HISTORY OF THE AUBURN BREWERY

The Auburn Brewery was a topic presented before the Historical Society by Bill Wilson, now with the Auburn Sentinel. The history of this building was taken from many sources: the Placer County Directory of 1861, several newspaper articles, a thesis project by a student of California Polytechnic State University, Department of Architecture, San Luis Obispo, CA., research by the Placer County Historical Society Landmark Committee and The Placer article "From the Stacks" by Karri Samson.

The brewery was originally built by Samuel Kaiser in 1855 following the devastating fire of 1855 that roared through Lower Auburn (Old Town) and burned everything in sight. A summary in the Supplement of the Western Brewer, said Kaiser was a cooper by trade, (barrel maker) along with his brother Frank. They decided that Auburn needed a brewery. When they made the announcement that they were going to create this brewery, all the miners started working with them to dig out the cellar. While doing so, they found enough gold at the site to put the plant into operation.

The first brew of steamed beer was run into some old whiskey barrels, the liquor being sold around the camp by the gallon. The mash tub was made by joining wooden planks roughly together, the kettle having a tin bottom and a wood box on the top. Afterward, the Kaisers made their own kegs. During the heyday of the brewery, some of the establishments in Lower Town had beer kegs just rolled down the lane to their door. They made money rapidly, but like others of those days, could not keep it and relinquished the business in 1862. Between 1862 and 1868 the ownership is a little hazy. In 1868 Frank Lux bought the brewery. It's not clear whether Mr. Lux was the initiator in producing beer in bottles, in addition to the keg beer, but it did start in 1868. In 1874, Fred Grohs purchased the business. In 1880 it was again sold, this time to a partnership of Krauss and Roll. It is not known when a third partner, Julius Weber, joined in the partnership. This partnership seemed to work for a period of time with Roll and Weber running ads in the local papers touting the beer sold from their brewery. Roll sold out to Weber in the late 1880's and headed for the Klondike.
 
Fred Rechenmacher acquired the brewery in 1896, from Julius Weber, whose son, Adolph not only killed his father but his mother, his sister and his brother in 1904. ( Story of this murder is detailed in Infamous Crimes and Criminals.) Rechenmacher learned brewing steamed beer from his father-in-law, Jacob Adams, who was a brewmaster in San Francisco. Before Fred closed his brewery in about 1908, he had won two world prizes for his steamed beer, one at the Worlds Fair in St. Louis in 1904. The spring water he used in brewing was tested and found to be 100 percent pure. PCHS historian, Karri Samson, found an advertisement for the Brewery stating that Russian River hops and Placer Co. barley grown in Roseville and Lincoln were used to produce the steamed beer. But the concept they had of the beer, was the water that came from that spring.
 
When lager beer began to be produced, Rechenmacher felt it would be too expensive to compete and sold the brewery and went to produce beer in Truckee. He died in 1910.
 
The Brewery was a huge three story building. The lower part had a shed over the roadway now known as Brewery Lane. There was large area for washing kegs, and a pipe that came out of the brick wall that ran continually with the famous spring water. Near the spring water outlet was a large sliding door leading to two expensive brick cellars. Back of one of the cellars was a tunnel for an air vent. Another pipe came out of the brick wall in the corner into a large wooden tank that was supplied from the concrete reservoir up on the hill. Just under the stairway leading to the second level, was a side room where people could stop by and taste or have a glass of beer for free. There was a downstairs office and on the street level was a place for wagons to load kegs of beer. Close to the driveway was a huge black vat in which the beer cooled. Outside was a large copper kettle in which the beer was made. The kettle was built in a square brick setting with a casement under it. In front it had two iron doors.
 
On the third floor, the grain was stored and the cellar was where the grain was sprouted. A large wooden flat ladle was used for the carding and mixing of the sprouted grain. A third kiln was used for heating the resin that was used to keep the kegs from leaking. There was also a large room for workers to spend the night. A road circled the building that provided entrance to the second level and farther up the hill was a two story barn and to the right and higher on the hill, was the Rechenmacher home.
 
The structure remained on the property but was allowed to fall into disrepair, and in 1956, the remainder was removed for safety reasons. All that remains of the building today is a portion of the rubble-stone foundation. The PCHS placed a plaque on the site, but vandals have stolen it. The Society plans to replace it.