Ear on Chicago; Don't Lose Your Head: Peter Hand Brewing Company

Here on Chicago brings you the story of the beer industry. And for that story, we go to the Peter Han Brewery located on Chicago's north side. We're standing now on the grain unloading docks at the Peter Han Brewery Company, and we're going to walk over here a little ways away from that sound that you just heard. I'll tell you about that in just a moment. We're walking out here to talk to Andy Gettner, who is the advertising and sales promotion director of the Peter Han Brewery Company. Now that sound you heard was a sound of barley malt being forced into a vacuum tube up into through the tube and shot up at the top of the building from a big railroad car which is sitting here on the siding. And we're standing as I said on the grain unloading docks here at the Peter Han Brewery Company at 1000 West North Avenue here in Chicago. Now Andy, I'm going to ask you a few questions about how you get this grain or malt as you call it, and what do you do with it after you once get it. First of all, how does it get here? Well, this comes in by a freight car from up in the northwest and

actually, Hill, I think your best man to answer these questions is Garmell or Junior, our vice president, our Well, let's talk to Gar. Gar, first I want to know where the grain is grown. This grain is grown in the Red River Valley of Minnesota. And then it's sent here by car as Andy just said. It's generally sent to some place in Wisconsin. The barley is turned into malt by a mauling company and then it is shipped directly to us. This is the fancy malt, incidentally, the finest that can be bought. Now, once it arrives here, I told our listeners that the sound that they are hearing, the sound of that malt being vacuumed up through that vacuum tube up to the top of the building. What do you put it way up there for? It goes up to the top of the building into a giant storage bin and held there until it's ready for processing. And in the brewing company, everything starts at the top and works down. Generally, well, at this brewery, we work on a gravity

flow system. Before we go, Gar, I think I ought to ask you also, you mentioned that the barley is turned into malt somewhere up there in Wisconsin and that this is the finest malt. How is it barley turned into a malt? What process is that? The barley is soaked in water for approximately 24 hours and then held in a closed room called a compartment for about a week during which time the barley grows or sprouts slightly after it has sprouted. At the end of a week's time, it is dried for a period of approximately two days and a very warm oven. It turns this oven and the high temperature, fairly high temperature in the oven develops the fine aroma and characteristic flavor of the malt, which in turn is carried over into the beer. How many car loads does that malt do you get each day, Gar? Oh, we get approximately one car every other day. How long will it take these fellas to unload it with this sort of unloading system? This is a new

system and now takes about two hours to unload the car and incidentally it's unloaded this way to unload it without breaking up the husk, without mistreating the grain in any way. Do you have any other grain which is brought in here to the brewery? Yes, we have a ground corn called Brewer's Grits. This is used to develop the light dry characteristic of the beer. We use it in small quantities. Well, Gar, we're going to talk to you again a little bit later. I want to get back over here to Andy. I think we've thoroughly discussed the operation here, Andy. Where do we go next? Well, Hill, I think our best step is to go right up into the brew house. All right, let's go. We're coming out of the second floor of the brewery. Here is where a great deal of activity will take place and we're going to talk to Andy again about it and a few of the other people who are here at the brewery. Andy, we're standing right in the middle of a couple of large copper kettles and when I say

large it's probably an understatement. Some of the biggest copper kettles I think I've ever seen. What's going on here? Well, Hill, this is our brew house and I like it and meet Richard Seable, our vice president, charge of production who can give you a lot better story on this than I can. Mr. Seable, I think I'll start as I did with Andy and ask about these kettles and then I want to talk briefly about what's going on upstairs. May I ask you what's going on over here in this kettle? Well, the work that comes from the Lothar Tupper from the mash tops I run in there and they're boiled. And where we precipitate the undesirable abumins. Now we're talking about wort, what is wort? wort is an extract derived from brewing materials such as maul or rice. In other words, you did that wort came from upstairs then because we had the malt going up there a little while ago. That's right. Well, maybe we're a step or two ahead of ourselves, we better go upstairs. Perhaps we should go upstairs. All right, why don't you and I take a walk up these stairs then? And I think we have enough microphone cable to make it.

