Category Archives: Toledo

The 2024 Solar Eclipse: Nature’s Way of Saying ‘Hold My Beer’

Earlier this week I experienced what was for me, and probably a lot of people, a once-in-a-lifetime event – a total solar eclipse. A total solar eclipse (totality) occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the Sun. This results in a darkening of the sky, similar to dawn or dusk. Total solar eclipses are more common than many people think. In fact, they occur on average once every eighteen months. However, with 71% of the Earth’s surface covered by water (mostly oceans), the chances of a total solar eclipse being viewable from where any individual lives is pretty slim. Indeed the next time a total solar eclipse will be viewable from Toledo, OH will be 2099. The last one, prior to 2024, was in 1806. The eclipse was a spectacular event. In Toledo, totality started at 3:12pm and 18 seconds and ended at 3:14 and 9 seconds, thus lasting for a total of 1 minute and 51 seconds.

Upcoming solar eclipses viewable from the United States
The total solar eclipse as seen in Toledo, OH on April 8, 2024 (Photo Credit: Henry Stalnaker)
A total solar eclipse results in a darkening of the sky, similar to dawn or dusk. I took this photograph on the campus of the University of Toledo during totality

Craft beer aficionados will not be surprised to learn that craft breweries across the country took the opportunity provided by the eclipse to produce one-off beers to celebrate the event. For example, Great Lakes Brewing Co. in Cleveland, OH produced a limited edition Vanilla Blackout Stout, which was “brewed with a sliver of vanilla to eclipse your palate with extra richness”. Sun King Brewery in Indianapolis, IN brewed a coffee-infused Golden Ale which it named “3-07”, the length of time of totality in Indianapolis. The beer “embodies both the brightness of the sun and the depth of darkness during an eclipse”. The coffee used in the beer was provided by a local coffee roaster, Sun Bean Roastery.

Breweries in Toledo were no exception, and two days prior to the eclipse I got a chance to sample some of the local eclipse-inspired beers. I did so at an event called Total Brewclipse held at the Imagination Station, an interactive science center, in downtown Toledo. Fifteen local breweries, one meadery, and a university Craft Beverage Program had some of their beers for attendees to sample. Not only did a ticket to the event provide ten samples of beer, but it also allowed attendees to access to all the exhibits in the science center, including an interactive, planetarium-style show on solar eclipses in the center’s theater. The local home brewing club, the Glass City Mashers, were also there. In addition to answering attendee questions, the Mashers held a short program where they described and explained the science of the brewing process.

The Imagination Station was the venue for Brewclipse
The local home brewing club, Glass City Mashers, answered questions and hosted a program covering the basics of the brewing process

Like Great Lakes and Sun King mentioned above, most of the breweries participating in the event had brewed beers in celebration of the solar eclipse. The beers were creatively named – Path of Totality, Turn on the Dark . . . I’m Scared of the Light, and Umbra and Penumbra (the two shadows cast during a solar eclipse) being some examples.

Some of the eclipse-inspired beers available at Brewclipse

In most cases, the connection between beer names and the solar eclipse was obvious . This was not so (at least to me) with Leonidas (In the Shade) a Pale Ale, brewed by Outskirts Brew Co. & Dive of Lima, OH. I had to do a little internet research to understand the significance of this beer’s name. Here is what I found. Leonidas (c. 530-480 B.C.) was king of the city-state of Sparta from 490 B.C. until 480 B.C., when he was killed during the Battle of Thermopylae against the Persian army. According to the Greek historian Plutarch, at one point during the battle one of Leonidas’s soldiers complained that the Persian would release so many arrows that they would block out the sun, to which Leonidas replied, “Won’t it be nice, then, if we shall have shade in which to fight them?” In addition to having a very cool name, Leonidas was brewed using Eclipse Hops. While the sign at the event stated that Eclipse Hops are from New Zealand, my research suggests that they are in fact from Australia.

Brewclipse was a wonderful event. In addition to the opportunity to sample some one-off beers, what I particularly liked was the setting. I have attended a number of beer sampling events that were held in a nondescript and sterile convention center-type setting. The Imagination Station, with attendees having access to its exhibits, was a colorful and stimulating venue. The partnership between craft breweries and the Imagination Station was especially appropriate given the event (the total solar eclipse) that we were all going to witness and experience. Brewclipse also provided craft breweries a venue to demonstrate their creativity, relevance, and connection to the local community.

