This is what the inside looks like:
I’m thinking of using this building:
What else would I need? Grain storage? How did they do that?
http://www.brewerygems.com/salem.htm
http://www.huberbrewery.com/history/
http://www.saranac.com/brewery/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morland_Brewery
http://www.brewerygems.com/3-b.htm
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/whi/results.asp?subject_narrow=Breweries
http://www.americanbreweriana.org/history/dickbros.htm
http://www.ohiobreweriana.com/library/holdings/diehl.shtml
This one is near me.
This is the Dixie Brewing Co. building on Tulane Avenue in New Orleans. Built in 1907 (only 22 years later than 1885) and still in operation today.
A grain elevator would be one choice for receiving and storing the grain. I used Walthers Prarie Star Milling and Prarie Star Elevator kits which are designed to be used together connected by an overhead conveyor. I don’t think it is available in N scale but you could use another grain elevator and use the building you posted or go with modulars for the brewery. I think that is an outstanding looking structure and could probably be a small brewery. You might want to have an adjacent building for storage. I don’t know if they had bottled beer that far back but when beer was first bottled, the law required it be done in a separate building from the brewery and had to be shipped over public roads. That was so the tax man could keep track of what was being bottled.
I am putting some finishing touches on this area and hope to post some photos this weekend.
Lots of good photos in there Jeffery. Thanks.
It looks like my building will work.
Are the square towers in thise pics grain towers. The smaller older breweries did not seem to have grain towers.
Wow, the Bellingham Bay brewery looks a lot like the Walthers Brewery kit I built a couple months ago. It wouldn’t surprise me if it is the prototype for that kit. It has been retired by Walthers but I just saw one in my LHS today. I’m going to post some pictures this weekend. I think it is my favorite structure but it just wouldn’t fit in the area I allocated for the brewery so it is getting repurposed as a newspaper publisher and the Prarie Star Milling kit became by brewery.
Spacemouse,
Not all brewries were big ones. Here is a link to one that was small and makes a neat little model that will fit better on many layouts:
http://www.copperrange.org/brewerywh.htm
Of course, having lots of beer is OK by me.
[:o)]
It’s just that sometimes, a lot of beer won’t quite fit.
One aspect of a brewery from the 1880s that might be overlooked is the need to house and feed lots of horses for delivery. The Schlitz brewery in Milwaukee had an entire farm where draft horses were raised and kept. When horses were obsolete the farm languished and was allowed to grow wild but eventually was donated and is now the Schlitz Audubon Center in Bayside WI, a northeast suburb of Milwaukee. Closer to the brewery they had large barns and brought in hay and feed. Also a wagon repair shop.
The Schlitz brewery also used its grain wastes and owned a huge duck farm south of Milwaukee. And the duck wastes were combined with agricultural wastes (I think from cranberry production if memory serves) and made into fertilizer. A brewery creates almost as many ancillary businesses (and opportunities for railroad traffic particularly in pre-automobile days) as a slaughter house or tannery.
Dave Nelson
Sacramento City Brewery
Winery across from the Buffalo Brewery, R Street (I live two blocks from here!)
Buffalo Brewery, 21st and Q Street
Another view of Buffalo Brewery, from 21st and R Street–early Sacramento streetcar in foreground–from 1895, close to your era:
Hi Chip: Being from Milwaukee I’ve seen a bunch of brewerys. Of course the big ones in Milwaukee and a lot of the smaller ones in the rural towns. Many, and I do mean many, smalls towns had there brewer. It was one way for the farmers to sell there grains. Your building looks like one of those that would have been in a small town somewhere. You need to be able to feceive grain. barrells, bottles, wooden cases for the bottles, and machinery. I,m sure that I’ve left something out but you get the point. Of course you need to have provisions for shipping the beer and any waste. When I did my brewery I had a yard on the side of the plant for loading that had 5 tracks. The tracks were in pairs with a drive inbetween. The last track was on the outside. A road across The end of the yard was used by small simis to haul the beer cases to the reefers. I hope that I’ve been some help. Take care.
Wow guys, this is some great information. I’m going to have to go back to the plans to see what I can fit in.
One operations-related thing to keep in mind: Until the 20th Century most beer brands were strictly local, and they didn’t generally distribute outside their own communities. So while you would have frequent shipments in (hops, grain, barrels etc.) the outbound trips would be few. However, it might not be a bad stop for a “mixed train” or a passenger train with a baggage/express car: call it the “Brewery Special” with an extra long stop so the passengers can take on liquids while the locomotive is doing the same!
I’m not sure if this would help or not, but as a child my mom lived near a local whiskey plant (Jack D.?) They would dump the used mash right out back. She said the stench was truely remarkable.
~Don
The home of Rolling Rock Beer, down the road from you at the Latrobe Brewing Company might make a Sunday afternoon Drive.
I went to their website, “was carded,” and there were no building pictures but the flash presentation and rock music were terrific.
Here are a couple of pics of the Walthers brewery that originally was going to be my brewery:
I think you can see how that corner tower bears a strong resemblence to the Bellingham Bay Brewery that was posted earlier in this thread.
It wouldn’t fit in the allotted space so I am going to repurpose it. Below are two pics of the Prarie Star Milling and Grain Elevator kits that became my brewery. The building to the right will serve as the bottling plant:
The only thing I don’t like about this arrangement is the bottling plant hides the view of the brewery which is one of my favorite structures. If I had to do it over again, I’d probably find a two story structure to serve as the bottling plant or use modulars for it. Someday I might make that change but I have too many other tasks on my plate right now.