Rheingold Beer

Antique Rheingold beer tray

Miss Rheingold 1949

Rheingold Beer, introduced in 1883, is a New York beer that held 35 percent of the state's beer market from 1950 to 1960.^{[citation needed]} The company was sold by the founding German American Liebmann family in 1963. According to the New York Times, "Rheingold Beer was once a top New York brew guzzled regularly by a loyal cadre of workingmen who would just as soon have eaten nails as drink another beer maker's suds."^[1] Its VP-Technical Joseph Owades claims credit for Rheingold's developing the first light beer.^{[citation needed]}

Rheingold shut down operations in 1976, when they were unable to compete with the large national breweries. Corporate consolidation and the rise of national breweries led to the demise of dozens of regional breweries. The Orange, New Jersey brewery was the last facility to close. ^{[citation needed]}

The label was revived in 1998 by Terry Liebmann and partner Mike Mitaro.^{[citation needed]} The beer's evocative name is an allusion to Germany's great river Rhein as well as Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold.^{[citation needed]}

Miss Rheingold Girls 1940–1965

At the center of its media campaign was the "Miss Rheingold" pageant. Beer drinkers voted each year on the young lady who would be featured as Miss Rheingold in advertisements. In the 1940s and 1950s in New York, "the selection of Miss Rheingold was as highly anticipated as the race for the White House."^[2] The first Miss Rheingold was Spanish-born Jinx Falkenburg.^[3] When Nat King Cole became the first major black entertainer to host a television show, advertisers stayed away—but not Rheingold; Rheingold was the New York regional sponsor for Cole's show.^[4] As early as 1965, Rheingold aired television ads featuring African American, Puerto Rican and Asian actors, to appeal to its racially diverse customer base.^[5] The company's headquarters was in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Rheingold was the official beer of the New York Mets, and its advertisements featured John Wayne, Jackie Robinson, Sarah Vaughan and the Marx Brothers.^[6] They also sponsored The Jackie Robinson Show which aired on 660 WRCA radio in New York City on Sunday evenings between 6:30 and 7 PM during the late 1950s and early 1960s.^[7]

History

The German family Liebmann from Ludwigsburg, Germany, settled in Brooklyn and Samuel, together with his three sons, Joseph, Henry, and Charles, opened a brewery once again at the corner of Forest and Bremen Streets. With the responsibilities divided among the family—Henry became the brewing expert, Charles. the engineer and architect, Joseph, finance manager—the company was already flourishing by the time of Samuel's death in 1872. Success also led to a concern for the company's Brooklyn surroundings, and the Liebmanns became involved in local welfare—focusing on housing and drainage systems.

Each of the three brothers had two sons, and when the older Liebmanns retired in 1903, the six members of the third generation took over. Other members of the family also contributed to the gradual expansion of the company. In 1895 Sadie Liebmann (Joseph's daughter), married Samuel Simon Steiner, a trader in high quality hop, an essential ingredient for good beer. Steiner's father had begun merchandising hop in Laupheim in 1845 and still today, S.S. Steiner, with its headquarters in New York, is one of the leading hop merchants. Under these fortuitous family circumstances, beer production grew constantly. In the early years, the brewery had produced 1000 barrels per year, by 1914 its output stood at 700,000 barrels.

Unfortunately, political developments in the U.S. between 1914 and 1933 were extremely disadvantageous for the Liebmann brewery. The resentment against Germany and anything German during World War I and World War II led to an informal boycott of German beers. Following close upon the lean wartime years, was the implementation of Prohibition in 1920 forbidding the manufacturing and trading of alcohol. The Liebmann enterprise managed to survive by producing lemonade and a product they called "Near Beer."

With the reinstatement of legal alcohol production under President Roosevelt in 1933, opportunities for the brewery opened up, abetted by the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler's Germany. The pressures on Jewish businessmen there, brought Dr. Hermann Schülein, general manager of the world-renowned Löwenbräu brewery, to America. Schulein's father, Joseph, had acquired two of Munich's leading breweries at the end of the nineteenth century—Union and Münchner Kindl—and his son had managed the 1920 merger with Löwenbräu. Arriving in New York with this experience behind him, Hermann Schülein became one of the top managers of the Liebmann brewery and was instrumental in its spectacular growth after World War II.

Working with Philip Liebmann (great-grandson of Samuel), Schülein developed a dry lager beer with a European character to be marketed under the brand name "Rheingold." According to company legend, the name was created in 1883 at a brewery dinner following a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. When the conductor took up his glass, he was so taken with the shade of the beer, that he declared it to be the color of "Rheingold." For New Yorkers, however, the name Rheingold did not bring to mind the Nibelungen fables, but the pretty young ladies who participated in Schülein's most brilliant marketing strategy—the selection of each year's Miss Rheingold by the beer-drinking public of greater New York

At the height of the campaign's success in the 1950's and 60's, the Liebmann Brewery had an output of beer ten times that of Löwenbrau at the same time in Munich.

