Hudephol-Schoenling Brewing Co.

Ludwig Hudepohl II and George Kotte purchased Cincinnati's Koehler Brewery in 1885. The Schoenling brewery opened after prohibition, and the two merged in 1986. The company sold their brewery to the Boston Beer Company in 1997.

Hudepohl-Schoenling's Communications Director Paul Abrams wrote to let me know that the company is selling its beer devision to the new Royal Brewing Company, based in Cincinnati and run by Randy Hull, a former Heileman executive (and provided useful information for the rest of this page). I don't think the deal went through in this form, and in 1999 Hudepohl-Schoenling was bought by the Snyder International Brewing Group, owner of Crooked River and the Frederick Brewing Company.

Update: According to Wikipedia, H-S production moved to the Frederick brewery and the City Brewery. Gregory Hardman purchased the Christian Moerlein brands from from Snyder in 2004, and the new Christian Moerlein Brewing Company purchased the remaining brands in 2006. The Flying Dog Ownership Group purchased Frederick and their Wild Goose brands.

I still don't know where Little Kings ended up, but web searches suggest it might be made by The Lion Brewery (makers of Stegmaier and Pocono).

(Royal did end up with the rights to Mackeson and Whitbread, which are made for them by the Boston Beer Company in Cincinnati.)

I haven't seen it, but I'm lead to believe there's a lot of information about the history of beer in Cincinnati in Timothy Holian's Over the Barrel.

Current Beers

Christian Moerlein, WWW.

"The Beer of Cincinnati".

Current products include: O.T.R. (Over The Rhine) Ale, Select Lager, Select Dunkel, Heffeweizen, Fifth & Vine Oktoberfest Marzen, Dopplebock, and Christkindl Winder Warmer Ale.

Former Hudephol-Schoenling Beers

Christian Moerlein.: Select Lager, Honey Almond, Bock, and Kölsh. The name comes from a local pre-prohibition brewery. I haven't tried them, but I'm told:

Select Lager is the current World Champion Munich-Helles lager that defeated all others at the 1998 World Beer Championships. Our Honey Almond won a gold medal at the competition in 1997.
Little Kings Cream Ale.: A nice beer in little green bottles, nationally distributed.
Burger Beer.: Another local beer, that I don't know enough about to comment on. Now, Bürger Classic and Bürger Light.
Hudy Delight.: Hudepohl's light beer.
14-K.: Draft only.
Schoenling Lager.: Another draft only product.
Mt. Everest.: Malt liquor.

Up to index, back to Huber, forward to Latrobe.

Thomas Insel / tinsel@tinsel.org