About 15 or 20 feet above the second floor is a sort of a... Well, we can't quite call it a third floor, but it's almost. And above here, again, are some large containers. I don't know whether to call these kettles or not. Is this where the wort is made? That's where it's prepared. This is, they're called Laudertub, for instance. And this side, and this is a mash tub. Either one of them, you can operate either one to accomplish the same idea, or do the same purpose by converting the starches to prepare or gelatinite starches into fermentable sugars and extracts. Now let's get back to that malt. Where is that stored? When we were... Our last discussion with Gar Miller was where they were taking that malt through the vacuum tube and moving it up to storage bins. Where is that? They started on top of the roof of the brewery, which is about three or four stories high. And they go all the way down to the bottom floor. They hold approximately

a car in a half or two, or maybe 150 to 200 ,000 pounds. Now what first happens to that malt as you begin its process? Well, as it comes in, it's run over a reel or a cleaning operation to take out the undeserved parts like straw and maybe a piece of wood and so what it comes along in a car. And from there, it goes into the bin. And from the bin, it's re -routed again as needed over a malt mill. What a malt is crushed to a desirable fineness to achieve our final end, our goal. Finally it reaches this stage right here. When I'm Mr. Siebel, let's go downstairs again and take a look at those large kettles. As we said, from the louder tub and from the mash tub, comes the word spelled W -O -R -T. And it drains down through that filter of grain or malt and comes down into this mechanism over here. Now let's walk over here, Mr. Siebel. We're down here in the second floor, finally. And

stepping up here, we can see that this is the word now draining through. And actually, while you can hear it, let's let them hear it. That's the word coming from the louder tub and the mash tub here. Now the word comes through this first of all large clopper. No, it doesn't. You might wonder why we have so many pipes coming through here all along here. I suppose you might say, well, why doesn't one pipe take care of it? Yes, I was going to ask why I didn't come through that one right there. The reason for that is that we have so many pipes that we can tap the bottom of the mash tub at different points to get an even drainage and to get a good extraction of the extract. So if you step back here, I'll show you. We're walking back behind that drainage tank right there, and here is the mechanism behind it. That's right. Now these pipes are placed in different positions under the

mash tub. It's to get proper drainage. If you only had one pipe and sender, you'd drain it on one side and you would never be able to extract the extract at different points. Oh, I understand. Well, you sure have a lot of pipes. There's one, two, three, four. Well, how many are there before I count them off? 16. All right, now let's go back out here and take a look at that again. Now that I can understand how you use so many pipes. Now, actually, Mr. Siebeau, when we get to this stage, you can... There's a faint odor of grain here. That's the aroma of the maul, the aromatic odor that you get here, or we call it aroma. When do we get to the point where it smells like beer? After fermentation. And where is that done? That's the natural fermentation takes place in our fermenting cellars. We're going to see that operation a little bit later. Now, after this work drains down into this tank here, which I can... I see that there must be some more drains down below that to take it right out of here. Now, the main drain is... It runs together into one large pipe, then, and

this pipe goes into the kettle now. Well, what's the purpose of having it run through here? Well, in order to... So, we can check on clarification. In other words, you must... Oh, I see, you'll have a large handle. You're looking the work you look at, and I was fairly clear. Mr. Cevo has just taken out a glassful of the word. Now, and is looking at it. What does it look like? Well, it's just a brown liquid. And it smells aromatic, as you mentioned before, which is the aroma of the maul. Now, when we start draining, the first thing is we shut the large pipe out, which connects the kettle. Then we keep running these taps, as we call them, until they clarify or clear up, until the liquid is absolutely clear. And we keep returning this word back into the louder tub, again, until it's clear. Then we open up the main line connected with the kettle, and it goes into the kettle for boiling. Well, that's really our next operation, which is only about three or four feet behind us. Let's turn around and walk over here. First of all, let me describe what's going on here, Mr. Cevo. This is

a large round copper kettle. And actually, that's what it is. They're calling it a kettle, and that's what it really is. They have a number on it. 430 barrels. 430 barrels. That's what it contains. Now, I'm going to put the microphone inside of this, and you can probably hear what is going on. And after you hear it, I'll tell you what's going on. I hope that you can understand, through that sound, that that is a flow of the word. And it's being boiled inside of there very vigorously. It's flowing over toward the edges. Now, what else besides word is in there, Mr. Cevo? Word is boiled for a certain length of time, and periodically, which is perhaps every brewer does a different way, but we feel that we have the finest edition of hops at just the right time to bring out the fine hop

aroma that we use. Mr. Cevo, I think we've just about talked over everything here in your second floor and up above in the third floor, and we're going to have to move on. We want to thank you very much for telling us about this operation. I love this. Very happy to tell you. Back over here to Andy now, who is our guide on the tour of the brewery. Andy, we have the hops mixed with the word in these large kettles. From here, where does it go? Well, you, I think our next most interesting spot to take you on this flow of the beer would be in our fermenting cellars and to our aging cellars. Well, let's go down there. Okay. Well, you in here, the main process is cooling the beer, but also we have some new equipment here that I know Rich Cevo is this dying of a scribe because it's something new. Mr. Cevo, I understand that you found out about this operation in a trip to Europe. I did. And I think it's a wonderful improvement towards

