When the question arises who was the first brewery to bottle beer in San Francisco, the answer is invariably I have no clue as some enterprising forty-niner brewed some beer and bottled it, but the bottles were never embossed so if would be impossible to confirm any claim. But if you refine the question as to who was the first to bottle beer in their own embossed bottles, we can narrow it down to three possibilities as follows: The Swan Brewery is listed as an operating a Brewery in San Francisco from 1874-1881, it is listed under bottlers in 1875, 1877 and again in 1881. The Wilmot Brewing Company is only listed as being in the Brewery Business from 1877-1880 with no additional listings under bottlers. The final potential candidate is Feldman & Co. an extremely rare bottle listed under bottlers in 1877 only. I am not sure anyone can say with certainty that the Swan Brewery was the first to bottle in their own embossed bottles, but I can say with certainty it was one of these three companies.
Good work, John. All this beer talk is makin' me thirsty. Swan has received the most creds for being the first, but will we EVER know? The early directories are too sketchy and the archives don't tell all, either. Admittedly, I haven't researched beers all that much, so will return at my earliest convenience. Have you looked through "Book 1" for beer trademarks?
ReplyDeleteNo, I have not looked in the trademarks but Eric McGuire just e-mailed me a copy of the original trademark which I will post shortly, gives me a good reason to visit Sacotomatoes soon.
ReplyDeleteFound in the San Francisco Directory for Feldmann
ReplyDelete1876 - Chris Feldmann & Co., 14, 16, &18 Geary St. San Francisco
1877-78 as having a liquor saloon, same address
I have a German Directory from San Francisco and this address seems familiar to me. I will check it out later and see if I can find something on it.