This post has nothing to do with Robert Johnson or the Devil.
It does, however, have to do with oil—black gold, Texas tea.
Today, most Americans associate oil with the middle east—or closer to home Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska. In the mid-19th century, however, Western Pennsylvania became synonymous with the slippery stuff. Refined oils, like petroleum, were known well before the 1850s, but there wasn't much of a market for them—that is until Samuel Keir figured out an economical way to turn crude oil into kerosene, effectively replacing the more expensive and increasingly more scarce whale oil as the primary oil used in lamps.
Oil seeps were common in Western Pennsylvania, but it wasn't until the end of the 1850s, acting on behalf of the newly formed Seneca Oil Company, that Edwin Drake began excavating and drilling into the banks of the aptly named Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania. In 1859, after nearly a year of trying and drilling to a depth of nearly 70 feet, Drake finally struck oil—marking the start of the first American oil boom.
By the 1860s the area in and around Titusville had become the epicenter for the American oil industry. Almost overnight oil had become one of the most profitable commodities in the country. From 1859—the year of Drake's strike—to 1869, the annual domestic output of crude oil, in the United States, leaped from two thousand barrels to four million barrels. Boom towns had sprung-up throughout the Oil Creek Valley. These towns became self-sustaining hubs for the men and company's drilling in the area, boasting population hikes from 250 to 10,000 in a mater of a few years. Akin to the frontier towns of the American west, like Deadwood, South Dakota and Dodge City Kansas, a culture of vice grew from these quickly growing metropolises.
Among these towns was Pithole, situated the Pithole Creek, a tributary of the Allegheny River, 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. The first into the area—centered between a number of strikes along Pithole Creek—began arriving in January of 1865; the actual was laid out in May; and due to its population of 20,000 by that summer, it was incorporated by August of that year. Among Pithole's amenities were over 50 hotels, a newspaper—The Pithole Daily Record, the world-s first oil pipeline, a railroad, a red light district and, according to an article written for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette by Beatrice Paul Hirschl in 1996, "every other building was a bar."
Ah ha! We've come to beer/oil connection! But, what does all this have to do with Albany Ale?
Gerry Lorrentz, a local (to me) beer historian and professor recently sent me a clipping from a July 30, 1865 New York Herald article, he'd come across. The article recollects, the unnamed author's account of his trip through the oil territory of Western Pennsylvania, while covering a trip to that area by the then New York State governor, Ruben Fenton. The whole article is descriptive, to say the least. It's not so much "reporting" as it is recounting details—all the details. However, things get interesting for me at the end of the third paragraph.
I mentioned to Gerry in our correspondence about that what became, euphemistically, known as Albany Ale seems to have been the XX stuff—but, that's not all that the Albany brewers made. By the 1860s and 1870s we know that Albany brewers made IPA and Burton, as well as Porter, to name a few styles. Taylor had been advertising their Imperial Astor Ale, while Amsdell made what they called their Diamond Ale, both, I believe, to be each breweries' "top shelf" brews. One of the ideas that I've been kicking around about what made Albany XX Ale so popular and so widely spread was that it wasn't the strongest brew, nor the weakest, it was the "just right" baby bear of the bunch—and therefore reasonably priced. This article leads me further down that path (pun intended). The sign the author saw didn't read Astor Ale or Diamond Stock, it read "XX Albany Ale"—with both its strength and price point front and center—being sold from a tent at the side of the road.
Think about who those 20,000 people were, flooding into Pithole during the summer of 1865. I'd imagine there were some number of business men and speculators—a sundry of rich folks—but most likely the bulk of them were recently discharged Union Army vets, underpaid for the last four years and looking for work and opportunity. Ordinary, working fellows—teamsters and roughnecks, ironworkers and laborers. As much as I'd like to believe that Albany Ale was the finest and purest brew money could buy, I don't think that was the reality. Not to say it was bad by any means, I just think it was common—a dependable, all-around reasonably priced beer. This important to the progression of Albany Ale because it shows Albany Ale's position in society. No longer is the phrase synonymous with, simply, the best of all kinds of ale coming from the city of Albany. By 1865, Albany XX Ale has shown itself to be a "thing"—a "thing" not too strong and not too weak. A thing able to be sold to in a place as rough as Pithole, Pennsylvania.
There's was saying in in vaudeville, "Will it play in Peoria?" I don't think Taylor's Imperial Astor Ale would have "played" in Pithole—but their Albany XX Ale sure did.
