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| Location | Latrobe, Pennsylvania | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Opened | 1899 – 1972 2008 – present | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Owned by | Mark Dudash | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Website | www.duquesnebrewingcompany.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Duquesne Brewing Company was a major brewery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from its founding in 1899 until its dissolution in 1972. The brand was revived under the name Duquesne Brewing Company in 2008, in order to re-establish the beer in Western Pennsylvania starting in the summer of 2010. [1]
The Duquesne Brewing Company was officially incorporated on April 4, 1899. [2] The first president was Henry Miller, formerly a furniture salesman. The original trademark of the brand was a depiction of Fort Duquesne (though it actually featured a depiction of the Fort Pitt Blockhouse with the words "Fort Duquesne" underneath it [3] ), and the more recognizable "Prince of Pilseners" trademark was added later. [2]
The brewery decided to use refrigerated train cars to ship the beer, an innovative move in the early twentieth century. A Chicago stockyard man, Max Epstein, connected Duquesne with Armour and Company, and had Duquesne's company logo emblazoned on one of the cars. At first sight, the Duquesne reps thought the car was a giant billboard for their company and purchased twenty cars. The money that Epstein netted from the sale enabled him to found the General American Transportation Corporation. [4]
Even before Prohibition, Pittsburgh's brewing operations had begun to combine into fewer players, with most ending up under either the umbrella of the Pittsburgh Brewing Company or the Independent Brewing Company of Pittsburgh. Duquesne was among fifteen joining the latter in 1905. [5]
Starting in 1920, Prohibition forced many breweries, distillers, and taverns to close. Duquesne was one of only 725 American breweries left when the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed in April 1933. In 1937, the company renamed itself as the Duquesne Brewing Company of Pittsburgh. The company, reformed under their original charter, emerged as the largest brewing company in Pennsylvania at a yearly production rate of 325,000 barrels.
Duquesne's production capacity increased to two million barrels after World War II when a new building opened at the South Side site in 1950, [6] making it one of the top ten breweries in the United States. The company's best known brand was "Duke," and its popular advertising slogan was "Have a Duke!"
The company had plants in Carnegie (Plant 3) and McKees Rocks (Plant 2), [7] in addition to the South Side flagship brewery, although those soon closed after the new brew house opened at Plant 1 in 1950 (Plant 3 closed in 1952, and Plant 2 in 1950). [8] The curved profile of the 1950 building at Plant 1 was to accommodate the PRR Whitehall Branch, which serviced the brewery from sidings along and off Mary Street.
In January 1963, Duquesne expanded into the Cleveland market by purchasing the rights to P.O.C. Beer from the Pilsener Brewing Company after they closed their plant. [9]
While the company had been profitable through the 1950s, profits had declined by 1962 to $211,586 and the trend showed no sign of abating. [10] [11] A proposed 1965 acquisition by Pittsburgh Brewing ran afoul of anti-trust laws, and was enjoined in United States v. Pittsburgh Brewing Co. and Milton G. Hulme. The Friday family, longtime stewards of the brand, would lose control to investor Raymond Sigesmund in a stock battle in 1966. Sigesmund brought in his son-in-law, Franklyn D. Jeans, to run the brewery, but the problems continued. Jeans fired Lando, Inc., the company which had replaced long-time agency Vic Maitland in 1965 on the Duquesne Brewing advertising account, and replaced them with his own company, Admark. [12]
Sales at Duquesne Beer had fallen to $13 million by 1971. [13] The company, due to competition from national brands sold its labels to C. Schmidt & Sons Brewing Company of Philadelphia in late 1972, and closed the flagship plant. Schmidt brewed Duquesne in Cleveland into the 1980s, but sales fell drastically after Allegheny County commissioner Thomas Foerster called for a boycott of out-of-town beers; by the very end of the beer's production, the packaging was even changed to look like Schmidt's. [13]
In June 2010, Pittsburgh-area attorney Mark J. Dudash announced plans to resurrect the Duquesne Beer brand, to be brewed by City Brewing Company at the Latrobe, PA. [14] Dudash and his wife, Maria, incorporated Duquesne Brewing Company in late 2008 as a formal start to the project and also re-registered the brand's trademark, which had expired.
The Duquesne Brewery's brands included Silver Top Lager, Silver Top Ale, Duke Ale, Duquesne Pilsener, Duquesne Bavarian Beer, Duquesne Bock Beer, Duquesne Heavy-Dry Beer, Duquesne Draft Beer, Duquesne Porter, Old Nut Brown Ale, Frontenac Pale Ale, Duquesne Beer, Carnegie Beer and Duquesne Buccaneer Beer.
The revived Duquesne Brewing Company currently brews its flagship Duquesne Pilsener, Duquesne LT, a light beer, and Fort Pitt, an ale.
In 2015 Duquesne introduced the Paterno Legacy Series [15] [16] to commemorate late football coach Joe Paterno. The brewery reported the commemorative cans sold quickly. [17]
The former Duquesne Brewery complex is located along Mary Street between South 21st and 23rd Streets in the South Side Flats neighborhood. The complex consists of seven extant buildings:
These surviving historic elements of the brewery were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015. [18]
The 1899 brewhouse building, located at Mary Street and 21st Street, now is home to the Brew House Association, which provides housing, studio space, and a gallery for Pittsburgh artists. The adjacent 1950 brewhouse building has been partially restored but is currently vacant. The cellar and keg department is now a self storage facility. A storage and garage building has become living space. The former office building has become Beitler-McKee Optical. The bottling works has become U.S. Cargo. Raff Printing and Rynn's Luggage occupy the case storage and shipping buildings. The bridge between the bottling works and case storage stands, while the bridge connecting the two brewhouses has been dismantled.
