by Jeremy Banas
Although many know the famous brew as Pearl, it was known as XXX Pearl for quite a long time. “Pearl” referred to the pearl-like bubbles that resulted from the carbonation. The XXX designation had, since medieval times, been used to designate the quality of the beer produced by European monasteries, with XXX being the highest quality. In fact, a brewery representative in 1887 promoted the beer in print, paying homage to the brewery name that folks had become accustomed to, as well as the brewery’s new name: “The new City Beer, just out, and very fine, try it. Have you tried the new brand of City Pearl Beer? The finest flavored beer in the market. Be sure and try, and you will be convinced. Warranted to be the same at all times. Ask for it, drink no other.”
Match safe from the A. Griesedieck Brewing Company, suggesting that Otto Koehler may have obtained the name and recipe for Pearl lager beer from someone other than Kaiser-Beck Brewery in Germany, as is commonly accepted. Dates on the back range from 1879 to 1886, with 1886 being the year Pearl launched XXX Pearl Beer. Charlie Staats.
As the San Antonio Brewing Association gained steam, Oscar Bergstrom, staying true to his opportunistic nature, assumed the presidency of the fledgling brewery. Despite this, it was really Koehler’s brewery management experience that steered the ship. It was this very business acumen that had impressed Adolphus Busch in St. Louis, prompting him to bring Koehler to San Antonio for Lone Star. Would it be enough for Koehler?
While leading San Antonio Brewing Association forward in a new sea of breweries in San Antonio, Koehler began to invest in other businesses as well. At one point, Koehler had his hands in the Monarch Mining Company in Idaho; the Continental Mining Company and the Panuco Mountain and Monclova Railroad in Mexico; the American Lignite and Briquette Company of Texas; and the Texas Transportation Company, which served as the railroad used by San Antonio Brewing Association to transport its beer from the brewery to the main railroad line at Sunset Station in San Antonio. “His name as president or director of fifteen large corporations spoke of his versatility and business acumen,” stated James Nelson in his 1976 master’s thesis. “He had the ability to handle large business interests and groups of men.”
As with many things, necessity is the mother of invention, and with demand for its beer reaching greater heights each year, distribution around the city and beyond was becoming a challenge for the company. The creation of the Texas Transportation Company was the result of this need, with the board of the San Antonio Brewing Association determining that its horse-drawn carriages would not be enough on their own. This short rail would allow XXX Pearl to be transported from the brewery to the nearby tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad, as well as bringing much-needed brewing supplies from the arriving trains.
In addition to his business investments, Koehler invested heavily in real estate, further increasing what would become one of the largest fortunes in San Antonio at the time. One of the biggest of these investments was the now long-abandoned Hot Wells Resort and Sanitarium, started by McClellan Shackleton. Koehler was one of many investors in the grand four-story Victorian building that included numerous pools and eighty guestrooms. Not surprisingly, Otto Koehler sat at the top as president.
The XXX logo harkens back to medieval days, when XXX meant the best-quality beer. Nan Palmero.
Koehler was a shrewd businessman indeed, leveraging not only his money but also that of the San Antonio Brewing Association, all with the approval of the San Antonio Brewing Association’s board and stockholders. Often this money would be charged back to Koehler either individually or as Koehler and Company. Koehler was not alone. His partner at the San Antonio Brewing Association, Otto Wahrmund, dabbled in investments in just this same manner.
Perhaps one of the most interesting of his many investments was that of his partnership and friendship with his former employer Adolphus Busch. Together they were silent partners in the buyout of the first brewery to bear the name of the “Shrine of Texas Liberty,” the Alamo Brewing Company, in 1895. Alamo Brewing would later be absorbed into the Lone Star Brewing Association.
Busch continued to keep an eye on Koehler throughout the decades, even expressing concern for the San Antonio beer magnate in a letter to Koehler on June 2, 1904: “You take good care of the brewery and promote its interest to the fullest extent; this is a far better investment than dabbling in mines and all kinds of outside affairs which give one nothing but worry and bring losses. Now you have no children and there is no earthly reason why you should burden yourself with all these responsibilities and cares; you ought to live like a king and enjoy life.” Ironic, as later in the next century Busch’s own brewery, Anheuser-Busch, was opening regional breweries and buying out others, a practice that would continue into the next two centuries.
