Charles Fontaine, author of “Belgium by Beer” mailed me an old copy of the November 1906 issue of “le petit journal du brasseur”, the monthly magazine of the Belgian Brewers Association. In this issue we find a story of the San Francisco Earthquake with 18 pictures of different breweries, demolished during that disaster. It is remarkable that the Belgian brewers had already a correspondent in the USA almost 100 years ago.

I wonder how many people in San Francisco have ever heard of names like “National Brewery”, “Wreden Brewery”, “St.Louis Brewery”, “Old Jackson” and “New Jackson” breweries, “Willows Brewery”, “Albany Brewery”, “Chicago Brewery”, “California Brewery”, “New Jackson”, “Enterprise Brewery”, “John Wieland Brewery” (said to be the largest) , “Hibernian brewery”, “United States Brewery”, “Wunder Brewery”, “Dawson brewery”, “Broadway and Union brewery”, “Milwaukee brewery”, “Bauer & Schweitzer brewery” .... “Anchor Brewery”. Of course, the latter has sustained its fame.
Also the malting houses were severely damaged. Ever heard of malt houses with names like “Krug & Zimmerman”, “Bache”, “New York Malt House”. That’s already over 20 names of breweries and malt houses hit by the earthquake in 1906 in San Francisco. A lot of brewing was going on in the city at that time. No surprise: San Francisco is known to love a good beer
In the article it is also said that some of the breweries, that fell victime to the earthquake filled the void by brewing more in their undamaged breweries out of the city, located in places like San Jose and in the East Bay. Not to me surprise, the insurance companies did NOT cover earthquake damages! Maybe several of the aforementioned breweries never brewed again. Who knows?

If there are readers out there who know more about these forgotten breweries and want to share their knowledge, I’ll be glad to pass on the information to our other readers.
Newsletter August 1998