Toledo History and Hops

The tour started at Maumee Bay Brewing Company

Last month, I went on a tour organized by the the Toledo History Museum. The tour was titled “History & Hops Brewery Tour”, and combined some general Toledo urban history with the history of the brewing industry in the city. The two-hour tour started at Toledo’s oldest and largest modern-day craft brewery, Maumee Bay Brewing Company (established 1995; white star on map below). Gathered outside of the brewery as we waited on the bus to start our tour, I counted about twenty fellow tour participants.

Our tour guide was Tedd Long, Vice President of the Toledo History Museum. Tedd provided commentary for the tour, which he supplemented with short video clips. Tedd started off by noting the historical importance of the brewing industry in Toledo. Indeed, from the early to mid-1800s up until the early twentieth century it was one of the leading industries in the city. If I heard Tedd correctly, there were fourteen breweries in the city of Toledo in 1900.

Map of Toledo Breweries That Existed at Some Point Between 1838 and 1972. Source: Maumee Bay Brewing Company

We made a number of stops along the tour.  I won’t cover them all in this blog entry, but will rather hit on a few highlights. Our first stop was in east Toledo, at the corner of Oak and Front Streets (number 7 on map). This was the site of the Home Brewing Company, which existed between 1904 and 1919. The brewery was a five-story structure. Interestingly, the brewery was owned by a syndicate of saloon owners. The syndicate ownership structure gave the saloon owners control over the price of the beer. At its peak, the Home Brewing Company produced 40,000 barrels of beer per year.

Our second stop was at the intersection of Front and Main Streets, also in east Toledo. Toledoeans will recognize this intersection, as the iconic Tony Packo’s Restaurant is located there. This intersection was the location of the original Buckeye Brewery (number 9 on map). The brewery was established in 1838, and was owned by a German Brewmaster, Julius Kohler. In 1854, Kohler purchased a brewery  at the corner of Bush and Champlain Streets (number 1 on map) and shifted his brewing operations to this location. The brewery, which was a small, white, wooden frame building, was purchased by Kohler for $2,400. Our tour also included a stop at the Bush and Champlain Streets location. Over the years the Buckeye Brewery underwent numerous ownership changes, while also gaining capacity as a result of building additions. By the 1870s, the brewery was producing between fourteen thousand and nineteen thousand barrels of lager. In 1880, it was the fourth largest brewery in the city.

Another stop was at the intersection of Summit and Elm Streets, the site of the Finlay Brewing Company (number 4 on map). The brewery opened in 1853. It started off brewing Ales and Porter, but in 1869 switched to producing Lager. In 1874, Finlay Brewing Company produced 12,000 barrels of beer. By 1881, production had increased to 54,000 barrels. Finlay Brewing Company was the first Toledo brewery to sell its beer outside of the city, when it expanded its market reach to include Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New York. It was also the first Toledo brewery to bottle its beer.  The bottling of beer, of course, was made possible by the invention of the automated bottling machine by Michael J. Owens, who worked for the Toledo Glass Factory (owned by Edward Drummond Libby). Prior to bottles, beer was sold in kegs. Today , Toledo remains a center of beer bottle design and innovation – a topic I covered in a previous blog entry.

 

Maumee Bay’s Brewery Manager, Craig Kerr, leads us through the beer tasting portion of the tour

Another stop that we made on the tour was the building that currently houses the Spaghetti Warehouuse restaurant, at the intersection of Lafayette and Superior Streets. Constructed towards the end of the nineteenth century, this building was the Hoppe and Strube Bottling Company. Hoppe and Strube bottled beer for a number of breweries including the Pabst Brewing Company from Milwaukee, WI and the Maumee Brewing Company, whose brewery was located right next door.

These are just a few of the stops we made on our tour. As I reflected on my afternoon, visiting the sites of old Toledo breweries, it struck me that most American cities have a brewing history. It is a history that should be preserved and told. Thankfully, the Toledo History Museum have taken on that task in Toledo. Back in March 2017, I took a guided tour of the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in Cincinnati, OH and learned about that neighborhood’s rich brewing history.  The tour was organized by the Over-the-Rhine Brewery District Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation,  a not-for-profit group, part of whose mission it is to preserve and tell the story of the neighborhood’s brewing heritage. Just the other day, I came across this piece, in the St. Louis Dispatch about the Bellefontaine Cemetery and Arboretum Beer Baron Tour. Around forty burial sites in the cemetery have a connection with St. Louis’s brewing history. The annual Beer Barons Tour gives people an opportunity to learn about some of the city’s beer entrepreneurs. These are important histories. We should preserve them and share them.

