Antique Post-Prohibition Beer Bottle Barmann Fine Beer Kingston New York

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Antique Post-Prohibition Beer Bottle Barmann Fine Beer Kingston New York:
$149.99

Antique Beer Bottle Barmann Fine Beer Kingston NY.. I do not know the exact year, post-prohibition. Please see pictures for condition The following is information on the company history attained online. I am not an expert on it. The Peter Barmann Brewery was located in the City of Kingston New York. The brewery was on the corner of what is now Barmann Avenue and South Clinton Avenue. Small portions of the foundation can still be seen in the area. The brewery has an interesting history that includes mob involvement, secret pipelines through sewers and police raids (The police raids are what caught my interest and brought me into collecting of Kingston and Rondout NY breweriana).

Peter Barmann was born in Bavaria in 1844. Peter was seven years old when his mother died in 1851. Peter and his father, Jacob came to America in 1857 and settled in Rondout New York. After Peter finished school, Peter got a job with his uncle, Balthazer Schwalbach, who conducted the Grand Central Hotel and Jacob\'s Valley Lager Bier Brewery (established in 1852, Jacob\'s Valley was a valley that ran down between what is now South Wall St and Wilbur Ave in Kingston) on Union Avenue (now Broadway) near the corner of Pine Grove Avenue. At the Jacob\'s Valley Lager Bier Brewery, Peter learned the brewing business from his Uncle Balthazer. An 1871 Kingston Directory showed a brewer named B Schwalbach at Union Ave near Greenkill Ave. Balthazer died in 1881 and Peter succeeded in the management of the brewery. Peter being and saavy businessman used \"est. 1852\" on his logos. Peter streched the truth alittle. It was Schwalbach\'s brewery that was established in 1852, Barmann was established in 1881.

Peter, seeing the advantages of bottled beer, begun bottling beer by 1884. By 1885 the lager beer brewery had relocated to the foot of Clinton Avenue south of Greenkill Avenue. By 1890, the brewery was producing 5,000 to 6,000 barrels(*). The business prospered and in 1896 \"Jacob\'s Valley Lager Beer\" as well as ale and porters, were in increasing production. The brewery also produced \"Thuringer Hofbrau\" real German beer. In 1898 they were in the area of 8,000 to 10,000 barrels produced(*). And three years later their production was approaching 17,000 barrels(*).

Peter Barmann died on July 20, 1908, and his son, Peter, Jr., who had been the brewmaster assumed the ownership, and the deceased Peter\'s wife, Susan, became the President, Vice-President and Treasurer of the corporation while Balthasser Barmann assumed the Secretary\'s position.

The area around the Barmann Brewery became known as the Barmann Grove. At the Barmann Grove, new buildings were added, including the \"Elysium\", meaning a place of festivity, where parties, meetings and entertainments were held and enjoyed by many community groups. That area is now refered to \"Barmann Park\" by the old timers in Kingston. In the brewery, new and modern equipment was installed, including gleaming copper tanks used for beer making.

January 20th 1920 (prohibition) set in motion the demise of the Barmann brewery. Prohibition had caused the brewery financial troubles. The brewery had to find ways to ease it\'s financial burdens. This is when Jack \"Legs\" Diamond became involved with the Barmann Brewery. John T Diamond (aka - Jack \"Legs\" Diamond) was a bootlegger and gangster during prohibition that made his home in the Hudson Valley. \"Legs\" Diamond ran the illicit operations that involved the Barmann Brewery during prohibition. According to a June 2nd 1931 Kingston newspaper, Barmann brewery was raided by the \"Flying Squadron\" (an \"elite\" group of revenue agents). Persons with ties to Diamond were arrested during the raid. That seizure had been one of the largest of it\'s time, a \"Million Dollar Seizure\". The brewery had been brewing beer and shipping it out to other locations via a pipeline that ran through the sewers of Kingston. There was a 2 1/2 inch rubber hose was laid out through the city sewers during the late night hours when all respectable persons were inside their homes. The pipline had been laid out by plumbers who were hired by \"employees\" of the brewery. Being plumbers, their work in the sewers would not draw too much attention from passer-byers. The pipeline ran from the brewery to a warehouse several blocks away on Bruyn Avenue. At the warehouse, the beer was either bottled or kegged and then loaded onto waiting trucks to be shipped out to speakeasys in New York City and Albany/Troy. These speakeasys were run by Jack \"Legs\" Diamond. (The rubber hose pipeline was only discovered during the late seventies, but it was said that everybody knew about it - they just didn\'t dare mention it, fearing Jack Legs Diamond\'s wrath.) There is even specualtion that New York State Supreme Court Judge Joseph Force Crater, who disappeared without a trace (presumably on Jack \"Legs\" Diamonds orders) and was buried in the sub-basement of the brewery during that same era.