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What is the Fauerbach Brewing Historical Site?
The Fauerbach Brewing Historical Site is a small online archive devoted to the Fauerbach Brewing Company, which operated in Madison, Wisconsin, from 1848 to 1966. Rather than a working brewery's site, it is a history-focused resource: the homepage presents the story of a 120-year-old local brewery, including the Prohibition era, and points visitors toward two main things—a book and a gallery of historic images.
What you'll find there
- A published history book. The site describes an award-winning 160-page book with more than 250 historical images drawn from the Fauerbach family and the Wisconsin Historical Society. The book covers the brewery's full run, Prohibition included.
- A historic images gallery. A separate gallery lets visitors browse beer labels and other historic imagery connected to the brewery.
Who it's for
The site frames its audience directly: Wisconsin history enthusiasts and beer fans curious about how a regional brewery survived—and adapted during—Prohibition. If you are researching Madison's German-American business history, early brewing labels, or family-owned breweries in the Midwest, this is a focused starting point. It is less useful if you want present-day beer to buy; the brewery closed in 1966.
A practical next step
If you are deciding whether the book is worth your time, browse the image gallery first. Labels and photographs will tell you quickly whether the visual record matches your interest—say, packaging design or local history—before you commit to a 160-page read. For broader context on Wisconsin brewing, the Wisconsin Historical Society is a sensible companion source, since the site itself credits it for much of the imagery.
Who was the Fauerbach Brewery founded by and what happened to it during Prohibition?
The site presents the Fauerbach Brewing Company as a Madison, Wisconsin brewery that operated from 1848 to 1966, but the supplied page content does not name its founder. For Prohibition, the page only says the brewery's 120-year history includes the Prohibition era; it gives no detail on what the company did during those years.
What the site does establish
- Place and lifespan: Madison, Wisconsin; 1848–1966.
- Coverage of Prohibition: The history spans the Prohibition era, and the site's book is described as covering it.
- Where to look next: The 160-page book, with more than 250 images from the Fauerbach family and the Wisconsin Historical Society, is presented as the detailed account for Wisconsin history enthusiasts and beer fans.
A practical next step
If the founder's name and the brewery's Prohibition story are your focus, check the book's description or index before buying, or search the Wisconsin Historical Society's records, since the site credits that society as an image source. For broader context on how Wisconsin breweries navigated Prohibition, state historical resources are a sensible comparison point.
Is the Fauerbach Brewing history book worth buying for a Wisconsin history enthusiast or beer collector?
Yes, with a caveat: it is a strong buy for someone who wants a focused, illustrated history of one Madison brewery, but not a substitute for a broad history of Wisconsin brewing. The site describes a 160-page book with more than 250 historical images drawn from the Fauerbach family and the Wisconsin Historical Society, covering the brewery's 120 years from 1848 to 1966, including Prohibition. The site also calls it an award-winning book, though it does not name the award there.
Who gets the most from it
- Madison and Dane County history readers: the brewery is presented as a local institution operating across more than a century, so the book fits readers interested in how a single business weathered Prohibition and industrial change.
- Beer-label and advertising collectors: the site's separate historic images gallery signals that labels and promotional imagery are part of the material. A collector who mainly wants visual reference should check the gallery first to judge the image quality and range.
- Genealogy and family-history researchers: images from the Fauerbach family suggest names, faces and places beyond a corporate timeline, which is useful for people tracing German-American families in Wisconsin.
Who should pause
- Readers wanting a statewide survey: this is one company's story. Someone researching Milwaukee's big breweries or Wisconsin brewing as a whole will find it narrow.
- Collectors seeking valuations or catalog data: the page describes history and imagery, not bottle, label or signage identification. Do not expect a price guide.
- Buyers who need a sample before committing: the page gives no preview pages or table of contents, so it is hard to judge the writing style and caption depth in advance.
A practical decision rule
If you already have a general Wisconsin history on your shelf and want a deep, image-rich case study of one Madison brewery, the described scope makes it a reasonable purchase. If this would be your first book on Wisconsin beer history, start with a broader state or city survey and use this as the follow-up. Before buying, browse the historic images gallery on Fauerbach Brewing Historical Site to see whether the visual material matches what you collect, and compare with the Wisconsin Historical Society's own brewery-related collections at Wisconsin Historical Society if you want to confirm how much of the source material is already publicly viewable.
Where can I find historic Fauerbach beer labels and brewery photographs online?
Historic Fauerbach beer labels and brewery photographs are available on the brewery's own historical site, Fauerbach Brewing Historical Site, which has a dedicated Historic Images Gallery covering labels and other historic imagery from the Madison, Wisconsin brewery that operated from 1848 to 1966.
What the site offers
- An image gallery focused on beer labels and related historic visuals, reachable from the homepage.
