By the turn of the 20th century, the industrialization of brewing in America was continuing. Just as Louis Lemp studied the scientific process of modern brewing while writing his own handwritten treatise, brewers began embracing more modern methods of constructing and running their plants. No longer were American breweries small, local affairs; increasingly, their construction required engineers as well as architects.
In the January 15, 1912 issue of The Western Brewery, two authors championed these modern building and design methods: Chicago architect Louis Lehle, and St. Louis’s own Frederick Widmann, of E. Jungenfeld & Co. and later Widmann, Walsh and Boisselier. Widmann is well known for his role in the famous Anheuser-Busch brew house, but Lehle is less known in St. Louis. Born Ludwig Lehle in 1846 in Ulm, in what is now Germany, he studied at the nearby Stuttgart Polytechnical Institute before moving to Chicago. Working with his own sons, George and Louis Jr., Lehle also formed a partnership with Frederick Wolf during his career designing breweries around the United States. While Lehle did not provide any designs for St. Louis breweries as Widmann had, he possessed an excellent reputation throughout America.
Lehle’s article reads with the confidence of his era, a time when there was unquestioning belief in America’s technological and economic advance, and when authority did not expect to be questioned. Likewise, much of his advice might read as obvious or commonsense today, but like many treatises back then, little was left to assumption. For example, Lehle and Widmann both recommend a large, flat site for the erection of breweries; they also insisted that new breweries must be located directly on main railroad lines, despite both Anheuser-Busch and Lemp not being sited so, and in fact operating short line railroads to move box cars from their plants to the railroads. Also, there is no legal disclaimer attached; certainly, nowadays legal departments would require one so as to not be held liable if Lehle’s advice proved injurious to those who followed it.
But besides those small quibbles, the two architects’ advice proved to be influential. For example, Lehle and Widmann both argue that buildings should be arranged for maximum efficiency; thus, the brew house should site next to the malt house, and then on the other side of the former, fermenting buildings and bottleworks should site en suite. Examining both Anheuser-Busch and Lemp, the two breweries of sufficient size to warrant extremely efficient physical plants, one can see that they both follow the architect’s advice (though obviously, their plants were designed before publication of Lehle and Widmann’s articles).
Foundations take up a substantial portion of Lehle’s article. This section in particular is interesting as Lehle never had to confront the limestone karst topography, replete with caves and sinkholes, that helped draw German American brewers to South St. Louis. As might be suspected, Lehle states that foundations should reach bedrock (though in St. Louis, many 1860s brew houses seem to have been built over sinkholes for easy access to their lagering cellars), and even suggests that bedrock be tested with commensurate weight to determine if the stone will hold the weight of the building above. The reoccurrence of concrete, which of course had existed for millennia, was now becoming increasingly common. While Lehle still believed that rubble stone and brick were fine for the foundations of moderately sized brewery buildings, the future for large structures was reinforced concrete. Using Portland cement mixed with coarse sand, free of all impurities such as “loam, clay and vegetable matter” was required for strong foundations. Lehle also preferred caisson construction of foundation piers, where the hole is excavated and the pier is built up, to pile drivers, where the pier would be driven straight into the ground. Soil preparation and cement waterproofing were possible in the former but not in the latter.
Lehle tackles wall construction once the foundations are secure; while he admits brick is a popular material, and a perfectly fine one, the increased interest in fireproof buildings necessitated extra care in brick curtain walls. Stable during a fire, brick walls were nevertheless vulnerable to collapse when the flammable wood timber floors, anchored to them, failed. Consequently, he calls for concrete floors, which would not compromise brick walls in a fire. Interestingly, while it was common practice to use a softer brick on the interior of walls, Lehle recommends the harder exterior brick for the inside of barrel wash houses, due to the splattering of water during the casks’ cleaning. Widmann argues for the use of steel columns as much as possible, and even suggesting that breweries should use load-bearing steel skeletons, just as skyscraper construction necessitated.
Discussion of floors fills the next section of Lehle’s article, which provides perhaps too much detail; again, just like the interior walls of “wet” buildings, he stresses the importance of sealing the floor with asphalt. However, in the brew house, where the kettles and mash tuns are heated to high temperatures, Lehle advises concrete pads (still visible in many former breweries) to separate the heated copper and steel vessels from the heat-sensitive floors. And then, ironically, he believes that wood timbers are perfectly fine for roofs, seemingly ignoring his earlier advice against the use of flammable building materials. Likewise, Widmann addresses the problems of condensation, advising that channels for water to run off of refrigeration pipes, and also warns against placing fermenting barrels under dripping condensation.
Those seeming contradictions continue in the discussion of insulation, where Lehle advises, along with other materials, the use of cork. As anyone who follows the news in St. Louis knows, those cork walls are horribly difficult to extinguish in fires, as they continue to smolder for days, with the soft bark encapsulated behind fireproof walls.
Perhaps the most entertaining portion of Lehle’s article revolves around professionalism. He sagely warns that owners of breweries will not understand the importance of engineering, giving the example of the seemingly more expensive 24-inch, 80-pound beam is just as strong as two 18-inch, 55-pound beams. Lehle further warns that his information disclosed in the article is not well understood by the general public, and an architect must hold firm in his knowledge. He closes with the bold prediction:
“With the adoption of these precautions the element of risk will be eliminated and no failures will occur.”
Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via email at [email protected].