Page from San Antonio Brewing Association’s 1896 calendar. Jeremy Banas.
By the late 1880s and early 1890s, the popularity of XXX Pearl Beer and the San Antonio Brewing Association had caused production to increase at a rapid rate, with XXX Pearl being delivered all over the Alamo City, much to the pleasure of its thirsty residents. “The brewery also purchased several saloons in San Antonio paying between $100 to $5,000 including all furniture and fixtures,” said Charlie Staats, “thus becoming an official XXX Pearl Saloon.” One of the more well-known and frequented of these saloons was the Scholz Palm Garden in downtown San Antonio, a three-story building that stands today. Between 1887 and 1894, the brewery would see many upgrades, including new offices, refrigeration equipment, a cooperage, a bottling building, a washing house and a storage room. The cooperage for San Antonio Brewing Association would be run by another German immigrant, Ernest Charles Mueller, whose home near San Antonio Brewing Association would later be repurposed as the Granary ’Cue and Brew in 2012 after being purchased from the Mueller family in 2004 by the Pearl’s current ownership.
Mueller was enticed to come to the United States and later San Antonio by his friend and former coworker at Anheuser-Busch, Ignatz Hrovat, who was San Antonio Brewing Association’s brewmaster at the time. Although Koehler brought the now famous recipe from Germany to San Antonio, it was Hrovat who weaved magic into it.
By 1892, production at the San Antonio Brewing Association had grown to near sixty thousand barrels per year, with more than sixty employees needed to keep that wonderful elixir rolling out the brewery doors. Clearly Koehler, Bergstrom and the gang had outgrown their wooden brewery. A more modern brewery with extra space was needed and fast. In 1893, the San Antonio Daily Light reported, “The City Brewing Company now in contemplation of extensive enlargements as they feel justified by their success and increasing demand for their product in doubling their capacity. The plans for a new brewing house of latest design, additional storage vault for 10,000 bottles, new stables for horses, are now in the hands of architects, the building to be built of brick and iron and fireproof.”
The new brewhouse, stables and offices would be under the design of Chicago architect August Maritzen, already very well known nationally for his brewery designs. The new brewery would be done in two phases, with the now iconic brewhouse finished in 1894, while the washhouse, bottling building and stock house were completed in 1897. Also completed in 1894, and designed by local architect Otto Kramer, were the equally famous Pearl Stables. The year 1897 also saw the San Antonio Brewing Association leverage its holdings to borrow about $150,000 from the St. Louis Trust company to shore up its capital, as well as update and expand the brewery. In 1899, the troubled Oscar Bergstrom left for New York, allowing Otto Koehler to assume the presidency of the San Antonio Brewing Association. In 1901, Koehler, Wahrmund and J.J. Stevens bought out their other partners during the brewery’s re-chartering that same year.
In addition to the new brewery, upgraded equipment and icehouse, Koehler focused a little of his attention on the exterior aesthetics of the new brewery. One such addition was a garden on the grounds. The San Antonio Express reported in its November 14, 1914 edition that “Otto Koehler took the greatest prid
e and pleasure in the plants and trees of his home and brewery. Whenever he left San Antonio, he charged the gardener to give special care to the flowers and trees. Recently he completed a fence around his house grounds that is unique and in keeping with the beautiful surroundings.”
The home and grounds referred to are that of Koehler’s residence in Laurel Heights off West Ashby Place, just north of what is now the campus of the San Antonio Community College. As legend has it, Otto Koehler picked that particular location for his $133,000 mansion so that he could keep an eye on the brewery and his employees by observing the color of the smoke coming from the brewery’s smokestacks. If true, this is quite interesting, considering Koehler’s devotion to his employees and the trust he gained from them as a result.
