Author(s): BOB EDWARDS Source: Morning Edition (NPR), 05/31/2000
Profile: Yuengling brewery, the oldest in the US and also still a family-owned concern
10:00-11:00 AM , Since 1829 D.G. Yuengling and Sons have been brewing beer in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. The family-run business has seen good times and bad, including two world wars and Prohibition. The brewery is seeing a resurgence in its popularity, while most of the beer business has been flat. NPR's Jack Speer reports.
JACK SPEER reporting:
The first thing you notice is the smell, a heady aroma of grain, hops and yeast. The second thing that catches your eye is the red brick building, home to America's oldest brewery. Walking into the main office is like walking into a bygone era. Portraits of Yuengling family members hang on the walls. Brewery owner and president Dick Yuengling says there's a reason they began brewing beer in Pottsville.
Mr. DICK YUENGLING: It started with my great-great-grandfather coming to this country from Bordenburg(ph), Germany, and he settled in Pottsville because Pottsville was the southernmost area of the anthracite coal fields and coincidentally, coal had just been discovered.
SPEER: Yuengling, like many other breweries in the age before pasteurization, made its beer to be consumed locally. It quickly became the hometown favorite of the miners who populated central Pennsylvania at the turn of the century. And the brewery is little changed today. They still make beer in relatively small batches using a 60-year-old copper kettle.
(Soundbite of machinery)
Unidentified Woman: This is our mash tun kettle, which is the second phase of brewing. This kettle here is the cereal cooker. That's where the whole thing starts. And then right here is the final stages of brewing, which is the brew kettle, the fourth stage.
SPEER: Steeped in family history, Yuengling attracts lots of visitors. There has been a member of the Yuengling family in charge since the brewery's beginnings, a trend that appears likely to continue, though with a twist. That's because the next owner of the brewery may be a woman. Two of Dick Yuengling's four daughters work at the brewery. Jennifer(ph), the oldest, was getting a degree in counseling psychology when she decided to join the family business.
Ms. JENNIFER YUENGLING: I think when my final decision came was when my dad pulled myself and my three sisters aside. He said, `You know, things are getting real busy here and I'm going to need some help. And I'd really like it if you four would be interested in coming back. If you are interested, I have a place for you. If you're not, that's OK, too.' But I think that's when my decision was really made. He actually--he reached out and said, `Look, I need some help.'
SPEER: Jennifer Yuengling says shortly after that, she decided to become a brew master, a career that for the most part has been male-dominated. After two years at Chicago's Siebel Institute, where many brewers learn their trade, she returned to Pottsville and has been working side by side with Yuengling's master brewer.
Ms. YUENGLING: I really haven't had a problem with it. My relationship with the other men that work here has been fine. I mean, I respect them and in turn I think they've given me the respect as well.
SPEER: Jennifer Yuengling says ultimately, all of the sisters may be interested in going into the beer business. But like their father and his father before them, they'll have to buy the brewery from their dad, something that is dictated by family tradition.
Yuengling sales have surged in recent years; so much so that the original brewery can't keep up. To add capacity, they recently bought a brewery in Tampa, Florida, and they are building a new $50 million facility in Pottsville, which when it opens next year will be able to produce around three million barrels of beer a year.
(Soundbite of factory noise)
SPEER: Inside the old brewery building on Mahantongo Street, they are turning out all of the beer that they can make. The brewery's bottling machine fills 60 bottles at once, 447 a minute. Then they ship the beer out to customers. One key to Yuengling's success may be that in an age of mass marketing, consumers want something they see as unique. David Edgar is director of the Institute for Brewing Studies.
Mr. DAVID EDGAR: Yuengling has benefited from the renewed interest consumers now have in local brands and regional beers and local beers and supporting them. They also, of course, have the cache of being the oldest brewery in the United States, which goes a long way.
SPEER: But there are no guarantees the beer's newfound popularity will continue. Other breweries have surged and then faded. Rolling Rock, also brewed in Pennsylvania, was wildly popular for a period in the 1980s. The company saw its beer in demand at trendy bars all over America. But sales slowed, and now Rolling Rock is part of a giant Belgian conglomerate. New York-based Genesee, another mid-sized regional brewery, has also seen its sales slump. Dick Yuengling has watched all of this with some concern.
Mr. YUENGLING: We're taking an awful risk here in doing this. There's--you know, a lot of breweries have gone up in sales, increased their sales rapidly and eventually drifted back to where they were. And I just think it's the commitment that my forefathers took to keep the place alive. I owe that to the rest of the family and to our wholesalers that have come on board with us. When you build something too fast, it has a tendency to deteriorate awfully fast. And we don't want to build it too fast.
SPEER: Major growth is something that Yuengling has only had to face recently. There is an old-world feel here after 171 years in the beer business. And as they prepare to open a new brewery, Yuengling has one thing going for it that very few American businesses of any type have: continuous family ownership. Jennifer Yuengling and her sisters, if they take over the business, will be the sixth generation of the Yuengling family to run the brewery. Dick Yuengling say that's important to him.
Mr. YUENGLING: Everything isn't driven by the almighty dollar with this company. It's longevity is--I keep score by longevity, not necessarily by how much money we make. And if we can keep this thing going and my kids can take it into their generation, that's what I'm here for. That's all I'm looking for.
SPEER: For Dick Yuengling, the challenge will be retaining the quality of a small family-owned brewery as the business grows. That is also the challenge his daughters will face when they take over. Jack Speer, NPR News, in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.
EDWARDS: This is NPR's MORNING EDITION. I'm Bob Edwards.
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