San Antonio Beer History

Pearl Brewing: A Book Teaser Part II

By 1887 Otto Koehler and company had taken over City Brewery and rechartered as the San Antonio Brewing Association. From there it gets wild and crazy through Pearl's second period which runs through 1918 and the start of Prohibition. Welcome to part two of a preview into Pearl; A History of San Antonio's Historic Beer due out December 2017. 

" Chapter Four

Though the San Antonio Brewing Association’s beginning is set in 1886, Koehler did not actually leave the Lone Star Brewing Association until 1887. It was during that year that Koehler made his now we'll know trip from San Antonio to Bremen, Germany and to the Kaiser-Beck Brewery to acquire what would become the recipe and trademark for San Antonio Brewing Association’s XXX Pearl Beer.  

An alternative theory on how Otto Koehler came upon the name Pearl and possibly the recipe lies with recently discovered match safe bearing the name ‘A. Griesedieck Brewery Co’ with dates stamped on it ranging from 1879-1886, the very year the San Antonio Brewing Association debut its XXX Pearl beer. Coincidence? Perhaps, but consider again that Otto Koehler worked for Anton. Griesedieck. “Kaiser-Beck did not have a Pearl beer and Anton, as well as his future sons, did not continue to call their beer Pearl,” says Charlie Staats a local historian and collector of Texas brewing memorabilia and who discovered the match safe. “It is possible that Otto struck a deal with Anton to purchase the recipe and Pearl name from him, making one wonder what Otto Koehler was actually doing in Germany if he was not at Kaiser-Beck.”