Abner-Drury Brewery

The Abner-Drury Brewery, operating from 1898 to 1938, was a brewery in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The brewery went into bankruptcy on July 31, 1935, and was subsequently reorganized as Washington Brewery, Inc. It went out of business permanently in August 1938.

Abner-Drury Brewery
FormerlyAlbert Brewery
IndustryAlcoholic beverages
FateDefunct
Founded1898 
Headquarters25th and F Streets Northwest,
Washington, D.C.
,
United States
ProductsBeer
Owner
  • Edward F. Abner
  • Peter A. Drury

Early years

The business began when Edward F. Abner purchased the Albert Brewery at some point in the late 1800s. In 1897, Peter A. Drury became E. F. Abner's partner. Abner, born 1864, was originally from Cologne and had moved to Washington in 1885;[1] Drury, born 1865, was from Ireland.[2]

Abner-Drury was located on 25th Street in a block extending from F to G Street NW, in Washington's Foggy Bottom neighborhood.[3][4] It employed many of Foggy Bottom's German residents.[5][6]

The name of the firm was initially "Abner and Drury, Brewers", and was changed to "Abner-Drury Brewery" in 1900.[7] One of its signature products was the Old Glory beer.[7] It made beer from only malt and hops.[3]

In 1899, Abner and Drury's neighbor Christian Heurich (of the Christian Heurich Brewing Company) sued them for building their brewery several inches onto his property. Heurich claimed this incursion "greatly injured" his property, and he sought $25,000 in damages (equivalent to $768,300 in 2019). Heurich's lot was vacant.[8]

In 1905, Abner-Drury, along with a number of other Washington-area brewers comprising the Brewers' Association, was involved in an antitrust suit under the Sherman Act. At the time, Abner-Drury was incorporated under West Virginia law. The case involved a conspiracy in restraint of trade across state borders.[9][10]

Prohibition era and after
Abner-Drury Brewery, 1910.

From the start of Prohibition in 1918 until 1922, Abner-Drury sold soft drinks.[11]

In March 1933, after Franklin D. Roosevelt arranged for an amendment to the Volstead Act to permit near-beer, Abner-Drury sent a truck to the White House with the sign "President Roosevelt, the first beer is for you".[12] Workers carried cases of beer into the White House, and a crowd spontaneously formed around the truck singing the 1929 song "Happy Days Are Here Again".[13][14]

On April 7, 1933 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, an Abner-Drury Brewery truck drove around the city with a U.S. Marine in the back. At each stop, the Marine handed out bottles of beer, and crowds gathered. The police had to step in to restore order.[15]

Abner-Drury was one of two pre-Prohibition breweries to re-open in Washington (along with the Christian Heurich Brewing Company). With a campaign on NBC in May 1933, it was among the first to begin radio advertisements for beer after Prohibition ended.[16] It marketed its near-beer with the slogan "The Beer with Everything BUT!"[17]

Given the changed landscape of brewing after Prohibition and the rise of national bottled shipping brewers, the Abner-Drury Brewery had trouble competing. Bankrupt as of 1935, it was briefly revived as The Washington Brewery, Inc. from 1935 to 1938, when it went under permanently.[18][19] Abner-Drury was sold to a single bidder at an auction in August 1938 to an agent of Charles Jacobsen, who ran the Arlington Bottling Company.[18]

See also

References
  1. Macfarland, Henry Brown Floyd (1908). District of Columbia: Concise Biographies of Its Prominent and Representative Citizens, and Valuable Statistical Data, 1908–09. Washington, D.C.: The Potomac Press. p. 2. OCLC 1042961976.
  2. Slauson 1903, pp. 286–287.
  3. "Beer Made from Malt and Hops Exclusively". The Washington Post. June 12, 1912. p. L62. ProQuest 145158164.
  4. Tana, Daniel (2013). The Last Call: Preserving Washington's Lost Historic Breweries. University of Maryland, Masters Thesis. pp. 49, 67.
  5. Gwen Cannon (2007). Washington, DC. Michelin. p. 178.
  6. "Capacity of the Warehouse Doubled". Washington Sentinel. 1 April 1899. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  7. Slauson 1903, p. 286.
  8. "A Queer Error". Washington Sentinel. 22 April 1899. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  9. Leonard v. Abner-Drury Brewing Co, 25 App.D.C. 161, 1905 WL 17722 (1905).
  10. Frederick Hale Cooke (1909). The Law of Combinations, Monopolies and Labor Unions. Callaghan and Co. p. 351.
  11. Candyce H. Stapyn (2000). Washington, D.C. W. W. Norton. p. 510.
  12. Alter Jonathan (2006). The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope. Simon & Schuster. p. 277.
  13. Adam Woog (2003). Prohibition: Banning Alcohol. Lucent Books. p. 74.
  14. "The constitutional origins of National Beer Day". Constitution Daily. 7 April 2019. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  15. "As States Recognize Beer Legality". Amarillo Globe. 7 April 1933. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
  16. "Beer: Seven hundred stations and one network .". Sponsor. 1 (10): 14. August 1947.
  17. Kaufman, Henry J. (April 1933). "Near-Beer Proves Radio for 3.2 Brew". Broadcasting. 4 (7): 7. ProQuest 1505557355.
  18. "Abner Drury Brewery Is Sold at Auction". The Washington Post. August 18, 1938. p. X15. ProQuest 151071694.
  19. "Abner Drury Brewery". Evening Star. 18 August 1938. Retrieved 4 August 2020.

Sources
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