George Hierb’s Main Street Brewery; Muehlebach Brewery (1869-1929)

In 1870, Swiss brothers George and John Muehlebach created one of Kansas City’s longest-running Kansas City breweries after purchasing George Hierb’s Main Street Brewery which was located here at the corner of 18^th Street and Main Street. Hierb's brewery grew from a small shack producing beer in the mid-1860s to a sizeable plant that produced 3,000 barrels per year by 1869. This acquisition was part of the George Muehlebach Brewing Company's pattern of expansion that included the construction of a Romanesque brewhouse at this site that soon became known as the “Beer Castle.” That investment increased production at this site to 100,000 barrels per year by 1911. The Muehlebach brothers kept the Main Street Brewery title from their purchase in 1870 until 1884. After that time, the business saw several name changes that reflected the growth of Muehleback and the value of that brand in Kansas City and surrounding communities. When the 18^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banned the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States, the 18^th and Main location closed in 1929 despite Muehlebach’s attempts to diversify their business with several soda drink products and an alcohol-free cereal beverage named Mulo. Muehlebach reopened after Prohibition was repealed in 1933, although it took five years, until February 5, 1938, to secure funding and a new site for the brewery at 4th and Oak Streets near the Kansas City riverfront. The old brewery at 18th and Main was condemned and demolished in 1941. While the post-prohibition Muehlebach company grew through the 1940s and early 1950s, it succumbed to a similar fate as many large regional breweries, and its 4th and Oak brewery was sold to Minneapolis-based Schlitz Brewing Company in 1956.

George Hierb established Main Street Brewery in the mid-1860s in a shack at the northwest corner of the 18th and Main Streets in Kansas City. Hierb chose the location because of a freshwater well that provided cold water for brewing. Hierb produced 3,000 barrels per year in 1869.

The following year, in 1870, Swiss immigrants and brothers George and John Muehlebach purchased Main Street Brewery from Hierb and set about upgrading Hierb’s primitive setup. They added cellars to Hierb’s original “shack” and by the end of the decade were the second most-productive brewery in Kansas City, producing 3,932 barrels per year.

In 1880, after John’s death, George built a new brewhouse, nicknamed the “Beer Castle” by local beer fans, a Romanesque, mansard-roofed marvel that ensured the brewery’s growing reputation was matched by modern architecture. The brothers’ brewery was known by many names following their purchase from Hierb: Main Street Brewery (until 1884); Muehlebach Brewing Co. – Main Street Brewery (1884-1890); Geo. Muehlebach – Main Street Brewery (1890-1903); George Muehlebach Brewing Company (1903-Prohibition); and George Muehlebach Company during Prohibition (through 1929). What did not change was the Muehlebach commitment to expansion: the facility’s capacity grew from 3,000 barrels per year in 1869 to 100,000 barrels per year in 1911, thanks to multiple additions to the 18th and Main site.

George Muehlebach, the last remaining founder, died on December 22, 1905, but his family was well-positioned to carry on the business. His oldest son George E. Muehlebach was named President and General Manager; his wife Margaret was Vice-President; his daughter Sophronia Buchholz was Treasurer, and his youngest son Carl A. was Secretary (he would be promoted to Superintendent in 1907).

George E. Muehlebach had been working in his father’s brewery since he was a child, and became a full-time employee at age 17, first as solicitor and collector, then as company Superintendent in 1904. George E. also secured the position of President in the Muehlebach Estate Company in 1905, which controlled the Muehelbach’s large real estate assets. In 1916, the company built the 500-room Hotel Muehlebach at 12th Street and Baltimore Avenue in downtown Kansas City, which still stands and was part of the Marriott Hotel at that location before being converted into luxury apartments. 

George E. Muehlebach’s passions extended to baseball as well as brewing. His father George had sponsored a local team, named the Muehlebach Pilseners after the company’s signature drink, and George E. played first base on that team. In 1917, George E. expanded the Muehlebach Company’s sponsorship of baseball, purchasing the local minor league team, the Kansas City Blues, and then the American Association baseball field at 22nd and Brooklyn, rebuilding and then reopening it in 1923 under the name Muehlebach Field. The brewery’s team set an American Association home attendance record of 450,000 in its inaugural year, and the team would win the Association’s 1927 and 1929 pennants. George E. dreamed of bringing major-league baseball to Kansas City, but this would not happen until 1955 and was connected to the Muehlebach company’s eventual demise. The Muehlebach brewery owned the Kansas City Blues until 1932.

Prohibition, which banned the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States from 1920 until 1933, shuttered Muehelbach’s operations for almost a decade and led to the demolition of the brewery’s historic first location at 18th and Main. Muehlebach filed a trademark application for a maltless, non-alcoholic cereal beverage named Mulo on May 18, 1917, before the passage of Prohibition in December 1917, to be marketed as a soft drink and engineered to help the company weather the new legislative environment. Mulo, along with other soft drink products, kept Muehlebach afloat for over a decade, but the company ceased operation until 1929. On April 13, 1930, Carl A. Muehlebach was interviewed by the Kansas City Star for an article detailing the dismantling of the brewery’s alcohol manufacturing equipment, in which he sadly recounted the brewery’s construction in 1880 and admitted the building’s brewing equipment no longer had commercial use.

Only a few years later, in 1932, public opinion was turning against Prohibition, and Carl, now acting President of the Muehlebach Estate Company, along with his older brother George E., began talks with investors to reopen the 18th and Main location, which the Estate Company still owned. The plan required $1.5 million, and the brothers could not secure funds until 1937 when a consortium of private stockholders financed the reopening of the George Muehlebach Brewing Company. Part of the deal was a change of site with a brewery at 4th Street and Oak, near the Kansas City riverfront, opening in 1938.

The old brewhouse at 18th and Main languished. In 1941, city officials demanded the Muehlebachs make the building safe in five days or demolish it, and it was razed that year. The site was later chosen as the site of Trans World Airlines’ corporate headquarters, and that building opened in 1956. Its original mid-century modern façade has been restored, and the building now houses the offices of the Barkley advertising firm.

The new brewery site at 4th and Oak initially focused on Muehlebach’s local appeal, resurrecting the popular Pilsener and Lager labels and a special brew in green bottles sold only at the Hotel Muehlebach. However, acquisition and out-of-state expansion provided new outlets for distribution, and the Muehlebach operation expanded again in the late 30s and early 40s, just as it had before Prohibition. Word War II dampened production, but the brewery hit an all-time production high after the war in 1947, selling 244,000 barrels and collecting sales of nearly $6 million.

Muehlebach’s success would not last, however. A combination of factors in the late 40s and early 50s caused profits to collapse: the U.S. grain commitment to the European postwar Marshall Plan, a stateside shortage of glass, and a decline in local demand for Muehlebach’s beer even as they increased out-of-state sales. The company posted a net loss of $272,281 in its last fiscal year, and was sold to rival Schlitz Brewing Company of Milwaukee in 1956.

When the Kansas City Athletics, the city’s first major-league club, moved to the area in 1955, Schlitz Brewing Company was determined to make inroads in the Kansas City market and was the Athletics’ first radio sponsor. In 1956, following its quarter-million-dollar loss, Muehlebach sold its operation at 4th and Oak Streets to Schlitz, and an epoch of Kansas City beer history ended.

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Kansas City Star, April 13, 1930.

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Roe, Jason. "A Beer Baron Is Born", KCHistory.org. Accessed August 13th, 2024. https://kchistory.org/week-kansas-city-history/beer-baron-born.