Oktoberfest in Houston? Breweries on the Bayou
by Linda C. Gorski and Louis F. Aulbach
After a hard day of paddling, the thing you are most likely to hear from your canoeing partner is “Man, what I wouldn’t give for a cold beer!”
If you had paddled Buffalo Bayou in Houston’s early days you wouldn’t have had to go far to find whole breweries full of beer. Since the mid-1800’s many breweries have been built along the Bayou and if you look at the names of the brewers, it appears that the German community in Houston had a lock on the brewery business!
Peter and Michael Floeck opened the Houston area’s first recorded brewery in the 1850s in the largely German community of Frostown, located near the present day McKee Street Bridge and James Bute Park. Their brewery was on the southwest side of the Frostown Subdivision on their property on Maple Street near the bayou.
Sketch of the Gabel Brewery in 1873, southeast of the
Court House Square.
As the story goes, another member of the Floeck family, Martin Floeck, later opened a brewery in the Frostown area as well. Talk about bad luck! During the opening party when free beer was being served a lantern was knocked over burning the brewery to the ground on its first day!
Peter Gabel established the first major brewery in downtown Houston on the northwest corner of Preston Avenue and Caroline Street about 1857. Gabel’s brewery sold beer and ale in half and quarter barrels for bar or family use. In those days it was likely safer to drink beer, which had been processed, than to drink the water which possibly came straight out of Buffalo Bayou!
Sketch of the Schulte Brewery in 1873 on Buffalo Bayou
Other breweries operating in Houston in the mid-late 1800s were Felton and Company brewery (1866) located on Capitol Avenue between Bagby and Brazos Streets and the Henry Schulte and Co. Brewers located at the corner of San Jacinto Street and Commerce Avenue.
One of the more interesting and larger breweries in Houston is also one that still has a permanent place on the Bayou. In 1893, the Houston Ice and Brewing Company (also known as the Magnolia Brewery) was established. Over the years it became part of a complex of buildings stretching from Washington Avenue to Franklin Street. These ten buildings were built between 1892 and 1915 as part of Houston Ice and Brewing Company complex. Some of these buildings which included an ice plant, extended out into Buffalo Bayou. Old brick work from the original brewery building is still visible under the Franklin Street bridge. By 1895 the group was brewing over 35,000 barrels of beer a year. By 1906 Houston Ice and Brewing Association was running power boats to Key West to transport their beer to Cuba.
Magnolia Ballroom and structures of the former Magnolia Brewery
at the Franklin Street bridge.
The Old Magnolia Brewery, one of three remaining buildings of the brewery complex to survive today, was restored with a beer tap on the first floor and a ballroom on the second floor. This building has ties with the paddling community as historical preservationist and architect Bart Truxillo (brother of Sandy Truxillo, owner of Explorer Pack and Paddle), bought and restored the old Magnolia Brewery, a neo-classical structure at 719 Franklin.

Here’s another brewery story with contemporary connections. According to historical records, the American Brewing Association founded by Adolphus Busch was in operation between 1893 and 1918 at Railroad and 2nd Streets. The first product was introduced in 1894 at a huge gala opening ceremony. At one time there were almost 10,000 people on the grounds of the brewery which covered an entire block and was six stories high.
During recent construction at the UH-Downtown campus a surprising discovery was made. The foundation of an icehouse was unearthed on the construction site. Archeologists believe that this building was the one originally built in the 1880s by Adolphus Busch and first served as an ice factory before becoming a cold beer storage area. According to a news article about the excavations at the construction site, the beer was shipped in refrigerated railroad cars from a St. Louis brewery for sale in the local market until the Houston brewery was built. The brewery was built in the 1890s -- the ruins of which were discovered beneath the UH-Downtown parking garage.
The news article continued to say that a tunnel was discovered in the area of the construction site and leading to Buffalo Bayou. The tunnel runs about 20 feet down and 30 to 40 feet out to the bayou. The tunnel was most likely used for moving equipment and water for the brewery. However, at that time, Buffalo Bayou water was probably only used to cool the beer. At the turn of the century, brewers ran water pipes around brewing tanks and ran the cheapest water they could find through them to draw the heat off the beer. Bayou water may also have been used to make the ice to keep the beer cold!
I wonder how many parents are aware that when they send their kids to college at UH Downtown campus, they are actually sending them to classes on the site of one of Houston’s oldest breweries! Cheers!