Pabst, Schlitz and Miller are still household names today, but we sometimes forget that Milwaukee spawned dozens of other breweries in its beer-soaked heyday. Most were short-lived and quickly forgotten, but a handful of producers provided stiff competition for the industry’s established leaders.
One of the most formidable also-rans was Philipp Jung, seated front and center in this circa-1900 photograph. Like many of his peers, Jung learned the brewing craft in Germany and found a profitable outlet for his talents in Milwaukee. He arrived in 1872 as assistant brewmaster for Best & Co., the city’s largest producer at the time.
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Three years later, he married one of the Best daughters, Anna, but Jung’s subsequent rise was not the result of nepotism. A master of the art of beer and a tireless innovator, the young man was promoted to Best’s brewmaster in 1877 and promptly tripled the company’s output. Jung worked closely with another Best son-in-law, Frederick Pabst. That flamboyant former lake captain eventually became sole owner of the brewery and renamed it for himself in 1889.
Philipp Jung was long gone by the time Best became Pabst. Pursuing his own entrepreneurial dreams, Jung entered one partnership with maltster Ernst Borchert in 1879 and formed another with the Falk brewing brothers nine years later. In 1896, he went on his own, purchasing the old Obermann brewery on Fifth and Cherry streets, a plant located squarely between Pabst and Schlitz.
After modernizing and expanding the facility, Jung boosted its annual output to 100,000 barrels a year, good for fifth place among Milwaukee’s brewers. His business would not survive the advent of Prohibition in 1919, but it was a resounding success under Philipp Jung’s leadership. When he died in 1911, the immigrant left an estate valued at $2 million – not bad for a talented also-ran.
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK:
- There was no color film in 1900, but there were hand-applied paints. Photo oil coloring created the illusion of natural hues.
- Usually employed in the bottling plant, women stuck together in what was clearly a man’s world.
- Philipp Jung entered the brewing field in Germany as an apprentice to his grandfather at the age of 14.
- Demolished decades ago, the plant was a dominant landmark in today’s Haymarket district.
- Stiff collars in front, overalls in back; Jung Brewing’s social hierarchy was plainly apparent in this photograph.
- The “Jung Old” brand was a play on the proprietor’s surname.
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