A bit of brewing history in an Indian Hill basement

In the basement of his Indian Hill home, Rick Muhlhauser harbors a mini-museum, an homage to the once-thriving Windisch-Muhlhauser Brewery.

Portraits of women – advertisements that would have hung in long-ago taverns – cover part of a wall. Steins and bottles line shelves. Then there are less-expected pieces: delicate, engraved women’s beer glasses; playing cards; a ladies’ mirror; a little gadget shaped like a little bottle that opens to reveal a corkscrew.

Perhaps the most unusual piece is a pocketknife with a secret. Someone who knows just where to find the tiny hole can look through it to reveal an image of a woman looking into a mirror (and what appears to be the name “Blanche”).

Once Cincinnati’s second-largest brewery, Windisch-Muhlhauser, or the Lion Brewery, as it was also called, is Muhlhauser’s father’s heritage. His great-grandfather on that side, Heinrich Muhlhauser, was one of the brewery’s founders. Heinrich and his brother, Gottlieb, opened the brewery with Conrad Windisch around 1866, on the banks of the Miami & Erie Canal.

And there is plenty in his basement to remind him of that. Still, Muhlhauser’s prize piece is a beer foam scraper that ties together both sides of his family: It was made by Kemper Thomas Company, where his mother’s father was president.

Rick Muhlhauser isn’t the only one who’s interested in the history of his family. The three men who founded the brewery will be this year’s Beer Baron Hall of Fame inductees at the annual Beer Baron Ball, set for Friday, Oct. 23 at Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati.

Who wouldn’t love to include “Beer Baron” on their resume?

It’s not easy. Beer Baron Hall of Fame inductees must have played a prominent role in the Greater Cincinnati region; have achieved success or innovation at a brewery; have left a legacy on both brewing and the area; and have been leaders, with “big” personalities or impact on the area’s brewing business or society.

These men fit that bill.

Windisch worked at his father’s brewery in Bavaria before immigrating to the U.S. in 1849. He worked at breweries elsewhere, including St. Louis, before coming to Cincinnati. Here, he worked in brewing and eventually became Christian Moerlein’s business partner. (Moerlein, who established his brewery here in 1853, later bought Windisch out.)

Gottlieb Muhlhauser was five years old when he came to the U.S., also from Bavaria. His family settled in Portsmouth, Ohio, in 1840. His brother, Heinrich, was born there two years later.

The trio eventually got together to establish Windisch-Muhlhauser, which became the county’s 20th largest brewery by the 1870s. They built a huge complex at Liberty and Central Parkway, with multiple buildings and several levels of underground lagering cellars, that eventually covered a couple of city blocks.

Two huge lions sat atop the original brewhouse building. Rick Muhlhauser believes they weighed 10 or 12 tons each and were brought over from Germany. He doesn’t have those in his collection. (But he would love to know where they ended up, and maybe even see them back in Over-the-Rhine one day.)

The brewery flourished – that is, until Prohibition forced its closure. The buildings got another life, and more were added, when Burger Brewing operated on site from 1934-1973. As progress marched on, most of the original Windisch-Muhlhauser buildings were demolished, save for a portion of the original brewhouse that fronts the Cincinnati Ballet’s training facility, and for one of the stables, now part of Chatfield College.

Back in Rick Muhlhauser’s basement, a Lion Brewery drawing by “The Henderson Architecture Lithographing Co.” shows the brewery in its heyday. Muhlhauser’s distant cousin, John Bentley – his great-grandfather was Conrad Windisch, whose sister eventually married Gottlieb Muhlhauser – pointed to the black smoke spewing from the brewery.

“Everybody thought of that as prosperity,” he mused. “Now, we think of it as pollution.”

Drinking to the future

Bentley has his own collection. Most notable are letters, handwritten in German: Some that his great-grandfather sent back to Germany, trying to convince his sweetheart, Sophia Kobmann, to come join him here. (She did.) Some are between the couple and their families in the old country, talking about the issues of the day: The plight of the middle class in Germany; the opportunities in America.

As for Muhlhauser, he has been collecting the brewery’s memorabilia for decades, inheriting some items from his father. He still remembers buying his first piece, the one that gave him the “collecting bug,” at a local advertising show, in 1976 or 1977. It’s an image of two men sitting at a table, drinking. One playing a guitar, and a woman, laughing, holds her hand over his mouth. (Bentley likes to think that he’s singing a bawdy song.)

“I got so excited when I bought it that I had to walk around a few minutes to calm down,” Muhlhauser said.

That image will serve as the label for Windisch-Muhlhauser Brewing Co. Commemorative Lager, produced by Christian Moerlein Brewing Company. The beer will be tapped during a happy hour at Christian Moerlein’s Over-the-Rhine tap room at 5 p.m. Oct. 14. It will be served exclusively that evening and at the Beer Baron Ball.

Speaking of, it’s the third year for the ball, which benefits the Cincinnati Brewing Heritage Trail, a project of Over-the-Rhine nonprofit The Brewery District Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation (BDCURC).

The Windisch and Muhlhauser families will plan a reunion, which they do ever five years or so, anyway, around the event.

Muhlhauser and Bentley will be excited to see the families honored there.

“Being able to say your family had a part in history is interesting,” Bentley said.

Moreover, it’s important to cultivate a feeling of roots and pride, and to pass that on to younger generations, Muhlhauser said.

“Getting people vested in their culture is important,” Bentley added. “It’s important for people to know who we are and where we came from. You’ve gotta know where you’ve been before you figure out where you’re going.”

Both men like that where they’ve come from includes a family role in Cincinnati’s brewing history. And they’re glad to see a new chapter of that history being written today, as a new crop of breweries grows in the footprints of their ancestors.

IF YOU GO

What: Third annual Beer Baron Ball

Where: Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati, 1000 Broadway St., Downtown

When: Friday, Oct. 23

Tickets: “Malt” tickets, $125, include dinner and the 6:30 p.m. program, with dinner, drinks (open bar), music by The Sound Body Jazz Orchestra, a gift and an after party. There will also be an auction of artwork, plus travel and experience packages. “Hops” tickets, $40, are for the 9:30 p.m. after party with DJ ETrayn and include two drinks and a gift.

Info:www.beerbaronball.org