It does, however, have to do with oil—black gold, Texas tea.
Today, most Americans associate oil with the middle east—or closer to home Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska. In the mid-19th century, however, Western Pennsylvania became synonymous with the slippery stuff. Refined oils, like petroleum, were known well before the 1850s, but there wasn't much of a market for them—that is until Samuel Keir figured out an economical way to turn crude oil into kerosene, effectively replacing the more expensive and increasingly more scarce whale oil as the primary oil used in lamps.
Oil seeps were common in Western Pennsylvania, but it wasn't until the end of the 1850s, acting on behalf of the newly formed Seneca Oil Company, that Edwin Drake began excavating and drilling into the banks of the aptly named Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania. In 1859, after nearly a year of trying and drilling to a depth of nearly 70 feet, Drake finally struck oil—marking the start of the first American oil boom.
By the 1860s the area in and around Titusville had become the epicenter for the American oil industry. Almost overnight oil had become one of the most profitable commodities in the country. From 1859—the year of Drake's strike—to 1869, the annual domestic output of crude oil, in the United States, leaped from two thousand barrels to four million barrels. Boom towns had sprung-up throughout the Oil Creek Valley. These towns became self-sustaining hubs for the men and company's drilling in the area, boasting population hikes from 250 to 10,000 in a mater of a few years. Akin to the frontier towns of the American west, like Deadwood, South Dakota and Dodge City Kansas, a culture of vice grew from these quickly growing metropolises.
Among these towns was Pithole, situated the Pithole Creek, a tributary of the Allegheny River, 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. The first into the area—centered between a number of strikes along Pithole Creek—began arriving in January of 1865; the actual was laid out in May; and due to its population of 20,000 by that summer, it was incorporated by August of that year. Among Pithole's amenities were over 50 hotels, a newspaper—The Pithole Daily Record, the world-s first oil pipeline, a railroad, a red light district and, according to an article written for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette by Beatrice Paul Hirschl in 1996, "every other building was a bar."
Ah ha! We've come to beer/oil connection! But, what does all this have to do with Albany Ale?
Gerry Lorrentz, a local (to me) beer historian and professor recently sent me a clipping from a July 30, 1865 New York Herald article, he'd come across. The article recollects, the unnamed author's account of his trip through the oil territory of Western Pennsylvania, while covering a trip to that area by the then New York State governor, Ruben Fenton. The whole article is descriptive, to say the least. It's not so much "reporting" as it is recounting details—all the details. However, things get interesting for me at the end of the third paragraph.
A CROSS ROAD TO PITHOLE.
In buckboard again, Pithole City direct. "All aboard for Pithole," shouted my guide, "philosopher and friend." I had a letter of introduction to some gentleman—the agent of a petroleum company I rather think—who was located somewhere near a spot I understood to be "Stroller's Mill," and the idea that my journey should be associated with the patronage of my piquant brother in romantic adventure—"Port Grayson"—overcame any inconvenience that might be occasioned by getting off the regular road to deliver the note. The name proved, unfortunately, to be Pralber. Directions were to proceed until we came to the crossroads, one of which led to Pithole by one route and the other to Pithole by another route. We found pitholes all the way. For a mile from Plumer the road was lined by teams hauling immense machinery, steam engines, boilers, furniture, provisions and all the fixings necessary to start a new oil settlement. We arrived at a point where there might have been at one time the junction of two roads; it was now one common lake of mud. On a little knoll we spied a tent among some trees, and were the sure we had reached the crossroads, for we saw the signboard nailed to a tree—"XX Albany Ale."
New York Herald, July 30, 1865, page 2Well, look at that. Four hundred miles from Albany, and there shows up good, old double X Albany Ale. This obviously speaks to the distribution of Albany Ale, but there's something else.
I mentioned to Gerry in our correspondence about that what became, euphemistically, known as Albany Ale seems to have been the XX stuff—but, that's not all that the Albany brewers made. By the 1860s and 1870s we know that Albany brewers made IPA and Burton, as well as Porter, to name a few styles. Taylor had been advertising their Imperial Astor Ale, while Amsdell made what they called their Diamond Ale, both, I believe, to be each breweries' "top shelf" brews. One of the ideas that I've been kicking around about what made Albany XX Ale so popular and so widely spread was that it wasn't the strongest brew, nor the weakest, it was the "just right" baby bear of the bunch—and therefore reasonably priced. This article leads me further down that path (pun intended). The sign the author saw didn't read Astor Ale or Diamond Stock, it read "XX Albany Ale"—with both its strength and price point front and center—being sold from a tent at the side of the road.