- A published history book with 160 pages and more than 250 historical images drawn from the Fauerbach family and the Wisconsin Historical Society, covering the brewery's 120 years including Prohibition.
- A concise orientation to the brewery's lifespan, useful before you start browsing so you know which eras to look for.
How to use it
Start with the gallery if you only want label artwork or photographs to view or reference. If you are researching a specific period—pre-Prohibition, the Prohibition years, or the later decades—the book's image selection is the deeper source, since family and state historical society collections are represented there. For a reader tracing a family connection to Madison brewing, the gallery first and the book second is the more efficient order.
Practical next step
Identify what you need before browsing: a single label design, a broad visual overview, or documented context for a research or family-history project. The gallery suits the first two; the book suits the third. For additional Wisconsin brewing imagery beyond this site, state historical society collections are the standard place to look.
What can I learn about Madison, Wisconsin's brewing history from the Fauerbach Brewery's 120-year story?
The Fauerbach site frames its subject as a single continuous local story: a Madison brewery operating from 1848 to 1966, with the 120-year span explicitly including the Prohibition era. That framing is the main thing to take away. Instead of a general survey of Wisconsin beer, it offers one company's passage through the major phases of American brewing history—pre-Prohibition growth, the dry years, and the post-repeal decades before mid-century consolidation.
What the site actually offers
- A narrative history in book form. The site promotes an award-winning 160-page book with more than 250 historical images drawn from the Fauerbach family and the Wisconsin Historical Society. That combination of family archives and a state historical collection is the kind of pairing that produces both personal detail and institutional documentation.
- A historic images gallery. Beer labels and other historic imagery from the brewery are browsable separately, which suits readers who want visual material—label design, branding, packaging—without reading a full narrative first.
- A tight geographic and chronological focus. Madison, Wisconsin, 1848–1966. Nothing suggests a broader regional or national survey.
How different readers might use it
A Wisconsin history enthusiast gets a company-level case study that anchors abstract periods—German immigration, Prohibition, mid-century industry change—to one place and one family. A beer-history reader gets label and branding material plus a long institutional timeline. Someone researching a specific question, such as how a Madison brewery survived the dry years, will find the Prohibition period explicitly covered, but the site presents the book as the vehicle for that detail rather than summarizing it on the page.
The trade-off is depth versus breadth. A single-brewery history gives you continuity and texture that a statewide overview cannot, but it will not tell you how Fauerbach compared with other Madison or Wisconsin breweries. If comparison matters, pair it with a state historical society's broader collections or a general Wisconsin brewing history; the Wisconsin Historical Society, whose materials are cited as a source for the book, is the natural place to look further.
Next step: browse the historic images gallery first to see whether the label and branding material matches your interest, then decide whether the book's 120-year narrative is worth pursuing for the Prohibition and post-repeal periods.
How does the Fauerbach Brewery's history connect to the broader story of American breweries that survived or closed during Prohibition?
The site frames Fauerbach as a Madison, Wisconsin brewery operating from 1848 to 1966, and its own summary says the history covers 120 years "including Prohibition era." That framing is the connection: Fauerbach belongs to the group of American breweries whose long run spanned the dry years rather than ending with them. The site presents the story through a 160-page book with more than 250 historical images drawn from the Fauerbach family and the Wisconsin Historical Society, plus a gallery of historic beer labels and imagery. In other words, it treats Prohibition as one chapter in a continuous local business and family story, not as the endpoint.
For readers comparing Fauerbach with the wider national pattern, the useful distinction is between what a brewery did during Prohibition and what it did after repeal.
| Path through Prohibition | Typical strategy | What to look for in a brewery's history |
|---|---|---|
| Closed permanently | No viable product line or financing | Last production date, sale of assets |
| Survived by diversifying | Near beer, malt syrup, soda, ice, dairy or other food products | Product lists and plant reuse during the dry years |
| Reopened after repeal | Rebuilt capacity and distribution | Relaunch date, ownership changes, brands dropped or added |
The site's own description points to the middle and third rows as the relevant questions for Fauerbach: how the plant and family kept going, and what the post-1933 business looked like. A concrete way to use the site is to read the book's Prohibition chapter alongside the label gallery, since label changes often reveal shifts in product mix, naming and market positioning better than narrative text alone.
As a next step, if you are tracing the national picture, compare a local case like this with state-level collections and with histories of larger breweries that took the near-beer or malt-syrup route. The Wisconsin Historical Society, credited by the site as an image source, is a sensible place to check archival material: Wisconsin Historical Society. Decision criterion: if your interest is family and local business continuity, start with the Fauerbach book; if it is the mechanics of survival across many breweries, use it as one case study within a broader state or national survey.
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