Dortmund Union Brewery
Dortmund Union Brewery was the name of a brewery in Dortmund . Today it belongs to the Radeberger Group under the name Brinkhoff Brewery .
history
The origins of the Union brewery lie in the Wilhelm Struck house brewery on Dortmund's Westenhellweg . Wilhelm Struck ran a bakery, a house brewery and an affiliated pub here.
In 1870 the master brewer Fritz Brinkhoff was lured away by the Dortmund Löwenbrauerei , at the same time the brewery was converted into an open trading company (oHG). In 1872, the Struck & Compagnie brewery was relocated to the west of the city's ramparts in the "brewery district" between Rheinischer Strasse and the railway line in order to be able to expand and expand the business. The founder and namesake had left the company in the meantime.
On January 30, 1873, in order to gain capital for the relocation, the Dortmund Union-Brauerei Aktiengesellschaft was founded and entered in the commercial register.
Dortmund export
In 1887, a wrong brew was delivered to a customer in Aachen and there was huge sales. The Dortmunder Export was born. At that time, the Union brewery in Dortmund was producing 75,000 hectoliters annually. At the turn of the 20th century, production was already 194,000 hectoliters. During the First World War, the Dortmund Union brewery supplied the troops of the German army.
Between 1920 and 1927, the Union brewery took over the operating facilities of the neighboring Germania brewery, but also built various new buildings on its own, increasingly cramped premises. In this context, the first high-rise building in Dortmund was built from April 1926 to June 1927 according to plans by the engineer Emil Moog, who specializes in brewing systems , and is now known as the Dortmunder U and mainly served as a fermentation and storage cellar. The building, which has been expanded several times, is built as a reinforced concrete structure and stands on 40 foundation pillars. The main tower is crowned by a two-tier lattice structure. Since 1968 the four-fold, nine-meter-high and illuminated golden “U” has been emblazoned on the roof as the Union brewery's logo.
With the new production facilities, the brewery also increased its sales. In 1929 more than a million hectoliters of beer were produced for the first time, most of which was exported.
During the time of National Socialism in Dortmund, brewery director Bruno Schüler became state commissioner for the city of Dortmund on March 24, 1933, later mayor and theater director. Schüler, a National Socialist since 1923, exerted massive pressure to implement the National Socialist ideology in Dortmund. An accountability report dated April 24, 1933 to the Prussian Minister of the Interior documents the anti-Semitic activities of Schülers, who initially had “ non-Aryans ” ousted from all public positions.
At the end of the Second World War , the Union brewery suffered severe damage from bombing . It was not until 1956 that the production volume of 1929 could be reached again. In 1973 a historical maximum was reached with a production of more than two million hectoliters of beer.
Takeover of the Ritter brewery
In 1994, the Union Brewery took over the Dortmund Ritter Brewery and renamed itself the Dortmund Union Ritter Brewery GmbH . Production was relocated from the city center to the previous production facility of the Ritter Brewery on the outskirts in Lütgendortmund . In 2002 the Union-Ritter-Brauerei was renamed the Brinkhoff Brewery , and in 2006 production was relocated to the Dortmunder Actien-Brauerei .
The former brewery in downtown Dortmund was demolished in 2004. All that remains is the seven-story, 70-meter-high fermentation and storage cellar with the gilded Dortmund U.
The building has now been completely rebuilt. It is used as a museum and, in addition to the presentation of works of art from the 20th and 21st centuries in the Ostwall Museum , is a public place for research, learning, experiencing and exchanging ideas about contemporary art, media and culture.
Brands
The beer brands Dortmunder Union (Export, Siegel Pils) and Brinkhoff’s (No. 1, Radler, ColaBier) from the Union brewery are still available, but are now brewed or bottled by the Dortmunder Actien brewery . The “Pils 2000” brand, the rather unsuccessful predecessor of “Brinkhoff's No. 1 “as a premium brand, is no longer produced.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Günther Högl: The Dortmund theater during the Nazi era. In: 100 Years of Dortmund Theater, p. 119f.
- ↑ Das Haus , accessed on August 15, 2012
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 53 ″ N , 7 ° 27 ′ 12 ″ E