Author Interview for Over the Barrel
The Origins of Over the Barrel
What was your inspiration for getting involved in the Over the Barrel project?
I grew up in Cincinnati, and have always been interested in the history of the city. And since the mid-1970s I've been an avid collector of breweriana [brewery-related memorabilia]. As I went through college and became more active in research and writing, I began to focus less on collecting - though I still very much enjoy collecting all manner of brewery items - and more on the story behind the individual brewers. Who they were, how they operated, what their contributions were to the city and region, all those things became of great interest to me. So I began to look into them, and over time combined my love for Cincinnati and the brewing industry with my college-born interest in scholarship and German-American Studies, which of course is a big part of Cincinnati history.
You weren't the first person to cover this topic, right?
That's true. In 1969 William Downard finished a doctoral dissertation on the socioeconomic importance of Cincinnati brewing. It was published four years later in book form. And in the late 1980s Robert Wimberg compiled a book as well on breweries in Cincinnati, with brewer biographies, photographs of remaining brewery buildings, and other information.
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Original, unused
front cover artwork for Over the Barrel, Volume One |
I felt there were some things I could provide that the others didn't or couldn't do. Both Downard and Wimberg provided useful works, but in the case of the former, important though it is as a pioneering work, much new information has come to light since then, and of course there is also thirty years of material which has taken place since then, things that a work from 1969 obviously could not cover. And with the latter book, it makes many good contributions, but didn't really cover some of the important issues that affected beer makers and consumers, such as the temperance and prohibition movements; ethnic concerns such as the importance of German immigrants to beer manufacture and consumption; the role of advertising; women and their importance as beer buyers and consumers, and so on. So in a sense, what I've done is update and expand considerably what Downard provided in his original study, and contextualize much of what Wimberg presents in his book. Not to mention adding all kinds of new stories and topics that neither one included; at four hundred or so pages per volume, Over the Barrel is by no means just a recap of what other people before me have said. There's plenty of new information in each volume.
Do you have a personal connection to the Cincinnati brewing industry?
Having been born and raised in Cincinnati, I remember well several of the companies while they were still in operation. And as a breweriana collector, I have all sorts of mementoes of area breweries in my collection, things such as glassware; bottle labels; coasters; letters on brewery stationery; cans; and so on. It's been a part of my life for over a quarter century now.
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Early back cover
artwork for Over the Barrel, Volume One |
I talk about that to a considerable extent in the introduction to Volume Two. In a nutshell, my main memories are of the Hudepohl Brewing Company. I toured the brewery on various occasions before it closed [in 1986]. Hudepohl 14-K was also the first beer I ever tried, of course with parental permission, probably in the early- to mid-1970s. I visited the Schoenling and Wiedemann breweries also, and remember many of the old TV commercials the local breweries used to run, including one with Gary Collins early in his career, when he was a spokesman for the Burger Brewing Company.
In fact the Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewing Company is a sponsor of the Over the Barrel project.
That's right. I approached several of Cincinnati's breweries and brewpubs when Over the Barrel was still in the development stage, and from the first contact Hudepohl-Schoenling was very enthusiastic about getting involved and helping me to bring the work to fruition. The company also provided some financial support toward publication. But the biggest contribution it made was in opening up its corporate archives to me, allowing me to use basically whatever I wanted in the scope of the project. Sadly, they, like most such companies, threw away a great many documents and other historical materials over the years. But enough remained that there are plenty of fantastic pictures and other items, most of which appear in Volume Two since they come from the post-Prohibition period.
