Queen City Underground Tour

Kauffman Lager Tunnels - Under Vine Street.

Last week I was invited to take the Queen City Underground Tour, from American Legacy Tours . This tour is full of Cincinnati beer history, and a definate must see for anyone interested in Cincinnati and or beer history. There was plenty of other information and history given on the tour, but I'll stick to the beer parts.

From 1870-1920, our Queen City was known as the Paris of the West. Full of entertainment, commerce, and of course beer. The Germans who came to Cincinnati settled north of the canal, now Central Parkway, and the neighborhood was dubbed Over-the-Rhine. 48,000 people packed into OTR (2.5 mile area) with 75% of the population German. Of course they wanted to bring a little bit of home with them to America, so they built saloons and breweries. There were 136 saloons from the Ohio River to McMicken which allowed for the citizens of Cincinnati to drink 2.5 times the national average -- close to 40 gallons a person (Man, Woman and Child!).

Pipes which carried cold water through them to keep the tunnels cool.

The greatest part of beer history in Cincinnati is that there are miles and miles of underground Lager tunnels underneath the city. The Germans brought there Lager beer with them from home, which has a sweeter taste and had a wider spread appeal and changed the landscape of beer in America forever.

As you may, or may not know, Lager needs to ferment at a much cooler temperature, and under the city the tunnels are a cool 55 degrees. If the temperature were to rise, they would pack ice and run cool water through the pipes to keep it cool.

Ramps to send kegs up or down to tunnels

Ramps and hydro lifts made it easier to bring the beer up and down from these tunnels. The downfall of the Cincinnati breweries started as nation moved towards prohibition. New laws made the business of beer that much tougher: Sin tax on beer and another laws made it illegal to brew and bottle in the same facility. These underground tunnels allowed the brewers to move there barrels underground and out of site of the law. Prohibition all but killed the beer business in Cincinnati and started the downfall of Over-the-Rhine. Not only were the brewers affected, but the barrel makers, the boats that shipped the bee. Most of those folks lived and worked in the neighborhood. Once the jobs disappeared, those folks had to move to be closer to the work.

Luckily for us, OTR is in the middle of a revitalization, with new people, rehabbed buildings and even breweries moving back to our brewing capital. Sam Adams home is OTR, Christian Moerlein plans to open a brewing facility soon and I can't wait to see what comes next for one of the great beer cities in the USA.

Happy Drinking!