Region & History

When did brewing tradition begin in Pennsylvania? At the latest in 1773, when Robert Hare, son of a London brewer, came to Philadelphia to found a porter brewery. Benjamin Franklin recommended him in a letter to his son-in-law Richard Bache as an honest and skillful man.

Hare's Porter, a dark, roasted beer in the London style, was the talk of the town during the years of the First Continental Congress. According to tradition, George Washington and John Adams were among its admirers. The brewery at the corner of Callowhill and New Market Street is widely considered the first porter brewery in the New World.

In the 19th century, German immigrants arrived in great numbers, and in Pennsylvania their descendants are still called "Pennsylvania Dutch" to this day (Dutch comes from "Deutsch," not from "Holland"). In 1828, David Gottlieb Jüngling emigrated from Aldingen near Stuttgart, soon anglicized his name to Yuengling, and founded the Eagle Brewery in Pottsville in 1829. Pottsville was growing rapidly at the time, as anthracite coal was being mined all around, and the miners were thirsty.

A fire destroyed the first brewery in 1831. The company moved to its current address on West Mahantongo Street. D. G. Yuengling & Son calls itself the oldest surviving brewing company in the USA, a claim made by the company itself. During Prohibition, the family produced Near Beer under 0.5% ABV, ran a dairy with ice cream, and thus survived the dry years.

A very different founding generation represents more recent times: Ron Barchet and Bill Covaleski opened Victory on February 15, 1996, in Downingtown, in a former Pepperidge Farm factory. Victory now belongs to Artisanal Brewing Ventures. According to figures from the Brewers Association, the state has over 500 breweries. There is no protected designation of origin for beer here; in the USA, "craft" is merely an industry association's definition: small, independent, brewing its own beer.