Breweries are a popular industry to model for obvious reasons (not the least being that many of us enjoy the beverage) and I would like to add one in but do not want to model a large facility - more of a smaller to mid-sized one. Would like to hear about (and see) what structures others have used to accomplish this.
Thanks, Dan
I don’t drink alcohol, but I do plan on having one. I really don’t have one built. The building change from time to time. Mainly because the breweries are placed in two different cities. Plus planning a third on the west coast or upper east coast.
I’ve been to a number of our local breweries here in Delaware and nearby in Virginia and Maryland. The Dogfish Head brewery is quite large, but the rest are quite small. None of them is rail served and most of the smaller brewery’s products are consumed locally. Yes, I contribute to that effort.
The emergence of small craft breweries and brew-pubs is a relatively recent phenomenon. Not long ago, breweries were essentially huge beer factories with little innovation.
I do have a small brewery on my Transition Era layout. It’s a background building, just another build of Walther’s Arrowhead Ale kit. This kit has nothing at all to distinguish it as a brewery, other than a few decals. It could as easily pass as a shoe or furniture factory. I had fun building and accessorizing the kit for my own Strumpet Ale brand, complete with it’s own ice-bunker refrigerator car and a beer delivery truck. Since the back of the building is exposed to the aisle, I built a rudimentary interior from empty cosmetics containers and plastic sprue pieces.
I agree with Mister B…nowadays there are craft breweries everywhere, and many of them aren’t all that large. There’s one about 10 miles from here that’s in a former country school (not a one-room schoolhouse), although they’ve roughly doubled the size of the building.
Wayne
At one time there were regional/local breweries in every city. New York had Rheingold and Ruppert (Jacob Ruppert was the owner of the Yankees in the Murderers Row Era and had his brewery adjacent to the CNJ’s Bronx Terminal. Makes ya wonder how well Rule G was observed on some hot August afternoons…bronxmedium.jpg (1000×652) (bronx-terminal.com) ). The Ruppert empire also included Knickerbocker and over in Newark there was Ballantine (I loved their IPA), serviced by a small fleet of CNJ insulated boxcars. Philly has Yeungling and had Schmidts, Pittsbugh has Iron City and don’t forget “from the glass lined tanks of Old Latrobe” comes Rolling Rock. And they’re either going concerns or lasted into the Second Generation Diesel Era (I drank some of each in my day and I’m not THAT old) That’s just off the top of my head, I’m sure beer connysewers will chime in with their own local favorites. Points are 1) You can justify a small brewery in even a small city 2) You don’t have to model the brewery, you can have the switch lead disappear behind some other industrial buildings with the brewery supposedly behind a hill or more buildings. Grain, malt, yeast, bottles and/or cans in boxcars and/or covered hoppers in. Full, half and pony kegs and cases and six packs in reefers or insulated boxcars to distributors and grocery warehouses and spent grain (for animal feed) in boxcars or covered hoppers as appropriate out. And there was a time when dad could send junior with a bucket to the brewery (Ruppert’s boasted an on the property beer garden Jacob-Ruppert-Brewery-Tap-Room-postcard.jpg (999×626) (stuffnobodycaresabout.com)) and have him come back with cold foamy goodness. I can remember my granddad (who would grow up to be a railroad machinist) telling me he could re
It has been 40 some years now, but driving from Boston to Detroit we passed through Dunkirk, NY, home then of the Fred Koch brewery. It is just in a neighborhood. Guys rolling kegs on the loading dock on one side and houses across the street. Hopefully this google view works:
Thanks for the replies guys.
No micro-breweries planned for since my layout is set in 1953. Appreciate the suggestions for structures that are available (like the one from Campbells) and the bonus info about associated activities (besides the drinking of said product).
I used a Walthers Roberts Printing kit, along with their Grain Silo Add-on kit. Grain hoppers go in the tunnel area for unloading. I didn’t want a brick structure, or a Bavarin look. Assumes local distribution, no rail shipments out and the warehousing is assumed in the back. Suits my needs. I placed some signs on it, making it instantly identifiable as a brewery.
I agree about not wanting the “Bavarian” look - which many of those available through Walthers seem to be. That’s why I liked the look of the Cambellls’ model. Plus it fits into my time frame. Thanks for the mention of the add on silo.
Hello All,
Most mid-sized breweries from this time period: Schlitz, Pabst, Fitger’s, Iron City Brew, et al, looked like large industrial buildings without many discerning features marking them as breweries.
There were tracks leading in and out of the building(s) but everything, for the most part, was contained within the four walls of the building- -especially in urban settings.
Even the modern Sprecher’s brewery in Milwaukee, from the outside, looks like any other industry in the area.
Larger, more modern breweries: Coors, Budweiser, Miller, have the more familiar specialty buildings; grain silos, brewhouse, bottling plant, storage, and shipping facilities.
The Miller brewery in Irwindale, California, actually has its stainless steel holding tanks out in the open.
In Fort Collins, Colorado, the Budweiser brewery has the traditional grain silos along with a myriad of piping between the various specialty buildings.
Modeling mid-sized breweries of your era, other than the signs on or on top of the buildings, wouldn’t really be unique from other urban industries of the time.
That being said, any multi-story brick building kit could be kit-bashed to replicate the brewery you are seeking to model.
Hope this helps.
I do not know what space you have for your brewery, but here in the U.K. I seen models of the railroad section modelled and the incidental buildings (cleverly) painted on the backscene giving the impression of a much larger site.
David
One of my favorites was the small to medium size Dixie Brewery in New Orleans.
I’ve thought about trying to scratch build a model of this place, but my skills aren’t quite good enough to pull it off.
Before Hurricane Katrina, you could drive your pickup into the building through the large entry opening, and the workers would roll out a keg and put it into your vehicle. Nothing better than a crawfish boil and Dixie Beer!
Dixie Brewing closed when the building flooded and did not reopen. In the picture you can see the modern building attached to the old brewery on the backside. The old brewery with the new addition is now the research facility as part of the huge Veterans Affairs hospital complex.
