Christian Moerlein Brewing Company is a micro brewery based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Beers[]
Annual[]
- Exposition Vienna Lager
- Lager House Helles - a helles
- Barbarossa - a double dark lager
- OTR - an American pale ale named after the historic Cincinnati neighborhood (and birthplace of Christian Moerlein Brewing Company), Over-the-Rhine
- Se7en Hefeweizen - a hefeweizen
- Northern Liberties - an IPA
Seasonal[]
- Saengerfest - a maibock
- Emancipator - a doppelbock
- Friend of an Irishman - a stout
- Fifth and Vine Oktoberfest - a marzen named after the intersection at Fountain Square, the cultural hub of Cincinnati and the site of the annual Oktoberfest celebration (largest Oktoberfest celebration outside of Munich)
- Christkindl - a winter ale
Availability[]
Products are available mostly in the Greater Cincinnati metropolitan area which features Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, and Eastern Indiana
Packaging[]
Beer is available in bottles, by growler fill-up at their brewery in Over-the-Rhine or at the Moerlein Lager House in downtown Cincinnati, or by draft at local bars and restaurants.
Branding[]
To add later
Location[]
http://www.christianmoerlein.com/
1621 Moore Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202
History[]
The Christian Moerlein Brewing Company was originally started by a Bavarian immigrant named Christian Moerlein. He was born in Truppack, Bavaria in 1818. He trained as a blacksmith and immigrated to the United States in 1841. He eventually settled in the German neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati. By 1853 Moerlein decided to begin brewing beer instead of working as a blacksmith. He opened a brewery at the corner of Elm and Henry Streets.
The brewery gained recognition for their extraordinary beers and was commonly exported to places as far away as Europe and South America in the latter part of the 19th Century. Christian Moerlein passed away in 1897 and his family took over the business. Unfortunately, the company shut down during Prohibition and the family sold off the assets, as they did not know if Prohibition would ever end.
The Christian Moerlein name was resurrected almost a century after his death in 1981 by the Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewing Company. They began producing the "Christian Moerlein Select Lager". This beer was the beginning of the Better Beer Movement, later known as the Craft Beer movement. It was the first craft beer east of the Rockie Mountains and the first American beer to ever certifiably pass the Reinheitsgebot Bavarian Purity Law of 1516.
Christian Moerlein again disappeared when Hudepohl-Schoenling went out of business in the 1990s. In 2004, a businessman named Greg Hardman purchased the Christian Moerlein name and recipes as well as those of the other historic Cincinnati breweries such as Burger, Hudepohl, Schoenling, Crown, Jackson, and much more.
The company started out contracting beer production to other states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania until a full-scale brewery could be created in Cincinnati. The brand has quickly expanded and now has a brewpub on the banks of the Ohio River called the Moerlein Lager House. It opened in 2011 and a brewery opened up in the historic Kauffman Brewery in Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati in 2013. The facility has the capacity for over 100,000 barrels each year once fully built out. The brewery features a tap room and event space that is often used for festivals like on Memorial Day and for Bockfest, a unique local festival celebrating bock beer, Over-the-Rhine, and the coming of spring.