Following the bus segment of the tour, we returned to the Maumee Bay Brewing Company for beer tasting in the brewery’s cafe. The beer tasting was led by Brewery Manager, Craig Kerr. We sampled six Maumee Bay brews – Cherry Vanilla Porter, Coffee Cream Ale, Dreamin Demon (Belgian Strong Dark Ale), Glass Hopper IPA, Oktoberfest, and Mango Jerry (Gose). The background to each beer, including information on the ingredients was provided by Craig Kerr. I have sat through a lot of craft beer samplings over the years and this was perhaps the best. Craig did a fantastic job of describing each beer, as well as providing information on the general brewing process, and the function of the different ingredients.

FurtherReading:

Musson, Robert A. 2011. Brewing Beer in the Glass City, Volume I. The Buckeye Story. Medina, OH: Zepp Publications.

Musson, Robert A. 2018. Brewing Beer in the Glass City, Volume II: Huebner, Koerber, Maumee Bay and the Rest, 2nd edition. Medina, OH: Zepp Publications.

Moses’ Acquittal

Jackie Robinson is famous in the world of sport for being the first African-American, in the twentieth century, to play Major League baseball. Robinson’s first professional game occurred on April 15, 1947 when he played first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Dodgers were the only Major League team for whom Robinson played; his final game for them was on October 10, 1956. Among other achievements Robinson was named Major League Rookie of the Year in 1947, chosen as the National League MVP in 1949, and won the World Series with the Dodgers in 1955.

Advertisement for the Blue Stockings vs. Eclipse game that appeared in Louisville’s Journal-Courier newspaper on May 1, 1884

Robinson was not the first African-American to play Major League Baseball, however. On May 1, 1884, sixty-three years before Robinson played his first game for the Dodgers, a twenty-six year old African-American made his Major League debut. His name was Moses Fleetwood Walker and he turned out for the Toledo Blue Stockings in a game against the Louisville Eclipse. The game, in which Fleetwood played catcher, took place at Eclipse Park in Louisville, KY. ; the Eclipse won 5-1.

Moses Fleetwood Walker (back row center) and the 1884 Toledo Blue Stockings team

The Toledo Blue Stockings were established, as a minor league team, in 1883. That year they played in the Northwestern League, which they  also managed to win. In 1884 the Blue Stockings joined the American Association. The American Association was an alternative professional baseball league to the National League. The Blue Stockings lasted just one season in the Major Leagues (finishing eighth out of thirteen teams)  and in 1885 were back in the minors, before being disbanded at the end of that season. They played their games at League Park which was located on a city block in downtown Toledo; the block being bounded by Monroe Street, 15th Street, Jefferson Avenue, and 13th Street. This meant that League Park was located just a few blocks northwest of the Fifth Third Field, where the present-day Toledo MudHens currently play.

Moses Fleetwood Walker Ohio Historical Marker

Walker was born in Mount Pleasant, OH on October 7, 1856. He was the third-born son of Moses W. Walker and Caroline O’Harra Walker. In 1879 the Walker family moved to Steubenville, OH and it was probably here that Moses first played baseball. In 1877 Moses enrolled as a student at Oberlin College (Oberlin, OH) where he played catcher and lead-off hitter for the Oberlin College prep team. In 1888 Oberlin fielded its first varsity baseball team, of which Walker was a member. In the final game of the season Oberlin defeated the Univetsity of Michigan, 9-2; so impressed were Michigan with Walker’s performance that they invited him to join their team. So Walker transferred to the University of Michigan in 1882, where he spent his junior year studying Law and playing baseball. The  following year he decided to not return to Michigan, opting instead to sign for the Toledo Blue Stockings. And it was with the Blue Stockings that Walker made history when he became the first African-American to play Major League Baseball.

An excerpt of the letter warning the Toledo Blue Stockings not to play Walker in their game against the Richmond Virginians appeared in The Cincinnati Enquirer.

As an African-American it is perhaps not surprising to learn that, during his career, Walker faced opposition because of the color of his skin. There were a number of times when opposition players and managers objected to his playing against them. For example, on September 5, 1884 prior to a visit to Richmond, VA Charlie Morton, manager of the Toledo Blue Stockings, received a letter from the Richmond Virginians which contained the following:

Dear Sir: We the undersigned, do hereby warn you not to put up Walker, the Negro catcher, the evenings that you play in Richmond, as we could mention the names of 75 determined men who have sworn to mob Walker if he comes to the ground in a suit. We hope you will listen to our words of warning, so that there will be no trouble: but if you do not, there certainly will be. We only write this to prevent much blood shed, as you alone can prevent.

