Purple Stripe lager is inextricably linked to Jamaican consuming tradition. However after a fast dive into the beer’s previous, we’ve surfaced with some unusual information: There’s proof on the market that means the alleged birthplace of island-centric Purple Stripe may very well be the Midwest.
Some people in Galena, Ailing., firmly attest {that a} native brewery coined the Purple Stripe label and recipe almost 60 years earlier than the alleged creation of the Jamaican lager we’ve come to adore — however this story isn’t that clear-cut. After digging by means of newspaper databases and falling deeper into the Purple Stripe rabbit gap, we’ve found some coincidences that make the precise origins of the beer model a little bit sketchy.
A Beer Named Purple Stripe
Whether or not or not the Purple Stripe Lager we all know so nicely got here from Illinois, it’s necessary to notice {that a} Purple Stripe beer was actually born there at one level. The Galena Brewing Firm was based in 1833, and as early as 1838, native newspapers marketed it as producing “Porter, Ale, and beer of a high quality superior to that typically imported for this market.” Nonetheless, there’s no extra point out of Purple Stripe in Illinois till a number of a long time later.
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Enter Mathias Meller, a German-born brewer who moved to Galena in 1849. Meller acquired the brewery, expanded it, and adjusted the identify to the Fulton Brewery by 1874. Eight years later, he retired and offered the operation to a different German immigrant named Casper Eulberg. He and his sons Adam and Peter renamed the brewery Eulberg & Sons Brewery, which operated as such till a hearth destroyed the entire thing in July 1886. One way or the other, the Eulbergs had been capable of get the brewery again up and operating once more by October.
It’s robust to say precisely when Eulberg & Sons first began producing Purple Stripe beer, however a newspaper snippet from Might 1892 talked about a cargo of the brew arriving in time for an upcoming Memorial Day celebration. Nonetheless, it’s seemingly that the beer was born a decade prior based mostly on later mentions of Purple Stripe having been brewed “over 50 years earlier than Prohibition.” Supposedly, Eulberg & Sons’ Purple Stripe grew to become massively common all through Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa till, in fact, Prohibition put an finish to all of the enjoyable and compelled the brewery to shut down. It wasn’t till the nice American dry spell ended that the brewery would reopen once more because the Galena Brewing Firm and begin producing Purple Stripe once more.
Island Affect
In the meantime, down in Kingston, Jamaica, British residents Thomas Hargreaves Geddes and Eugene Desnoes joined forces to begin a delicate drink firm in 1918. Ten years later, the Desnoes & Geddes firm brewed its first batch of — you guessed it — Purple Stripe beer. The primary iteration of D&G’s Purple Stripe was allegedly a robust, British darkish ale, and was not a becoming refresher for Jamaica’s sweltering local weather. In 1938, the lads’s respective sons, Paul and Peter, took over the enterprise and reformulated the beer with the assistance of engineer Invoice Martindale to be the crisp, refreshing lager we all know in the present day.
However wait — let’s again up for a second. The Galena Brewing Firm reintroduced the Eulberg & Sons Purple Stripe Beer in 1934 “in all its outdated time taste and magnificence.” This is able to imply that two completely different Purple Stripe beers coexisted till the Galena Brewing Firm closed down in 1938 — the identical 12 months the Jamaican Purple Stripe received a makeover.
What a Coincidence
Since 1938, the Jamaican Purple Stripe has thrived. As for the stateside Galena Brewing Firm, the unique plant by no means reopened. In 2010, although, a South African man named Warren Bell began a small craft brewery in downtown Galena bearing the defunct Galena Brewing Firm moniker.
There are a number of sources, together with Bell himself, that declare D&G really purchased the rights to the Purple Stripe label from the Galena Brewing Comapany upon its closure in 1938 — however the story simply doesn’t add up. Paul Geddes did, in truth, go to Chicago to check brewing within the early ‘30s earlier than returning to Jamaica — however at that time, the Purple Stripe label already existed in Kingston. Briefly, it’s seemingly all only a loopy coincidence. It might seem that the Illinois Purple Stripe was merely a very completely different beer, and provided that the Illinois Purple Stripe ceased manufacturing nearly 90 years in the past, we are able to’t do a side-by-side comparability.
For no matter it’s value, the locals of Galena can proudly state that they stay within the residence of the primary Purple Stripe, simply not the Purple Stripe everyone knows. And to the believers of the Galena-Jamaica connection, we admit that the labels bear a placing resemblance.
*Picture retrieved from Алексей Филатов by way of inventory.adobe.com
