old bridge across the Passaic from Ironbound, you can see the charming difference in neighborhoods and sense the proud spirit of the people.
Not much visible evidence is left that indicates that this was predominantly a brewing town in the last century. That is, unless you happen to visit the local High School at the foot of Harrison Avenue and take the time to notice that the well-manicured lawns and swimming pool are supplied by two artesian wells. Inquiring further, you’ll find that part of the school is built over three large cylindrical storage cellars. Harrison was home to several breweries, but these remains are the artifacts of the most famous, Peter Hauck’s Brewery. Harrison sits about 600 feet atop the Passaic aquifer and Harrison High School occupies the site of the old brewery.
Pre-Prohibition
Location was everything when it came to lager beer breweries in the mid nineteenth century. Harrison had it all ...a clean source of good water for brewing, cleaning and cooling; a river for carrying away the waste; excellent transportation by rail or barge; a large skilled and willing work force; and, most importantly, close proximity to a large, growing and thirsty market.
The Harrison Brewery is one of the oldest and, in earlier years, one of the better known in Northeast. Operations there began in 1838 under the ownership and direction of Phillip Sommers. The 1855 census reveals that eight men were employed at the time.
The name of Hauck was known in this country since 1844 when Adam Hauck (Peter’s father) began brewing beer on Wooster Street in New York City. Adam’s son, Peter, is widely credited with expanding and developing the family’s brewing operation to its fullest potential. Peter was born in Kling Munster, Bavaria, in 1838 and came to New York City when he was only six years old. Peter succeeded his father as sole proprietor of the New York operation in 1860. In 1869, Peter decided to expand his facilities by relocating the Hauck Brewery to Harrison, New Jersey, in west Hudson County.
Peter Hauck made substantial improvements in an old place which had been operating under the name of "Korb and Kaufman". When Mr. Hauck entered the business it took the name of "Hauck and Kaufman." There were 13 employees, including Adam Hauck, Peter’s father, as brewmaster. In 1869, the brewery attained an output of 15,761 barrels.
In 1879, 10 years after Peter Hauck joined the business, fire completely destroyed the old wooden structure. Despite the tragedy, Peter never lost the dream and decided to rebuild. Kaufman did not share Hauck’s dream of the Phoenix rising from the ashes. He bowed out and the business was reorganized as Peter Hauck and Company Brewery. The rebuilding process started immediately under Peter’s direction. His vision included a large, well equipped, brick structure which he believed would be more impervious to fire. The new brewery was completed and full production began in 1881. The brewery, malt house, cooperage house, and stables covered one square block. It was equipped with such improvements as a 250 barrel brew kettle, new "state of the art" DeLaVergne ice machines, and three cooling rooms, 25 feet wide and 101 feet in length. A bottling facility would be added later.
As was the custom of the day for many German brewers, a large mansion was built next to the brewery as the homestead for the Hauck family. Two artesian wells, supplying 100 gallons of water per minute, were bored down into the Passaic aquifer. Water, and plenty of it, is the lifeblood for any lager brewery. The wells were a timely and vital addition, because it would be 1896 before the city of Harrison would acquire a safe and reliable source of water for its industry and citizens. Peter Hauck had, indeed, constructed a very modern and very productive brewery in a very thirsty region.
In 1881, the first full year after reconstruction, the output of the brewery was 24,612 barrels. Annual output jumped to 28,703 barrels in 1882, 35,997 barrels in 1884, and 50,244 in 1886. This increased to 71,589 barrels in 1889 when the interests were reorganized and became a part of the United States Brewing Company. Peter became a director of US Brewing, but maintained controlling interest in the brewery, as it continued to bear his name and operate under his close supervision.
Somehow,to the citizens of Harrison and the surrounding area it would always be known as the Peter Hauck Brewery. By 1900, over 100,000 barrels per year were being produced. A separate bottling plant was added around the turn of the century. The new department had a capacity of bottling 20,000 barrels annually. This addition was targeted for the growing export and family markets and gave employment to an additional 80 persons. Three brands marketed were all lagers: "Hauck’s Extra", Hauck’s Special" and, of course, the famous "Golden Brew". These were offered in embossed brown glass bottles with rectangular main labels and contoured neck labels with the Hauck logo, a large "H" superimposed over a log stemmed beer glass.
Peter Hauck pretty much fit the mold of other "Bavarian Bier Barons" from the Greater New York Metropolitan area. He left Bavaria during a time of political unrest, as Germany struggled to unite itself. This was the time when some of the best, brightest and most aggressive left Bavaria to seek their fortunes and fulfill their dreams in a young developing country. Bavarian brewers focused on lager beer and had their own ideas about how to brew it. For the most part, they were a strong-willed lot who were involved in every aspect of their business. They took a regional view of their market and controlled the distribution closely, often setting up a string of "tied" saloons. By owning the saloon or holding the mortgage, the brewer had a captive customer who was forced to sell only their beer.