For thirty years, Rheingold Beer reigned supreme in the New York area, but by 1976, as a local brewery, it could no longer compete with nationwide companies such as German brewers Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Schlitz, and its doors were closed. Only recently, using the same brewmaster, Rheingold is once again being sold in the tri-state area.

The company shut down four years after the construction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center was completed. During the cleanup of the WTC site following the collapse of the towers on September 11, 2001, numerous Rheingold beer cans were found in the rubble, having been hidden in the beams of the building decades earlier by construction workers who had drunk the beers on the job.^[8]

During the interim period, it appears that the name was most likely licensed to the Miller brewing company^{[citation needed]} for an inexpensive beer sold primarily in the northeastern part of the United States.

According to an October 18, 1999 New York Observer article, Mike Mitaro's Rheingold Brewing Company LLC bought the brand in 1998. Walter Liebmann, a director of the new company, is a relative of Rheingold's founding family. When Rheingold re-launched, they revived the Miss Rheingold pageant. The new Miss Rheingold contestants no longer wore ball gowns and white gloves--"They had tattoos. They were pierced. They were badasses." In 2003, The Village Voice noted Rheingold for "the best marketing campaign co-opting hipster drinking habits."^[9] In 2004, Rheingold stirred controversy in New York City with a series of ads which mock New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on smoking in bars and enforcement of city laws which prohibit dancing in bars which do not have a "cabaret license." Bloomberg responded by drinking Coors in public.^[10][11]

In 2005, Drinks Americas of Wilton Ct., whose iconic brands include Trump Vodka and Dr. Dre Cognac, purchased Rheingold Brewing.^[12] Drinks Americas has reformulated the Rheingold product for follow through distribution throughout the US. The date of the release is currently unknown. A reformulated Rheingold beer was introduced to the New York Metropolitan market, as well as Cincinnati, Ohio and Georgia, in August 2010.

In popular culture

In advertising

Les Paul recorded a very popular radio commercial for Rheingold in 1951.^[13] Humorist and radio personality Jean Shepherd was the radio spokesman for Rheingold's radio ads on New York Mets broadcasts in the 1970s.

In film

In the film The Godfather (1972), a Rheingold delivery truck can be seen in the background while Sonny beats up his brother-in-law Carlo.

In the movie Sophie's Choice (1982), Nathan Landau throws a beer to Stingo.

In the film Silver Bullet (1985), Arnie Westrum is first seen singing a drunken rendition of the Rheingold beer song.

In the movie Just Looking (1999), which takes place in 1955, Rheingold beer and advertisements are shown throughout.

In the movie The Sinatra Club (2010), a young John Gotti explains to his crew the merits of Rheingold Beer and compares it to his philosophy of life.^{[citation needed]}

In music

In the introduction to the Eartha Kitt song "I Wanna Be Evil", she sings, "I was made Miss Rheingold though I never touch beer."^{[citation needed]}

In opera

In the summer 2011 edition of San Francisco Opera's The Ring of the Nibelung (a cycle of four related operas by German composer Richard Wagner), the character Wotan, who represents the main Germanic god, sips from a can of Rheingold Beer. It is an homage to Das Rheingold, one of the Ring operas, and a direct reference to the legendary gold in the Rhine River, of which the Ring of the Nibelungs is fashioned.

In print

Rheingold is the beer of choice of Billy Nolan and his friends in Stephen King's novel Carrie.

The title of the novel Ice Cold in Alex (1958) refers to Captain Anson's longing for a Rheingold in Alexandria.

The November, 1954, issue of Mad (#17), has a parody of Miss Rheingold, drawn by Basil Wolverton, wherein the readers are asked to "Choose Miss Potgold of 1955."

The history of the Rheingold Girl contest is recounted in Wally Lamb's The Hour I First Believed (Harper 2008).

Rheingold is one of the first beers Frank McCourt encounters when he arrives in America in 'Tis, the sequel to Angela's Ashes.

In television

In a 1992 episode of The Golden Girls (season 7, episode 24), Sophia, Blanch, and Dorothy sang the Rheingold Beer theme song lyrics to the tune of Emil Waldteufel's "Estudiantina Valse" (The Students' Waltz), op. 191, No. 4; . Sophia commented to her daughter, Dorothy, "Your father was always singing that damn jingle."

In the "Hi Def Jam" episode of King of Queens, Doug and his friends are all seen drinking Rheingold while playing poker.

In Life on Mars Gene Hunt is seen drinking a Rheingold beer in a green bottle during one of the episodes.

In Mad Men season 1, episode 11 ("Indian Summer"), Peggy's date can be seen drinking a Rheingold beer.

Footnotes

External links

• Corporate website
• "The Originators of Rheingold Beer," by Rolf Hofmann
• A classic Rheingold advertisement, featuring dancing beers – clip 31 at 00:09:030 in the archive.
• Rheingold's "Little Old New York" at the 1964/1965 NY World's Fair – Featured at nywf64.com
• Interview with Kate Duyn, Miss Rheingold 2003.