Harrisburg, like many cities of the 19th century, counted quite a few breweries. Most of these would be classified as smaller local establishments, the modern equivalent of micro breweries, with German-style beers and ales brewed and sold on the premises and in local wards and neighborhoods.
Though Harrisburg had been officially laid out in 1785, by 1794 there were about 300 house, 1,000 lots and 32 taverns within the small village and many of these small taverns also brewed their own beer for sale.
Between the 1830 and 1860 numerous small breweries produced beer in Harrisburg. The smaller brewers thrived until increased industrialization improved transportation and, most especially, the advent of refrigeration.
Breweries were then bought and merged into larger operations, or simply folded. Nationally, the number of breweries declined from 2,300 in 1880 to 1,400 in 1914, a trend reflected in Harrisburg. By the 1870s, several Harrisburg breweries began to dominate the local market.
George Doehne (and later his sons) operated a brewery from 1856 until after the repeal of prohibition in the 1930s. Henry Fink established a brewery in 1861, becoming Fink Beer and Ale from 1862-1875, when he established the Keystone Brewery. His sons managed the brewery until 1919 when Prohibition forced the sons to convert the brewery into the Fink Ice Company. In 1934, a year after Prohibition was repealed, the brewery closed and the property was sold to the Commonwealth, which later built the Northwest Office Building on the site. It is now home to the State Liquor Control Board.
Perhaps the best known of Harrisburg’s historic breweries was that of Robert Graupner, which existed in various forms from 1875 until 1951. In 1876, brothers Edward and John Koening operated a brewery on Cameron Street. The brewery went through several owners and was eventually sold to Bauer and Graupner in 1892. Around 1893, Graupner, a German immigrant, became the sole owner and in 1896 he built a new brewery at 10th and Market streets, which lasted until 1951, surviving Prohibition and all the other city breweries.
Prohibition, coupled with refrigeration, railroads, and the rise of huge national conglomerates sealed the fate of hundreds of breweries nationwide, with many folding well before Graupner’s in 1951. Harrisburg spent the better part of half a century without local breweries, but that changed in the late 1990s.
Breweries such as Tröegs, which since moved to Hershey, and Appalachian Brewing Company on Cameron Street, located one block from where Graupner’s once stood, have revived and preserved the spirit of local brewing that has been a part of Harrisburg’s history for more than 200 years.
