Category Archives: Facebook Sebewaing Group

Website Announcement on Facebook Group

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Photos of OfficersMark W. Rummel posted this photo on February 25, 2014 in the Facebook Group “You know you are from Sebewaing, MI when …”.  He said:

“CBWing native Scott Thede has put together an EXCELLENT website about our favorite local brewery, which was operated by his late grandfather Otto Thede for many years. Scott’s site is here https://sebewaingbrewingcompany.com/

I “stole” this photo from that website, which came from the brewery’s 1953 Annual Report (which I recognize was printed by The Blade’s printing department) which shows some of the leaders. I remember Millard Ringle, Art Mast and (of course) Otto Thede, among others. Several grandchildren, cousins, etc., are listed here.

Keep up the great website work, Scott!”

Here are the comments from the post:

Doug Rook My parents bought Gustav Kausch’s house on North Center St. The kid’s names are still in the concrete bases of the clothes line posts.

Scott M. Thede Thank you Mark. I appreciate the kind words.

Doug Rook Wow Scott, that is a fabulous website. Thanks a million for sharing.

Scott M. Thede Thank you Doug. Keep checking back. I have hundreds of more things to add, pictures, articles, business papers, just need the time to do it.

Scott M. Thede The brewery I believe did not employ much more than 30 people at any one time, the list of employees from 1933-1966 is now at 76! I think it may go over 100 as more names keep popping up. Keep the names coming and thank you!

Thank you to Mark W. Rummel for this post and all of those who took the time to comment in Facebook.

Charles Beckman Hides, Furs, and Coal

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Beckman FursArlene Nimtz-Schweitzer posted this photo on February 1, 2014 in the Facebook Group “You know you are from Sebewaing, MI when …”.  She asked the question: “Match holder from Chas. Beckman, where was this in Sebewaing??

Here are the responses/comments from the post:

Mark W Rummel No idea, Arlene. He probably ran it from his house, or a garage. Anyone have other ideas?

Scott M. Thede According to the Ellen Taschner report related to the Sebewaing Brewing Company, the location of this business was the brewery sometime after the start of Prohibition and 1924. Here is a quotation from Ellen’s paper: “Shortly after the 18th Amendment took effect, the Sebewaing brewery building had been bought by Charles Beckman, a dealer in hides and furs who needed a storage place for his wares. The basement of the brewery was an ideal place for hides and furs, because a low, even temperature could easily be maintained. Beckman used the building until 1924 when a group of business men bought it from him and setup equipment for the manufacture of liquid malt, which they sold to people who wanted to make their own brew. The name of the company was now changed to Sebewaing Products Company.” The entire paper can be ready here:https://sebewaingbrewingcompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Sebewaing-Brewing-Company-1968-Ellen-Taschner-Final.pdf

Mark W Rummel Wow – makes perfect sense to me. They had to do something with that building during Prohibition, so a hides/fur guy could find uses for it. They also made home products for people to make their own beer as Sebewaing Products Company (I believe that’s true, Scott M. Thede ?) To show how dumb ProMalt Extract Containerhibition was, people could make their own beer, for personal use, but couldn’t buy real beer. Sheesh.

I met a man in 1972 named William Wreford, who said his father had moved the family to Sebewaing to run the Brewery right after prohibition had ended. So, after Prohibition ended, we went back to brewing beer, as we should have.

Scott M. Thede Yes, your info is correct Mark on the product offered before Prohibition ended. I assume this was a son and his father also named William B. Wreford was the President of the brewery from 1933-1936 and passed away on May 8, 1944.

William Harder (Posted the Malt Extract container photo)

Thank you to Arlene Nimtz-Schweitzer for posting the photo.

Radio Ad

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Scott M. Thede posted this audio clip December 28, 2013 in the Facebook Group “You know you are from Sebewaing, MI when …”.  He said “This may bring back some memories from the golden age of radio (my best guess)!  Click here to listen.

Here are the comments from the post:

John Schneider thanks alot scott…..can’t get that tune out of my head now……skip skip…..

Jo Ann Parsell That’s a hoot! What year was it recorded?

Mark W Rummel I’ve never heard that! I had no idea they had made a CBWing Beer radio spot. WOW! I’d guess it was from 1964 or so, since the “Detroit owners” probably paid for it. Our local owners never would have spent that kind of money.

Doug Rook Seeb-ah-wing beer, eh? Skip to my loo……. A loo is restroom in England. So does Sebewaing beer really make you skip to the loo?

Robert Calkins Pretty cool add. Singers were right on the money pitch wise and the jingle words were quite appropriate. Excellent guitar too. Anyone know who the ensemble was made up of??

Julie Meyer Kaczorowski Cool! Thanks for sharing!

Sebewaing Blade, June 13, 1947 - AdScott M Thede I don’t know any of the details of the song yet. It sounds like it came from vinyl that someone must have. The label may provide additional details. In regards to timing, there was a heavy ad campaign from August 1945 to August 1947 for Sebewaing Beer. I attached a sample of one ad in the Blade that ran on 3/28/47 and 6/13/47. There were other ads that looked the same but with different messages. Early in the campaign on Aug 24, 1945, they ran the same size ad but instead of the bottle, the words “Good Beer!” and “Sebewaing” in a large point size. What I noticed is that shortly before these ads appeared, Fox Brewery out of Grand Rapids was running an aggressive ad campaign with huge ads in the Blade and I believe the Sebewaing ads were to help people remember Sebewaing Beer and not be lured away. For now, this time period is my best guess for the song that may have been running on the radio. I do tend to agree with Mark that this would have been abnormal marketing dollars spent for the board at that time and maybe it is from the 1960’s.

Mark W Rummel Just fascinating, Scott. Maybe Fox Brewery wanted to buy out Sebewaing and was trying to under-price them, since no national beers were dominant then as Bud and Miller are now. That 12 oz. long-neck bottle would appear almost full-size in print, so it probably looked pretty tasty (there were few news photos then, maybe one or two a week, so that bottle really stood out.) Keep this stuff coming, Scott!

Fox BreweryMark W Rummel This is from the Grand Rapids Press files: Fox Deluxe Brewing Co. built a “castle brewery complex” in 1935, right after prohibition ended and ran it until 1951, when the company closed the Grand Rapids brewery and moved the business to Chicago.

Fox Deluxe had bought the assets of Michigan Brewing Co. in 1940, which in turn had bought the assets of Grand Rapids Brewing Co. after it was forced to make “near beer” products during Prohibition. The company made a brief comeback by merging with Furniture City Brewing Co., but it was mostly a shell for a Muskegon brewery owned by Frank D. McKay, an infamous Grand Rapids businessman and state Republican Party boss. Sounds like they were trying to get big before the Buds and Millers took over, but didn’t succeed.

Thanks to all of those who took the time to comment in Facebook.