Minnesota Beer: Bruggemann's
Martin Bruggemann did everything he could to build a successful brewery. In fact, he copied every step that another successful brewer made.
Yoerg’s Brewery, which opened in 1849, was the first commercial brewery to make a go of it in St. Paul. When Anthony Yoerg moved his brewery across the Mississippi in 1871, Martin Bruggemann did too. Their breweries were just a few blocks apart, nestled into the West side bluffs. Bruggemann also wanted to take advantage of the easily dug out sandstone to build lagering caves.
The breweries’ close connection got even closer when one of Bruggemann’s daughters, Justina, married Yoerg’s brewmaster, William Pfeiffer.
Elizabeth Bruggemann married Edward Heimbach, the son of a saloon owner. Her father built the couple a home at 64 Delos Street West. Mary Bruggemann married John Minea and her father built them a home at 382 Winslow Avenue.
Anthony Yoerg died in 1896 and sadly, Martin Bruggemann followed that too. He died just a few months later in 1897. They’re even buried pretty close together in the Calvary Cemetery.
Unfortunately, when Bruggemann died the business was handed over to his two sons. Frank was the getaway driver in a series of burglaries, so he certainly wasn’t going to be continuing the family business. John (who had been appointed executor of the estate) was caught using the brewery as his personal cash cow. He was operating the brewery at a loss and was ordered to sell. It was so bad that the court forced his sisters to give back the inheritances they had received to pay his debts.
John Bruggemann was either desperate for money or a ruthless businessman. At some point, it had been discovered that Edward Heimbach (John’s brother-in-law) had forged checks in Martin Bruggemann’s name to the tune of $8000 (that’s about $250,000 today). To protect reputations and the Heimbach’s marriage, Martin agreed to cover up the crime if the money was paid back. Part of that arrangement was a mortgage on Edward’s father’s house at 76 Prospect Boulevard. But Anthony Yoerg already had a mortgage on the house for some other debt, probably business related. John allowed that mortgage to lapse and then used the foreclosure process to seize ownership of the home. This would have forced the elderly Gottfried and his wife out of the house. Cooler heads prevailed and a new arrangement was made to allow them to stay in their home. The younger Heimbach’s though (Edward and Elizabeth) were NOT allowed to stay in their mansion on Delos.
The brewery was sold to Frank Aiple, who had left the family business (Aiple’s North Western Brewery of Stillwater) and wanted to start his own brewery in the city. In 1905, a brewery employee was injured when one of the lagering caves collapsed. The lawsuit brought the Aiple brewery to an end.
Like Schell’s and Yoerg’s and Yoerg’s and Bruggemann’s, Aiple’s brewery was also related to another brewery through marriage. Aiple’s in-laws had taken over the Aiple brewery back in Stillwater and renamed it the Jung Brewery.
The Bruggemann Brewery building and their home stood abandoned at the base of the bluffs until the flooding of 1952 caused the city to demolish the West Side Flats for an Industrial Park.
