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Fred H. Keller | Retrospect
Sussex's Stone Boots Brewery
Today you can buy a beer at no less than a baker's dozen of places in Sussex. In 1880, the production of beer in Sussex was pretty well documented at 476 barrels at the Boots Brewery on Maple Avenue which at the time was named South Street.
Every local community of any worth back in the post-pioneer days had a local brewery. It was almost a law of nature in Wisconsin. It is said that there were no less than 100 breweries in Wisconsin after the Civil War, but the small ones started to disappear even before the prohibition (1920-33).
In 1933, the big breweries took over and consolidated further reducing the amount of local breweries until the 1980s when there was a reversal of mini pub breweries in the area. Today, Wisconsin might be back to more than 100 breweries.
The Sussex Boots Brewery was originally started by Stephen Stone in the 1840s. Stone had an employee, Ephraim Boots, who started working with in around 1850. Ephraim took over the brewery sometime between 1860 and 1862. It's exact location was north east of the intersection of Champeny Road and Maple Avenue. This house was stone-covered and built in the 1930s by then-businessman Alfred Otto who ran the local feed mill then called Nettesheim & Otto Feed Mill which became Sussex Mills in 1945.
In post-Civil War times, there were six notable breweries in Waukesha County. Fifteen years later, there information about these breweries and their production in 1880: Peter Binzel Brewery in Oconomowoc, 1,092 barrels; Sussex Ephraim Boots Brewery, 476 barrels; John Shock Brewery in Pewaukee, 465 barrels; The Frederickson Brewery in North Lake, 107 barrels and the John Link Brewery near Golden Lake, 186 barrels.
The majority of the beer was a German lager. It is believed that the early Sussex Stone Brewery produced British ale and a Porter.
The ingredients came from crops in Lisbon that included wheat, corn and hops. Shortly, demand for barley to make malt grew from Milwaukee and local breweries.
The Weaver family were prolific hops farmers. This crop is a vine that grows up long tamarack poles. In the fall, the long poles would be taken down and kids, women and any other help that could be found plucked the hop cones off the vines. The workers were paid by the weight or volume if they were wet or green. Then the local community was dotted with two- and three-story high hop drying buildings where a first floor, or in some cases, a basement had a small fire to furnish heat to dry the hops.
Once dried, the hops were bailed and ready for sale. In 1860, James Weaver and his son, Richard Weaver, formed a brokerage firm to buy and sell hops. A few years later, James left the partnership with another son, William Weaver II taking over his share of the partnership. They became the wealthiest men in Sussex-Lisbon Richard being accorded as a millionaire.
Post Civil War also brought an anti-alcohol push first with the Woman's Temperance Union and then a spin off, the Prohibition Party, which succeeded in 1920 in getting the 18th amendment enacted that made beer, alcohol and wine illegal.
However, the Boots Brewery was already out of business by 1891.
- 1910 Gerkin family photo
- Ephraim Boots, Sussex Brewery in the 1800s Photos from the collection of Sussex Village Historian Fred H. Keller
- Lisbon dumping ground for the Mob
- 1947 Sussex Main Street all-school photo
- Sussex-Lisbon pioneers started first businesses
- Museum reserves spot to honor local Civil War involvement
- Bob Stier (1914-91) farmer, Sussex fire chief, trustee
- Local ties to the Titanic
- Sussex splits from Lisbon, Templeton
- 1990 Spring Fest honored businessman Gordon Pfeil
- The incorporation of the Village of Sussex, 1924
- Three Pines Restaurant is today's Mobile Quarry Mart
- Photos tell story of historic St. James church
- Tempero auction sign dates back 70 years
- Community service club, the Jaycees
- History of Sussex Mills and Hilbert "Hip" Keller
- Lisbon Presbyterian Church gets ready for 165th celebration
- Domino clubs in Sussex circa 1800s
- Earliest residents of Sussex, Lisbon, Lannon
- Original 1965 and '66 Hamilton classes hold reunion
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