Not that Otto Koehler had much to worry about. His brewery was in the hands of brewmaster Oscar Oswald Schreiber, who kept the formula written down in a secret book and made sure that the brewhouse ran smoothly and without incident. Such was the responsibility of a brewmaster, and that tradition has carried into present times. However, thirteen short years after the brewery opened, Schreiber passed away. Schreiber was going to be hard to replace, but the San Antonio Brewing Association board took a stab at it and hired Gottfried Schober, who left in 1904, opening his own brewery and ice factory in 1905 a mere two blocks from the San Antonio Brewing Association. Schober was replaced by the venerable Gustav Etter, who would see the San Antonio Brewing Association through the best and worst of times, until his retirement in 1945.
Gustav Etter was known at the time as one of the most respected brewmasters in the country, as well as being the treasurer for the United States Brewmasters Association. Etter had been born in 1865 in Rotweil, Germany, and arrived in the United States in the late 1880s. Prior to his arrival at the San Antonio Brewing Association, Etter had worked as brewmaster at Tosetti Brewing Company in Chicago, Illinois. Though known primarily for XXX Pearl, the San Antonio Brewing Association brewed other brands as well, such as Muenchener and Texas Pride, which were introduced by Etter. Texas Pride itself would see multiple incarnations over the next seven decades. Little is known about these styles, but Nelson stated that “Etter established a continued record of brewing perfection. Under his firm guidance, brewing facilities were considered a marvel of excellence. In 1907, Texas Pride was acclaimed as their most popular bottled beer.”
In the early 1900s, in response to increased competition from new and expanding breweries, the San Antonio Brewing Association joined other Texas breweries like the Lone Star Brewing Company, the Texas Brewing Company of Fort Worth, the American Brewing Association of Houston and several others to form the Texas Consolidated Brewing Association. Joint stock ownership was given to each member; with this new partnership, the breweries hoped to stabilize beer prices in the Lone Star State, which were fixed by the association at about $2.50 per barrel, although eventually these beer giants of Texas would face an antitrust case that would hurt the member breweries dearly and accelerate prohibition in Texas.
Otto A. Koehler and the Stein Room dedication. Pearl LLC Archives.
Along with a stabilization of the common brewing process for lager beer, purchase of grain from the same malting companies in the United States, the use of similar equipment and stringent federal guidelines on ingredients, mainly the Pure Food Law of 1906, lager beer continued to rise in popularity not only in Texas but also throughout the United States, largely due to these changes.
Pre-Prohibition San Antonio brewery locations. Charlie Staats.
In a letter to his father in 1903, Otto Koehler exulted in his excitement for the future:
Everything with us here is in excellent shape, business and otherwise and I hope that in the coming years everything will fall into place so that I and the members of our entire family will have nothing to worry about anymore. I recently got involved in a number of big deals all of which promise to turn out tremendously great; and furthermore is our brewing business so organized that our profits are greatly increased and I am manager of seven breweries.
What’s interesting is Otto Koehler’s mention of being manager for seven breweries. Considering that he worked only for the San Antonio Brewing Association, it is possible that he was taking credit for the other breweries that were a part of the Texas Consolidated Brewing Association. Although no records are found to support this, he may have been elected to head the overall association. In addition, he still had shares in the Lone Star Brewing Association.
EARLY RUMBLINGS OF PROHIBITION
Despite the popularity of XXX Pearl and Texas Pride, rumblings from the so-called dry camp were heating up around the same time. Anti-drinking rhetoric from the Anti-Saloon League was weighing heavily on the booming beer business in Texas. In an attempt to slow this momentum and a possible future prohibition on alcohol, the Texas Consolidated Brewing Association added the Dallas Brewing Company and the Galveston Brewing Association to its ranks, re-forming the group into the Texas Brewers’ Association.
This new group’s sole purpose was to pour money into a campaign to stop the possible ban on all alcohol. Each member brewing pledged twenty cents per barrel to the endeavor in an attempt to persuade lawmakers and judges that the “wet side” was the right one. These efforts did bring an ally to the wet side in Oscar Branch, who occupied the Governor’s Mansion, gaining him the nickname “Budweiser Branch” to his pro-dry opponents.
