Yuengling Brewing

We drove over the mountain from Bloomsburg to Pottsville to tour Yuengling, America's oldest Brewery. (Little did we know that a couple days later we would be back in Pottsville for an RV repair.) The brewery was started in 1829 by David G. Yuengling and has been run by a Yuengling every since. It was originally called Eagle Brewing and an eagle is still on the bottles and cans today.  

In 1831 a fire destroyed the original brewery and a new one that is still brewing today was built. Their first beers were Lord Chesterfield Ale and Porter. These are still brewed today.  

The beer bottle chandelier welcomes you to the gift shop where the free tour begins. There is now a new, modern second brewery just down the road in Mill Creek that was built to meet growing demand.  

A unique feature of the brewery is the caves that coal miners dug into the hill under the brewery using only pick axes. They stay at 54 degrees year round and were used to store the kegs before there was refrigeration. 

The water for the original brewery came from a spring above the building. A bit of water still flows from the spring. As production increased more water was needed so they now use Pottsville water.

An old storage tank in the cave where the beer was kept until it was put in kegs. They sure have come a long way from a small local brewery. Not only are they the oldest in America, they are also the largest American owned brewery. That's right, the big three Bud, Miller and Coors are no longer American owned.

This old machine enabled them to fill only four kegs. When one was done the bung would be pounded in by hand and the barrel rolled off. This machine was used into the 1980's when they reintroduced Yeungling Traditional Amber Lager, the beer that is now their flagship brand. 

How the kegs have changed from 1829, when they were wooden barrels, to today's modern kegs. The new barrel filling operation was not part of the tour.

The Rathskeller was built in 1936. Employees were allowed to drink beer here during their shift. That practice was stopped by OSHA in the 1990's. Guests were served here before the tours became so popular that a larger area was needed.

The maintenance shop looks much the same as it would have looked 150 years ago. The head man has worked for the company for over 30 years.

These ladies had the job of washing the bottles and kegs for the beer. On the right the man is drinking a Winner Beer, the one that celebrated the end of Prohibition. Bottom is a batch of beer in the cooker. During Prohibition they produced near-beer (0.5% alcohol) and their Porter, which they claimed had "medicinal" qualities, even for nursing mothers. The local word is that a few barrels also escaped through a hole in the basement into the church next door. 

Today the original brewery has been modernized with increased production. 90% of the beer here is put in cans, while at Mill Creek 90% goes in bottles. To meet growing demand and expansion they purchased an old Stroh's brewery in Tampa in 1999. With this new production Yeungling is now available in more and more states. They don't move into a state until they can supply the whole state. 

Here we are with our free samples. I usually drink the Traditional Lager, but I really liked the Lord Chesterfield Ale. It is only available in Pennsylvania. That is Dick Yeungling in the background. He has four daughters who all work for the company. If the tradition that a family member always runs the company holds, the girls are going to have to follow another tradition and buy the company from their father. 

The sampling room is in the old dairy that they opened during Prohibition to make ends meet. The ice-cream is still on the market. 

Look who else drank Yeungling, The Three Stooges. While some people have boycotted Yeungling because of the owners political beliefs, I always ask what the political beliefs are of the brewers of their favorite beer. Most don't know. At least Yeungling is American owned.

Just up the street from the brewery is the Yeungling Family Homestead. The family lived in the house from 1913 to 1978. The home was donated to the Schuylkill County Arts and Ethnic Center and is now used by the center for many local cultural events.

We are now in Eastern Pennsylvania until the weekend and will then be heading to New York for the Escapee's HOP to the Hudson River Valley and NYC. The issue with the RV has still not been corrected. It seems that every place checks something off the list of possibilities but does not get it fixed. Hopefully, we will make it back to WashPA where we will have three months to find a solution to the problem.