Since its time for Oktoberfest and beer, it is appropriate that the program last night at the Historical Society of Frankford was “Breweries of Frankford, Kensington and Bridesburg”. Rich Wagner, Pennsylvania brewery historian, held the audience of 50 or so in rapt attention as his made he presentation.
I have no great interest in breweries but they played an important part in the history of the city and also Frankford. So we found out that the Frankford breweries (John Fritsch and John Grauch) were down in the 4200 block of Penn Street. The house at 4234 Penn Street was listed as the office for one of them.
Rich Wagner clearly has done his homework. The presentation was illustrated with many then and now photographs showing the history of the breweries and then what those buildings look like today. Many of them are still around serving other purposes. It was interesting to me that the old Edgemont hotel at Ash and Edgemont Street in Bridesburg was in fact a brewery. I grew up over there and never would have known.
Interesting member of the audience was Guy Hairston of the 4800 block of Hawthorne Street. He was working in his yard a few weeks ago and uncovered an antique beer bottle dating from around 1890 made by Conrad Bock of 2108 Bridge Street. Rich Wagner offered his help in evaluating Guy’s find.
The evening was capped off by a beer tasting courtesy of Mike Scotese (Scoats) of the Grey Lodge. The event was sponsored by 3rd Federal Bank.
Pictures below of the festive crowd. Click on the image for a large sized view.
Next month, the HSF will feature Veterans Guard 3rd Regiment Infantry in uniform. With luck we will get some interesting video.
Frankford, with many big buildings and warehouses, is good candidate for a brewery place. We thought of turning of our big building into a brewery house when we first move in. We used to make wine for a living 15/20 years ago. We only have experience with home brew and a lot of work go into it especially cleaning the equitment.