Not all of its efforts could be dedicated to staving off what would be the inevitable, and thus the San Antonio Brewing Association brewed on. By 1910, the association appears to have switched to metal barrels, although photos of that time suggest that it was still using a fair number of wooden barrels. The brewery also began adding an enzyme to its beer that helped with clarification of its natural haziness, and it even moved past a labor strike that lasted just one day.
A barrel that once held XXX Pearl Beer, unknown year. Jeremy Banas.
By 1911, though, dry legislation support was increasing, with much of the support coming from rural counties and from within the Texas legislature. Governor Branch went so far as to cut funding for the enforcement of dry laws in those counties where they already existed. Coupled with behind-the-scenes shenanigans by the wet crowd, the proposed legislation was defeated. In 1913, the Anti-Saloon League went national and petitioned Congress for a federal amendment banning alcohol. By 1915, the pro-dry sentiment had morphed into a bill and was voted on, with 197 in favor and 190 against.
Despite the success and growth of the San Antonio Brewing Association, 1914 would prove a vital year in its history. War broke out in Europe that July. Koehler was overseas visiting his German family when war broke out, stranding him and his wife, Emma, in Germany. The Koehlers of Germany were nervous about their fate, as well as that of the visiting Otto and Emma. While in Germany, Otto Koehler drew up a new will, thereby giving each of his brothers and sister the equivalent of $25,000 1914 dollars if he were to leave this earth—it would turn out to be rather prophetic.
Otto and Emma Koehler were able to return to the United States in the fall of 1914. On the way to their ship, the SS New Amsterdam, lightning struck the limousine they were traveling in, and the German police detained them. After a series of interrogations, the Koehlers were released, and they were finally able to return home. What was to come in the ensuing months would make Otto Koehler wish he had still been stranded in Germany.
Upon his return, Otto Koehler tackled issues at the brewery with the energy of someone half his age. Despite the threat to his interests in Mexico from Pancho Villa, Koehler seemed completely at ease. However, that would not last long, as a secret he had been hiding from everyone would prove to be his end and alter the San Antonio Brewing Association for the foreseeable future; a scandal would soon take center stage over all else that would rock San Antonio and the United States.
TROUBLE IN PARADISE?
In the early 1900s, Emma Koehler is reported to have been involved in a terrible car accident that left her
virtually an invalid and perpetually bedridden. No evidence is actually found to support this, leading one to ponder the actual cause of the injury. “It could even be that she was injured during her summer 1909 visit to Germany, which would explain hiring a German nurse, rather than starting out from San Antonio with help,” mused San Antonio researcher Martha Rand Hix. It is also possible for this to be the truth, as there is mention in the memoirs of Emma Koehler’s great-niece, Margaret Pace Willson, that her Aunt Emma had been injured in an auto accident. To ease his burden yet make sure his wife was attended to, Koehler hired a nurse in 1909 by the name of Emma Dumpke.
The Koehlers had hired Dumpke while on one of their many trips back to Germany. Dumpke was described in a later account as a “pretty, petite brunette.” Dumpke appears to have taken a shine to Mrs. Koehler, even as she and Otto Koehler became closer. Not long after Dumpke’s hiring, Koehler and Dumpke’s affair began in earnest. Not much is known about Otto and Emma Koehler’s relationship at the time, but it most certainly looks to have taken a turn after her accident.
At some point after Dumpke was hired, she brought around a nurse friend of hers to the Koehler mansion. Dumpke had already spoken to her friend about her affair with Otto Koehler. When this friend, Emma Hedda Burgermeister, arrived with Emma Dumpke to the Koehler mansion, she could not escape the wandering eye of the San Antonio Brewing Association president. She soon joined the love triangle. Each was given a stipend, with Dumpke receiving $125 and Burgermeister receiving only $50 per month. It’s hard to say if this caused any friction between the two friends, although it most certainly could not have helped matters any.