TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE MOUNTAIN KINGDOM: Rossland’s early breweries

By Allyson Kenning

It’s time to have a semi-serious examination of booze in early Rossland. After all, this is a town that likes a good time, a town that enjoys a good party. And way back in the day, it was a town with dozens of saloons providing good times to thirsty miners, as well as a town with lots of hotels that had well-stocked bars. Most booze was imported, but we did have three burgeoning little breweries that provided beer to the bar scene made with our own mountain waters and brewed by experienced men from far away places.

First up, let’s talk about Rossland’s first brewery, owned by a guy named John Murphy, and called, appropriately, but perhaps unimaginatively, John Murphy’s Brewery. Harold Kingsmill, who wrote the booklet “First History of Rossland, B.C : with sketches of some of its prominent citizens, firms and corporations,” gushes quite heartily about this enterprise, saying, “among those enterprises whose early advent occasions surprise is John Murphy’s Brewery is one; for it was in operation and selling beer as early as May 1895, less than one year after the platting of the town.”

Obviously, there were opportunists of all kinds hovering around the camp in its early days, and John Murphy knew an opportunity when he saw one.

In fact, Murphy was a friend of Ross Thompson, and he helped Thompson survey the townsite he would eventually peg out for his own and sell off in parcels. Murphy bought two plots of land from Thompson for his brewery. Originally from Nova Scotia, Murphy spent some time in Banff as a brewer after spending some time in Calgary. He came to BC in 1888 and to Trail Creek in 1894.

As mentioned, he was in business as of May 1895--and what a business he seemed to have! He had a line of lager, steam beer, ale, and porter, and he employed a team of experienced German brewers. He imported his malt from San Francisco and his hops came from Washington State. He also had a bottling plant, something some of his competition did not have. He produced both bottled beer and kegs for locals, and Kingsmill sneerily commentates, “the  products of his brewery compare favorably with the best beers, ales, and porters of commerce, and he has built up a trade fully equal to the capacity of his brewery, which will likely hold for a long time, notwithstanding the the recent building of larger, more pretentious breweries in Rossland.”

Well, you know Kingsmill (or at least I think I get him somewhat by now): if he didn’t like you, you didn’t appear in his little booklet. But the Columbia Brewery made it to the booklet, and it has the honour of being Rossland’s second brewery, having begun operations just months after John Murphy’s, in September 1895. This one was owned and operated by two Europeans, John Graden, who hailed from Switzerland, and Henry Gaul of Germany, though they didn’t start it up. They took ownership of it in March 1897 after purchasing it from two chaps named Dreyer and Hoffmeir, who had started the business. Their primary product was lager. Kingsmill touted it to be “superior to many of the imported beers of commerce.”

This company also imported its malt from San Francisco and it’s hops from Washington State, but they didn’t have a bottling plant, they just sold kegs, so it was only on tap. According to Kingsmill, Henry Gaul was “a scientific brewer of some experience” and was well known back home, and John Graden was previously in “engaged in the general merchandise business.”

The only other brewery Kingsmill deigns to mention is the Lion Brewery, but there isn’t much information on it. The president of this company, however, has a name many Rosslanders will recognize: Louis Blue. In case you didn’t know, the old Uplander Hotel (now the Prestige) used to have a lounge called the Louis Blue Room. I never really understood who Blue was until I read Kingsmill’s piece on him. Hailing originally from Hungary, Blue came to Rossland via New York City and Washington State, and Kingsmill describes Blue as “one of Rossland’s most prominent and enterprising businessmen.” But if you had a lounge named after you, wouldn’t you assume you’d have something to do with...music, entertainment, or, perhaps booze? Because the Lion Brewery, which was in operation around the time Kingsmill wrote his booklet, in 1897, was just something Blue was getting into.

But Blue was primarily known as a lumber man, and he started a sawmill on the slopes of Red Mountain, expanding his lumber yards and sawmills to such locations as Ymir and Greenwood. He apparently produced lumber like no one else around the Trail Creek area, and it’s his wood that is credited with building the town of Rossland. He also owned the Mountain Kingdom’s first steam laundry, the Queen Steam Laundry, which was a big deal at the time because it was considered very modern.

Blue also founded the town of Kettle Falls, near Colville, Washington, and was one of its first aldermen.

His Lion Brewery was a secondary venture to his lumber business and steam laundry (which was apparently very popular). There is little about it and what it actually produced, but now we can see the connection between the former Louis Blue Room in the Uplander and one of its primary functions - the serving of booze.

I am not a beer drinker at all (I never developed a taste for it), but I do know a lot of people in Rossland do their own brewing. The only local beers I know about are Kokanee (you have to live under a rock if you’re not familiar with it) and the Nelson Brewing Company. I don’t know much at all about the beer scene in Rossland nowadays, but if anyone wants to leave a comment with an update about the scene, or what they’re brewing, or perhaps telling us if you import your malt from San Francisco and your hops from Washington State or not, that would be much appreciated.

Sources: Harold Kingsmill: http://www.ourroots.ca/e/toc.aspx?id=1260