Most veteran beer collectors have heard of the Harry Mitchell Brewing Company and of the Falstaff Brewing Corporation.  Some collectors even know that they both operated in the west Texas town of El Paso.  Now, how many of you beer collectors out there ever heard of the Tannhauser Brewing Company also from El Paso.

The funny thing about this brewing company is that up until about 10 years ago, there was no information on this company.  Being pretty knowledgeable on breweries from El Paso, it totally took me by surprise to find out about this ghost brewery.  The way I found out about this forgotten brewery, was one weekend while going to a estate sale of a former County Judge.

This Judge, who went by the name of E.B. McClintock, had a lot of correspondence in his office and among his paper work was some letterhead from the Tannhauser Brewing Company.  After picking up some of this letterhead, I quickly showed some of the other collectors from the area what I found.

With the help of a former El Paso beer collector and good friend Joe Summerour, we hit the local libraries and started looking at hours of micro film.  We came up with only enough information to keep our interest up.  So with this in mind, here is what we know about theTannhauser Brewing Company.

The year is 1933, and prohibition had just ended.  With Mexico being so close to El Paso, this town really did not feel the true affect of prohibition like other American cities. With this in mind and the fact that it was now legal to have a alcohol type drink in the states, the city of El Paso was starting to feel the buzz of anticipation.

This is where the fun begins and history becomes a little distorted.  In order to get the true meaning and effect of this time in history, you must first clear your head and focus on the following scenario. 

It is the fall season of 1933 and prohibition has ended just months earlier.  On one side of El Paso, here is a man named Harry Mitchell that during prohibition operated one of the more successful watering holes in Juarez, Mexico which he named the Mint Café.  He was very popular around the area, and he had many friends from both sides of the border.

Almost on the other side of town, was a man named C.W. Griem.  Mr. Griem, along with the former brew master of the El Paso Brewing Association (pre-pro) was making the required plans to open up a new brewery in El Paso.  This brewery was to be named the Tannhauser Brewing Company.  There is no information on why this name was selected for the new brewery, but the rules were set and the race was on to see who would build their brewery first.  Right from the start, it showed which of the two breweries had their affairs and monetary obligations set and organized.  Harry Mitchell had a wealthy businessman from California backing his business, while Mr. Griems and Mr. Brenk were hard at work getting things set for their new brewery.

There were a lot of interesting pieces of information that made this race to finish their buildings very interesting.  Harry Mitchell was building his brewery on the same location of the former El Paso Brewery where his competitor worked for many years.  Could there possibly be some friction between Mr. Mitchell and former Brew master Mr. Brenk ?

This is where the fun ends and finding information on the Tannhauser Brewing Company becomes unclear.  On September 15th, 1933 the Tannhauser brewery had their ground breaking ceremony where over 250 people attended this celebration.  The brewery went as far as holding a contest to have one lucky contestant create a snappy slogan for Tannhauser beer.

The company advertised in the newspaper about this contest, and even was willing to pay a prize of $25 to the winner.  A photo was published in the newspaper showing the 250+ people who attended the ground breaking ceremony of the Tannhauser Brewing Company, and that where the information stops.  There was nothing ever written about the Tannhauser Brewery in the local newspaper again.

This business went as far as the ground breaking, and vanished as quickly as it appeared.  I did manage to add to my collection the only two pieces of letter head that actually had some correspondence written on it.  The first was an estimation on what they thought it would cost them to build a brewery.

According to this statement, to build their brewery, purchase their brewing equipment, make a water plant, make roads for the new company, to purchase vehicles for the brewery and to pay for permits, taxes, and Licenses.  In 1933 they estimated it would cost them $125.000.00 for the list above.

So for a short period of time in the fall of 1933, the city of El Paso, Texas was witness to a race to have two breweries that were going to built from the ground up.  They both advertised and made claims that they were going to make the freshest beer around.  One brewery kept their promise, and the other vanished without giving any information on what went wrong.  I believe it would be kinder to say that the local newspaper never covered their progress or in this case there failure.

I have gone back to the library and have looked and many more reels of micro film to see if I missed something on this brewery that almost was.  There was nothing ever published or written about the Tannhauser Brewing Company after the Ground Breaking Ceremony.  I wonder what really happened , and what caused the almost certain brewery to fade away into El Paso history.

In all the years I have been collecting, I have never seen anything from this brewery,  Besides the two letterheads with correspondence on it, and the appoximately15 blank letterheads I picked up later that year.  No labels, no signs, no coasters, nothing, nada, absolutely zero.  I know there has to be more to this story, but as with most dedicated beer collectors.  I will keep searching until I cannot search no more.

                                                      Beerfully,
                                                Richard R. Chavez
                                                 
                                                   And I am out   

	Local coverage on the groundbreaking of the Tannhauser Brewing Company of EL Paso, Tx.
	A letterhead trying to convinve potential buyers to invest their brewery.
	An estimation on starting a brewery circa 1933.