Cheers to Walter's Brewery and Taproom!

For centuries, its produced beer beloved by Pueblo and Southern Colorado. With so many chapters to the company’s story, let’s start with an account of its origins from the Pueblo City-County Library's historical collection:

"Martin Walter and his four brothers migrated from Germany to Wisconsin around 1880. They started breweries there before coming west to Pueblo.

"In Pueblo, Martin found a town 'booming with the steel plant and three smelters going full blast.' The Walter Brewing Co. began on July 29, 1898, when he and his brother Christian purchased what was then the Pueblo Brewery for the sum of $7,000. On Oct.15, 1898 the first beer titled Mountain Dew was released. Production was 45 barrels per day, and by 1902 production escalated to 170 barrels per day."

In 1916, the plant closed after alcohol was outlawed in Colorado. The building and the equipment succumbed to vandals until 1933, when the Prohibition ended.

From 1933 to 1950, the beer industry was booming again, hitting strong sales in 1962 before the East Side landmark shuttered in 1975, after 77 years of operation. The old building on Santa Fe Avenue was demolished in 1989.

"That was an iconic building here in Pueblo," said Andy Sanchez, who with the Rode family, all of Pueblo, got the blessing from the founder’s descendants in Wisconsin to bring back the Steel City's star brewery in 2014.

"We have family members that served the beer when it was distributed in their own tavern. The family links that exist with the beer is part of who are," Sanchez said.

At its current location, 126 Oneida St., Walter's Brewery and Taproom occupies a site that served the same purpose for much of the city’s manufacturing era.

"It's one of the rare buildings in Pueblo going back to the golden age of brewing in the late 1800s," Sanchez said. "Coors bought the building after the Prohibition ended. The Otterstein family in Pueblo ran the Coors distributorship from where we brew through the 1950s.

"This was before the days of refrigeration — but back then retail breweries were crucial. Oneida Street was pretty much a street centered around beer. We're history buffs and love Pueblo history."

So much so that the brewery's most prized product is named after the city: Walter's Pueblo Chile Beer.

"It really highlights Pueblo and that link we have with the Walters family," Sanchez said. "It's something we're very proud of.

"The Pueblo Chile is the Colorado chile. It's synonymous with the city. When people get a taste of Pueblo, the beer is one of the ways they take that with them throughout the state. We love to be a custodian of anything that hearkens to the city we live in."

rlopez@chieftain.com

Twitter: @lopezricardojr