Think about who those 20,000 people were, flooding into Pithole during the summer of 1865. I'd imagine there were some number of business men and speculators—a sundry of rich folks—but most likely the bulk of them were recently discharged Union Army vets, underpaid for the last four years and looking for work and opportunity. Ordinary, working fellows—teamsters and roughnecks, ironworkers and laborers. As much as I'd like to believe that Albany Ale was the finest and purest brew money could buy, I don't think that was the reality. Not to say it was bad by any means, I just think it was common—a dependable, all-around reasonably priced beer. This important to the progression of Albany Ale because it shows Albany Ale's position in society. No longer is the phrase synonymous with, simply, the best of all kinds of ale coming from the city of Albany. By 1865, Albany XX Ale has shown itself to be a "thing"—a "thing" not too strong and not too weak. A thing able to be sold to in a place as rough as Pithole, Pennsylvania.
There's was saying in in vaudeville, "Will it play in Peoria?" I don't think Taylor's Imperial Astor Ale would have "played" in Pithole—but their Albany XX Ale sure did.
The X system was used to advertise spirits, whiskey in particular, which was legion on the frontiers, so this may have influenced factors and merchants to sell the similarly dubbed X or XX ales. However, the logic of median price and quality certainly persuades, so it may have been a case of all the above.
ReplyDeleteGary
I thought price indication for whiskey on the frontier was differentiated on whether it came in a clean glass or not!
DeleteOr whether there was a glass at all. :)
ReplyDeleteGary
I should mention too that only last night I was re-reading parts of "The Indispensable Drinks Book", a collaborative effortby John Doxat, Michael Jackson, Jancis Robinson, Richard Clark and Leonard Kirschen. It was published (the one I bought) by Van Nostrand Reinhold Limited, Scarborough, ON.
ReplyDeleteIn a section entitled Cocktails and Mixes, on p. 161, there appears an illustration in black and white which the caption states is from 1810. The picture is further called a, "rambunctious scene set in an American tavern". Indeed so it appears, with some peaceable people seated in one corner companionably raising glasses, while at the other end of the bar a fight is in full progress with fists raised and one participant splayed on the floor. In the centre, a sozzled-looking gent, smiling and oblivious to the mayhem to his right, is talking to a pert, bonneted server, who proffers what looks like a flask of Madeira or similar despite that her interlocutor's glass, which looks like a modern pint beer glass, is half-full of what must be beer.
What kind of beer? On a latticed wall to the far right of the depiction, is a large square sign reading (very clearly) Albany Ale (no x's). Under that name, some six lines of script appear in smaller font, but they are not readable based on the small size of the reproduction.
Other similar signs in the bar advertise Brandy, Rum, Gin, Life of Man (perhaps whiskey), Whiskey Punch, Tom & Jerry and Mint Julep. This bar covered it all - in 1810. If I read the Acknowledgments correctly at the end of the book, the print is from "Ullstein Bilderdienst"; no one will hold it against me I'm sure to aver I know not what this means.
I first saw this after buying the book in the early 80's but even after many years of investigations into beer, nothing resonated until Alan's and your researches into the origins of Albany Ale. Anyway, the beer was in full retail flight by 1810. The depiction mentioned reminds me - I mean the height and shape of the room, not the patrons or their behaviour - of the rooms at the yellow-painted, wood-clad Richardson Canal House, Bushnell's Basin, NY (just outside Rochester to the east).
Gary
Fantastic—I knew I liked you Gary!
Delete1810 is right around the time we start to see actual advertising for Albany Ale. The earliest advert I've seen is for Edward LeBreton's Albany Ale from 1805. I think Albany Ale was quite known by 1810—at least the early Albany "little a" ale version was—that being the version representing the best beer—of all kinds—coming from Albany, rather than the XX stuff from 40 or 50 years later. Beer had been coming out of the area, at that point, for well over 150 years and it seems to have built a reputation.
Ullstein Bilderdienst is a German photo stock house like Corbis or Getty Images (See, sometimes it pays to be graphic designer!) The image is not on their website—but I'd love to see it. Do you think you could scan it or take a photo and email it (drinkdrank1@gmail.com)?
Will do Craig and I think I said it before but if not, much kudos is due to Alan and yourself for your excellent work in this area, keep it up.
ReplyDeleteGary
Much appreciated—and thank you for reading!
Delete