finest and character of beer by separating the undesirable sludge or droop what we call out of the word before it goes into fermentation. All right. Now, what is the process called, first of all? It's centrifuging. You might call it a centrifuge. You might call it a separator. Again, they do use and milk in the three separating cream from milk. And in our case, it separates the droop or sludge from the word before it goes into fermentation, which is an improvement in the finished product by having a much finer character in malinas and simply a much maler on finer product, the end product. We finally reach the stage, Mr. Cevo, where we can call our mixture beer instead of word. That's correct. As soon as beer starts fermenting or it's partially fermented, it's called beer from then on. All right. Now, what happens to our beer after this,

after it's finished in here? Well, it takes about eight days for the first fermentation and then it's transferred into another tank for another week, two weeks perhaps, depending on the sedimentation of the yeast. And then it's filtered and then it's put on rue or on storage, then. And how's there, perhaps, from six weeks to two months? Now, where do we go next to see the thing? Well, from there, I think we should go out in our new stockhouse, then. All right. Let's go back over here to Andy. Andy, if you'd follow us or take us, we'd better go out to where Cevo said we should go next to stockhouse. Right here. And I think you better get a coat on because we're really going in the cold room. All right, Andy. That sound you hear in the background is the sound of refrigeration machinery and it's refrigerating this stock room. Now, we're standing in the aisle of the stock room and right in front of us are some large storage basins. We're going to talk to one

of the gentlemen here about that. Andy, it's kind of chilly in here, as you said. Well, you can say that, Hugh. This is one place to cool off in the summer. And I'd like you to talk to Victory Semovitch, our master brewer standing over here. You can tell you a little about the sellers here. How cold is it in here, Vic? Well, right in this aisle, it happens to be 45, but behind the wall of this aisle, where the tanks themselves are all enclosed, it's 32 degrees. Now, this temperature is kept at 32 in order to keep the beer fresh and hold some and order preserve it and sort of age it until it's time to use it in the form of bottle or barrel beer. How many barrels does one of those tanks hold? Well, each tank has a capacity of 1 ,200 barrels. However, they're not filled right to the top, but in order to give it a head pressure or CO2 gas content in which

itself has a preservative factor and carbonating factor. How many of those do you have? There are 19 in this building here. Do you have other buildings similar to this? Yes, or some down below the original Lagerseller is as a capacity of about 10 ,000 barrels. And then the next floor above it also has about 30. Make a lot of beer out here, don't you? That's correct. Alright, Vic, thanks a minute for talking to us about this. Andy, we're next. Well, I think our next trip should be down on the filtering room, you, which we're very proud of. Alright, as well. Into the filter room now, where it's not quite so cold and where a lot of filtering is going on, that again, I want to explain, Andy, that the noise in the background is the sound of some machinery. Most of the machinery that you have here is very smooth working

and almost noiseless, but there is some sound that we can hear. And what happens in this filter room? Well, you, I got a little knees over here, our system room master, who can give you the technical background on this room. May I ask you first of all, what happens in this machine right here, Mr. Needs? Well, this particular piece of equipment is the kind we've selected to add the final touch of carbonation to our beer on the way to our government sellers. How do you do that? The beer rains through an atmosphere of CO2 under pressure and absorbs just exactly the right amount of gas. CO2 is the carbonation in the beer. That's right. I understand that that CO2 actually comes from the original grain mixture that you took the CO2 from. The CO2 is collected from our fermentation, recompressed and used for carbonation later on. I see. What about this operation over here, the stainless steel tank, which is a little bit larger than this carbonation tank? That's a slurry tank used to feed diatomaceous earths into a powder

filter, which filters the beer on the way to our government sellers. Now, that's where the beer is filtered then, right in that big tank there. Is that right? No, the beer isn't filtered there. That's merely a slurry that injects this filtering material into the beer as it passes by. Oh, I see. Well, where does the beer pass by? And what are these tubes here, or holes? That's right. It goes through the holes, past the slurry tank and into the filters. Where are the filters? That horizontal piece of equipment is our main filtering. Andy, now that it's filtered, I guess it's ready to go into the bottles just about. That's just about where we're ready to go now, you know. I say bottles, but it really is cans, isn't it? Well, we got bottles and cans and barrels. All right, that's our final step then, and let's go take a look at that. Righto.