The Duquesne Brewery is distinguishable from other buildings on Pittsburgh's South Side by its large clock, visible from throughout the city.
Newcastle Brown Ale is a brown ale, originally brewed in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Launched in 1927 by Colonel Jim Porter after three years of development, the 1960 merger of Newcastle Breweries with Scottish Brewers afforded the beer national distribution and sales peaked in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. The beer underwent a resurgence in the late 1980s and early 1990s with student unions selling it. Brewing moved in 2005 from Newcastle to Dunston, Tyne and Wear, and in 2010 to Tadcaster. In 2017, the Heineken Brewery in Zoeterwoude, the Netherlands, also began production. As of 2019, it is brewed as well by Lagunitas Brewing Company in Petaluma, California, and Chicago, Illinois, for the American market.
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Wychwood Brewery was a brewery in Witney, Oxfordshire, England, owned by Marston's. Hobgoblin, a 5.2% abv brown ale, was the company's flagship brand.
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Latrobe Brewing Company was founded in 1893 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania as part of the Pittsburgh Brewing Company. Forced to close in 1920 due to prohibition, it was purchased by the Tito brothers and reopened in 1933 selling “Latrobe Old German” and “Latrobe Pilsner” beers. The year 1939 saw the introduction of Rolling Rock beer and Latrobe became one of the largest breweries in the United States. It was purchased by Labatt Brewing Company in 1987, which in turn was purchased in 1995 by the Belgian brewing conglomerate corporation Interbrew, which merged later into InBev in 2004.
City Brewing Company is a large brewery located in La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA. It is the former flagship facility of the Heileman Brewery, and can brew up to 7 million barrels of beer a year. Its twin-stream brewhouse can manage 16 brews of 1,100 barrels per day at the same time.
Beer is a popular alcoholic beverage in Turkey, mostly lager type beers.
Moorhouse's is an independent brewery founded in 1865, by William Moorhouse in Burnley Lancashire, England, as a producer of mineral waters and low-alcohol beers known as hop bitters. It first produced cask ales in 1978.
F.X. Matt Brewing Company is a family-owned brewery in Utica, New York. It is the fourth oldest family-owned brewery in the United States, having brewed beer since 1888. Its most popular product is the Saranac line of beers. It also sells soft drinks such as root beer and ginger beer.
Anderson Valley Brewing Company is a brewery founded in 1987 in Boonville, California. Its name is derived from its Anderson Valley location in Mendocino County.
Heineken N.V. is a Dutch brewer which owns a worldwide portfolio of over 170 beer brands, mainly pale lager, though some other beer styles are produced. The two largest brands are Heineken and Tecate; though the portfolio includes Amstel, Fosters, Sagres, Cruzcampo, Skopsko, Affligem, Żywiec, Starobrno, Zagorka, Zlatý Bažant, Laško and Birra Moretti.
The Malt Shovel Brewery is an Australian brewery owned by Lion, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Kirin. It is located in Camperdown, New South Wales. Malt Shovel is best known for its James Squire range of beers. The beer is named after the convict turned Australia's first brewer James Squire, who also went on to grow Australia's first hops and is said to have created Australia's first commercial brewery.
Stones Brewery was a brewery founded in 1868 by William Stones in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, and purchased by Bass Brewery in 1968. After its closure in 1999, its major brand, Stones Bitter, has continued to be produced by the Molson Coors Brewing Company.
The Independent Brewing Company of Pittsburgh (IBC) was a conglomerate of breweries, formed by the merger of fifteen Pittsburgh breweries in 1905.
Wharfedale Brewery is a brewery situated in Ilkley in Wharfedale, West Yorkshire, England, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Two, now defunct, breweries in Yorkshire have previously used the Wharfedale name; first in Wetherby in the 1756 and again in Grassington in 2003. The name was resurrected for a third time, further down the River Wharfe, in 2012 by a group of 16 real ale enthusiasts, many of whom are former chairmen of Ilkley & District Round Table.
Located on the Duquesne Brewing Company building in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Duquesne Brewery Clock was the largest single-face clock in the world when it was installed in 1933. Over the years its face has been used to advertise numerous brands, beginning with Coca-Cola.
The Christian Schmidt Brewing Company was an American brewing company headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1860, it was the largest brewing company in the history of Philadelphia, producing nearly 4,000,000 barrels of beer a year in the late 1970s. When it closed in 1987, it marked the first time in over 300 years that there was no brewery operating in Philadelphia.
Fort Pitt Brewing Company was a major brewery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1906 to 1957, which brewed Fort Pitt Beer and other regional brands. Mark Dudash, a Pittsburgh area attorney and owner of Duquesne Brewing Company, revived Fort Pitt Brewing, and introduced a new Fort Pitt Ale in 2014. The new Fort Pitt Ale is crafted in the spirit of the brewery established in Fort Pitt in 1765, and is formulated as an ale using two row malt, caramel, and English hops. The company had manufacturing plants in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania and Jeannette, Pennsylvania.
