George Ringler and Company

Lager Beer Brewers ,New York, 1872-1924

A Picture Tour of a 19th Century Brewery

My great grand father, Justin August Ringler's brother George came to this country 1858. He founded his brewery in 1872. By 1879 it was New York's seventh largest brewery and the 19th largest in the US (65,658 barrels). Its location was from East Ninetieth to East Ninety-second Street in New York City, in the very heart of Manhattan's once flourishing brewery district. Immediate neighbors included such lager beer giants as Jacob Ruppert and George Ehret (owner of the "The Hell Gate Brewery"-America's largest brewery at that time -180,152 barrels). In 1900 Ringler's was New York's third largest brewery with Ehret's the largest and Ruppert's the second largest. George Ringler died 1889. The company was carried on by his son William as president. The company carried his name until it closed. George Ringler and Company survived the first few years of Prohibition by making near beer, but this proved to be a short-lived success, and the brewery ceased operations in the early 1920s.

Beer in 1879

2,520 breweries were operating in the U.S. in 1879. The beer production of U.S. breweries totaled 10,848,194 barrels (31 gallons per barrel) for the year ending May 1, 1879. Today, Anheuser-Busch alone produces more than eight-times that amount. New York, with 365 breweries, was the largest beer-producing state in 1879. New York City supported about 75 breweries. Pennsylvania was the second largest beer-producing state with 317 breweries. The only states/territories which did not have at least one operating brewery in 1879 were Florida, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. In 1879, the nation's largest brewery made only about 1.5 percent of the country's beer. Today, the largest brewer (Anheuser-Busch) makes more than 50 percent of the beer brewed in America.


George Ringler	In 1900, it was upstairs for a 5 cent shave or downstairs for a 5 cent Ringler's Extra at O'Rourke's	William Ringler

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