Beer Brewing in Grand Rapids

by William W. Seeger

Grand Rapids was recently designated Beer City, USA, but beer has been a popular beverage in the United States ever since the days of the earliest colonists to these shores. In 1620, the Mayflower, which carried the Pilgrims to the New World, stocked a goodly supply of beer on board, not only to satisfy crew and passenger thirst, but also as a measure for preventing scurvy. The English colonists in Virginia and all along the eastern seaboard chose beer as a healthful alternative to the dangers of drinking the water. The Dutch who settled New Netherland in the early part of the seventeenth century were even fonder of the foaming brew. The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, founded in 1626, had a population of 350 by 1629; about three years later the Dutch West India Company, proprietors of the colony, built a brewery not far from the fort.

The first brewer in Grand Rapids was an Englishman named John Pannell, who came to town in 1836 and built a small brewery over a stream at the bottom of Prospect Hill on the east side of Kent Street. His modest output - “a barrel or two at a brewing” - of English hop beer gradually increased, and by 1844, thanks to rising demand, his brewery was doing quite well. That same year, Christoph Kusterer, a brewer trained in Germany, established a brewery on the west side of the river and shortly thereafter went into partnership with Pannell.

Kusterer’s Crew circa 1860 striking a pose for the annual spring release of Bock Beer.

Christoph Kusterer was a prominent figure in the local German-American community. A founding member of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Immanuel in 1857, he was the captain of the Grand Rapids Rifles, a German-American militia unit. He also served as a parade marshal for the "Grand German Jollification," an event which celebrated Prussia's victory over France in 1871. Kusterer's life came to a tragic end in

An artist’s sketch of the Grand Rapids Brewing Company.

October 1880 when he, along with all others on board, went down with the steamer Alpena in a violent Lake Michigan storm. His brewing business, however, was carried on by his sons and grandsons, and the Kusterer name remained linked to the brewing of lager beer in Grand Rapids well into the twentieth century.

Find out about these breweries and many more as Wilhelm (Bill) Seeger tells us about beer brewing throughout Grand Rapids’ history. Bill has been on the board of the Grand Rapids Historical Society since 1980 and has numerous publications and presentations to his name about the Germans of Grand Rapids and German brewing in Grand Rapids.

Workers of the Frey Bothers’ Coldbrook Brewery posing for the annual spring Bock Beer release.

Tusch’s Cincinnati Brewery.

Excerpts and images originally appeared in the Grand River Valley Review, Vol. VIII, No. 1, and later appeared in the Fall 1991 edition of NABA’s The Breweriana Collector Magazine. Photos are compliments of Bill Seeger, The Grand Rapids Public Museum, and the Grand Rapids Public Library. See the complete article online at http://www.mi-brew.com/history/ seeger/braumeisters/index05.html.

“Beer Brewing in Grand Rapids” presented by William W. Seeger. Thursday, November 14, 2013, 7:00 p.m. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.