As it was Walker was released by the Blue Stockings prior to the trip to Richmond and so this particular situation never came to a head. After being released by Toledo, Walker bounced around from one minor league team to another before finally retiring from the game in 1889.

Richard Reed’s painting of Moses Fleetwood Walker inside Fleetwood’s Taproom

Chicago’s Black Ensemble Theatre put on a play about Walker’s murder trial

Although not from Toledo, it was in Toledo that Walker made history. And it is a history of which an growing number of Toledoeans are increasingly aware. And beer is playing a part in this increased awareness of Walker. In April 2016 a new bar opened in downtown Toledo. In honor of Walker, it is called Fleetwood’s Tap Room. It is a bar with a craft beer focus and Fleetwood’s menu includes over one hundred craft beers. One of these beers is called Moses’ Acquital, a Brown Ale brewed exclusively for the tap room by the nearby Black Cloister Brewing Company. The brew is the creation of Black Cloister’s Head Brewmaster Shannon Fink. The name of the beer refers to an event that has its beginnings in Syracuse, NY in April 1891. Walker was walking home from a bar when he was challenged by a group of white men. Words were exchanged, Walker drew a knife, and killed a man by the name of Patrick Murray. Walker was tried for second degree murder; the jury, which was all white, acquitted him; hence the name of the beer.  Interestingly, in 2015 a Chicago theatre, the Black Ensemble Theater, told the story of Walker’s trial in a play. Titled The Trial of Moses “Fleetwood” Walker, the play was met with acclaim from a number of theatre critics, with one describing it as a “brave, honest, and powerful drama”.

Island Sanctuary for the Ghost of Moses

Inside Fleetwood’s Taproom there is a painting of Walker that was done by local artist Richard Reed. The artwork in Fleetwoods is not the only image of Walker you will see in Toledo. There is a wall mural in downtown Toledo that bears his image. Completed  in October 2015, it is the work of artists Natalie Lanese and Douglas Kampfer and is called Island Sanctuary for the Ghost of Moses. The mural, at 19 St. Clair’s Streer, is about a block from Fifth Third Field, home of the MudHens.  Walker is the central figure in the mural, which also includes other Toledo-related content such as the city’s High Level Bridge and Mud Hens among the rushes.

In March of this year the Ohio House of Representatives voted 92-0 to designate October 7 (Walker’s birthday) as ‘Moses Fleetwood Walker Day’ throughout the state of Ohio. It still has to be approved by the Senate and the Governor. But if it is, and hopefully it will, this will be a fitting tribute to a great Ohioan.

Further Reading:

Zang, David W. 1995. Fleet Walker’s Divided Heart: The Life of Baseball’s First Black Major Leaguer. Omaha, NE; University of Nebraska Press.

Acknowledgement: Thank you to my friend and colleague Peggy Gripshover of Western Kentucky University for providing me with old newspaper articles about Moses Fleetwood Walker.

Black Swamp, Black Frog, Black Cloister

There are five breweries in the city I call home, Toledo, OH. Three of these have one thing in common; they all have the word Black in their name; Great Black Swamp Brewing Company, Black Frog Brewery, and Black Cloister Brewing Company. Despite this Continue reading Black Swamp, Black Frog, Black Cloister

Rose of Shannon: A Conversation with Shannon Fink

While archaeologists are confident that the brewing of beer occurred in ancient Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) around 3,500 BC there is some evidence that people living in the same region were quite possibly brewing beer as early as 10,000 BC. In these
ancient societies brewing was a task performed by women. In medieval Europe and colonial America much of the beer that was consumed was produced in the home, with Continue reading Rose of Shannon: A Conversation with Shannon Fink

The Black Cloister: Challenges, Creativity, and The Future – A Conversation with Tom Schaeffer

The Black Cloister Brewing Company opened its doors for business in downtown Toledo one year ago today. An anniversary, particularly a first one, provides an opportunity to reflect upon the past and think about the future. With this in mind I sat down with Black Cloister’s CEO and Founder Tom Schaeffer. I wanted to chat with him about the ups and Continue reading The Black Cloister: Challenges, Creativity, and The Future – A Conversation with Tom Schaeffer

Beer and Bagpipes

My local brewpub, The Black Cloister, had a couple of bagpipers entertain patrons last Tuesday evening. These weren’t your run-of-the-mill bagpipers (if indeed there is such a thing). Andrew Bova and Dan Nevins are World Champion bagpipers – both members of the Shotts and Dykehead Caledonia Pipeband who were crowned the Grade 1 World Champions at the 2015 World Pipeband Championships. Continue reading Beer and Bagpipes