They knew the importance of being "well connected". Many of them belonged to the same social clubs and encouraged their children to marry into other brewing families, presumably to strengthen their control and promote the longevity of the business. A lot of the New York Metro area brewers, including Peter Hauck, "summered" together on the Jersey Shore with other German beer barons. Peter’s oldest child, Josephine, would marry Joseph Bissell, a famous physician form East Orange, NJ. Peter’s eldest grandson, Karl Hauck Bissell, married Phoebe Doelger, the granddaughter of Peter Doelger, the famous New York City brewer and fellow "Bavarian Bier Baron". Thus, a relationship was started that would eventually lead the Harrison brewery to the Doelger camp after the Hauck’s relinquished their control.
Peter Hauck was legendary for being good to his employees. As a result, his company did not experience some of the unionization difficulties endured by other brewers in the latter part of the nineteenth century. To get employees involved, he formed a singing society, the Schuetzenbund Club, and associations for his salesmen and supervisor, and another for brewery workers. He held the annual company picnic in the park for the men and children of these groups. Folklore has it that the men came home from these outings with a little bit of the spirit that did not make them appear like a well-drilled group of soldiers. As they returned, Peter would provide the children with sparklers and a band would play music for the parade up Harrison Avenue. With this encouragement, the men would be able to make it back to the brewery.
Besides being the largest taxpayer in the city, Hauck served on the Harrison Town Council in 1872-73 and performed many other civic duties for Hudson County and State of New Jersey.
German-run breweries tended to be closely held family operations where the eldest son became the successor. Peter Hauck’s son, Peter Jr., joined him in the business in 1891 and ably assisted him in managing the brewery. Young Peter was born in 1872. He married Miss Elizabeth Smith, the daughter of New Jersey Senator Smith in 1895. He was educated in brewing chemistry at Schwartz College of New York. Upon his father’s death in 1915, young Peter took over full management of the Harrison brewery. By that time, Peter Jr. also owned the Home Brewing Company on Orange and Heckler Streets in the city of Newark.
A great camaraderie developed among the German brewing families probably because they all had to share the same trials and tribulations over the years. In the late 1800’s, they were forced to share the burden of unionization and the constant sniping of the "drys". These pressures continued to build right up until 1920. To most brewers, it must have seemed like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were parading right through their breweries.
1. Rising anti-German sentiment resulting from the World War began in 1914 and put great social pressure on them.
2. Materials rationing which began in 1917 to support the war effort made materials scarce.
3. A drought that sent malt prices through the roof.
4. The Spanish flu, the worst pandemic the world had seen since the Black Plague of the fourteenth century, swept the East Coast in 1918 killing scores of people and putting fear in the general population.
Prohibition
When Prohibition arrived in 1920, it must have appeared as the Grim Reaper to the brewers. Prohibition
The Roaring Twenties and Prohibition made strange bedfellows indeed and offered some unique challenges to brewers. Roar and flap they would, but without legal beer. The demand for beer was certainly there, but the reputable producers could not provide an appealing brew within the law. It would be up to home brewers and bootleggers to fulfill the need.
In 1925, at the midpoint of the noble experiment, the Hauck family ended its long and productive involvement with the brewing industry. That’s when real trouble began brewing at the old place. Peter Hauck, Jr. was well rid of this mess. During the remainder of the prohibition years, the Harrison Brewery was owned and operated by the Camden Holding Company. Between about 1925 and 1931, Max Hessler and Max Greenberg of Reading, Pennsylvania, ran the brewery making "Near Beer" (half of one percent alcohol content). They also illegally brewed regular beer and "spiked" near beer which they sold to bootleggers. Having two onsite wells was a definite advantage and would make it extremely difficult for the federal inspectors to gage the brewery’s output through monitoring water usage.
The most popular bootleg "drop" was located in the building across the street from the brewery (present site of Yeager’s Bowling Alleys). A pipe was laid in a tunnel to this building which was then owned by the two Max’s and the barrels were filled right on the trucks. The truck motors were kept running in case prohibition officers came around. An old timer, who had been in this bootlegging business, related that the lack of ventilation with the doors closed caused men to be overcome by carbon monoxide from time to time. They were put out on the curb to revive.
There were also two other "drops": one at Hamilton Street and Schuyler Avenue, and the other at the old barrel factory on Bergen Street. These "drops" were for already kegged beer. Some references state that the "Feds" actually shut down the brewery in the late 1920’s. Local folk lore has it that the city officials were so protective of the operations that when they got word of a "Fed" raid they would stage mock fire drills to block the streets leading to the brewery and give the illegal brewers enough time to clean things up before the "Feds" arrived. However, the protective contrivances by the local populace were not entirely successful and the license was revoked.
Further credence was added to the nasty rumors about the brewery when the two Max’s were shot to death in an Elizabeth, New Jersey, hotel. Mr. Bodine then took over and ran the brewery under the name of the Harrison Beverage Company, doing business as usual until 1933. For a brief period between 1933 & 1934, it operated as the West Hudson Brewing Company, but reverted back to the Harrison Beverage Co., Inc. in 1934. It would be a long tough haul to regain respectability and market share.