Well, as you can hear, we're in the road now where they are cutting the beer. And that machine you're listening to is putting the tops on the beer. Now, we're going to walk over here a little bit further away from that machine because you can hardly hear yourself think in this particular location. And I'm working as close to the as possible to the microphone. Andy, if you'll come over here, I think we can talk a little better, a little bit further away. How fast is that machine over there filling those cans? That machine averages about 360 cans per minute, fills and caps them. Certainly a very rapid operation. That man sitting up there has a big long string of caps, which he puts on the top of the machine and it filters down and hits that can as it goes through there. And I don't know how it hits it so accurately, it's so fast going through there. Well, that machine that took quite some years to

perfect, I believe the American can, company had quite a bit to do in perfecting this machine. Where does the can go from from there, Andy? After the can has been crowned white, it goes through our pasture risers, a long horizontal machine running half the length of the building. How long does the can't stay in there? I believe it takes approximately about 20 minutes to go from one end to the other. You know, Andy, while we're standing here, there's something I forgot to ask in the aging. How long does your firm take to age beer? I believe Victor covered several stages in the fermentation. It takes approximately seven to eight days. And then into our storage sellers, we could say it's from two to three months. All right, Andy, let's walk down here then to the end, other end of the fermentation. And that is a location where the beer will be put in parts in six packs. And then also the

large cartons where it will be shipped out. Still very noisy down here, Andy, but maybe we can talk a little bit. Here it goes into the six packs, right? Right. And then what happened? Well, you're seeing the cans being automatically packed, the carton assembled and sealed. And your six packs travel down this conveyor to where they go over and they're put in a mother case. Now, there are eight of these six packs put into a mother case, which you see down at the end. Oh yes, down here to the right, they're being filled up into a case. And the case then is ready for shipping out to the neighborhood liquor store or the grocery store or warmer at sold. Andy, I don't think we can hear each other here, but there's one thing I want for you to tell us about. And that's that X -ray machine over there. Well, that X -ray machine is a very intricate machine that actually can eject the can. It can be ten drops underweight or any defect in the can itself as to a bulb.

Every now and then you're hearing that loud ejection of air, that's a can be in front of the line. It is just maybe ten drops underweight. It's just heard two of them just there. That's it. It sounds almost like a shot out of a gun. So just about shot out of a gun. Well, Andy, I think we've just about gotten to the point now where we're ready to distribute the beer. Is that right? That's right. And then we've told our story, haven't we? We have, you and I think the other story is that you've seen all of this that we should now go over and have a glasses, Mr. Brown. All right, I'll go along with you on that, Andy. We've been working rather hard going through the plant, and I've been looking forward to that all the way through. We are now in the office of Mr. Harry P. Hoyer, the president of the Peter Hand brewery. Mr. Hoyer, first of all, let me say thank you very much for allowing us to take a tour of the brewery and tell our listeners something about the way that beer is brewed. May I ask you, sir, about something of the background

and the history of the Peter Hand brewery? Who started the organization? The Peter Hand brewery company was started by my grandfather in 1891. My grandfather migrated from Germany about the time of the Civil War, and after the war was over, he went to work for several breweries in Chicago. At that time, he met an old friend of his who had come over also, come over from Europe, who was a brew master. The two of them in discussing the business problems in Chicago found that they had interest in common and decided that very possibly Chicago was ready for the kind of beer that they knew in the old country. So they proceeded to get the idea of starting a new brewery here in Chicago. The company has remained in the same family ever since. The company has remained in the same family ever since. He interested my father and my uncle, and in so doing, they incorporated under the name of the Peter Hand brewery company in 1891. The traditions that were a policy at that time, the thoughts of making a good beer, is still a

policy of the Peter Hand brewery today, and is carried on by the nephew of the original brew master and myself, who was a grandson of the founder. Speaking of brew masters, I understand that also was a family affair, that brew masters passed their jobs onto their sons and nephews. Very much the same as the watchmakers in Switzerland. There's a present brew master we talked to on this program, Mr. Cebow. And I think he told us that his uncle was the very first brew master, was that true? That is correct. He is. Now, Mr. Hoyer, I wonder if you could tell us something of the expansion program in the processing or brewing of beer? While the brewing of beer has improved very much the same as almost any other product, we have been brewing business taken advantage of the latest technical advances. We have better scientific controls in our brewery. We have better filters. We use centrifuges, waters, and things of that nature are handled

so that everything that we use is chemically pure. And with the thought that we eliminate error, which is very much the same as in cooking. Now, you talk about advances in the manufacture of beer or the brewing of beer. Now, one of the things that I've noticed is the packaging of beer. It's changed from draft beer to cans and bottles and so on. Isn't that true? Has that happened since the repeal of prohibition? Yes, largely because of the period of time that elapsed between prohibition and repeal, beginning of prohibition rather and repeal. It is followed the trend of the grocery business in general where we drifted from bulk sales into package sales as a greater convenience to the home and better display things of that nature. Do you feel this is a good thing for the consumer? It's been very good for the consumer because it has made it more convenient for him to have his beer in the home. He's able to take care of his refrigeration. And well, it's

made it more of a home package rather than having to go out someplace and carry it in the picture. Mr. Hoyer, once again, let us thank you for allowing us to take a tour of your brewery and talking to us on these few concluding remarks. Thank you very much. You have just heard the story of how ingredients are properly proportioned to brew beer. Next week, here on Chicago visits Arlington Race Track. This is Hugh Hill speaking.