Repeal and Beyond
Repeal of prohibition brought further challenges to the brewery with the now tarnished reputation. The Harrison Beverage Company brewed a beer labeled "Golden Brew". On Friday, July 12, 1934, newspaper ads in Hudson and Essex counties proudly announced the return of "Golden Brew" proclaiming it to be " Best Under the Sun". Not surprisingly, the ghost of Peter Hauck was still present because the labels on the bottles read "Harrison Beverage Co. Inc., successors to Peter Hauck & Co. Harrison, NJ". Even the trademark "H" used by the Harrison Brewing Company looked remarkably like the old Hauck trademark. The company’s effort was late, not well marketed and short lived. In 1936, the brewery was leased by the Peter Doelger Company.
In a benevolent gesture, perhaps to change the image of the brewery, the Doelger interests converted the old Hauck Mansion on the brewery site to a convent and offered it to the church. Nuns inhabited the structure for about fifteen years. This was a strange combination indeed, nuns and beer, but it worked.
Under the Doelger regime, a renewed effort was made to modernize the facility and market its output by multiplying on the respectability and reputation of the pre-prohibition "Peter Doelger, First Prize Beer". The Doelgers brought some innovative marketing initiatives. Lager beer and ale were produced; first under the old style pre-prohibition Doelger label; then the "foaming mug" label, and later the bright red and green colored foil backed label. Peter Doelger was one of the first to offer "Half and Half" (half beer, half ale). In a effort to broaden the product line and expand further into the high end, "Bock Beer" and a "Lambic Lager Beer" were introduced under the Doelger label. Later, Pilsener was produced for the Lion Brewing Company in an effort to fully utilize the aging brewery in the face of waning sales.
This effort, too, was simply not enough. The old brewery could not compete with its small market share and low volume. It was time for the Doelgers to choose either a major injection of capital or shut down the plant. The juice just wasn’t worth the squeeze, and the last batch of wort under the Doelger regime was racked off in 1946. Competition caused the official closing in 1947. In the mid 1940’s, Anheuser Busch purchased 50 acres of prime real estate about five miles away at the other end of the "Iron Bound" section of Newark, at which location they would build one of their largest and most modern facilities. The Peter Doelger Brewing Company sold off its interests and the brewery was given over to the Camden County Beverage Company. The brewery was now referred to as Camden County #2. While in 1949, it did produce small quantities of "Camden Lager Beer," it was used mainly as a storage and distribution facility. The Harrison city fathers took over the brewery in 1951 when the Camden County Beverage Company turned the land and structures over to them. This was the same year that the gigantic Anheuser Busch Brewery started production.
Municipal officials attempted to convert the old brewery to a civil defense headquarters, utilizing its expansive cellars as a bomb shelters and its wells as an emergency water supply. It was to be a safe haven from the anticipated "Russkie" bombs. In 1952, fire again struck and the old land-mark was totally destroyed. Neighborhood children would build their forts in the tunnels, nooks and crannies of what remained of the structure. The wrecking ball struck its final blow in August, 1957, as what was left of the structure was leveled to make way for Harrison High School.
Nothing but the cellars and wells are left to give testimony to the fact that it was once a great brewery. However, on occasion, it is reported by the high school students that the ghost of Peter Hauck still dwells in the cellars.
Breweriana from the Peter Hauck era rarely shows up in the major national auctions. The city of Harrison maintains a local archives of photos, newspaper articles and other more substantial items of memorabilia. Both the old bottle bottling line photographs with this article are from the height of the Peter Hauck era.
Items from the "Doelger" era of the brewery do appear from time to time in the major auctions. Labels from the post-prohibition era followed a progression starting with ones that attempted to duplicate the old diamond shaped labels from the pre-pro Doelger New York City brewery. Next are foaming mug labels, followed by the fancier bright red and green foil backed variety to support the stepped up marketing effort. War shortages caused the company to back away from the foil-backed labels. They were thought to give the appearance of using metals needed to support the war. Paper coasters and trays are still available. The most popular tray is the 13" variety which shows the Harrison brewery in bright colors on a beige background.
People having questions or additional input concerning "Peter Hauck’s" Harrison brewery may contact the author. If you would like to donate items to the City of Harrison Archives, you may contact Mr. Anthony Comprelli,, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Harrison Board of Education, Hamilton St., Harrison, NJ 07029.
The author would like to thank Bob Kay, the beer label guy; Anthony Comprelli and Peter Higgins from the City of Harrison for their help in compiling data for the article
About the author - David Doelger, ABA #5530, is a graduate of the US Naval Academy and Rutgers University. He retired several years ago and pursues his interests in history and home brewing at his home in Austin, TX.. He is a direct descendant of Peter Doelger, the famous NY City brewer.
.This article appeared in the American Breweriana Journal, issue 91, March-April 1998 by David P. Doelger