A False Brewery Cave - Minneapolis

My interest in brewery caves started out as casual, almost accidental.  It was just something I found interesting and as there were a few easily accessible ones in my area I started to study them.  Somehow I've become a, perhaps the, leading internet authority on the subject.  Yet another odd life achievement.  

Oh well, as such it is my duty to correct misinformation that is in circulation so today let's take a look at this photo:

This is "out there" and is claimed to be the beer storage cave of the Mueller and Heinrich brewery.  It is not.  Oh, that's the brewery.  Here, compare this images to the view above:

It's obviously the same place.  So why am I 100% certain that the cave shown above is not the Mueller and Heinrich storage cave?  Well.

First of all look at the second photo.  If you are at all a student of brewery caves you will notice that the darker building on the right has big doors, kegs stacked outside and is built right into the stone face.  That's where the storage caves really are.  As an interesting side note you can see a sort of wooden slide coming into the picture from the left.  This is probably not for kegs but to move blocks of ice into the storage caves.  And where would that ice come from?  (note also that slide on the right side of the photo.  Another ice slide?  I would not expect a toboggan run there!)

Ah.  What is hinted at but not clearly shown in the first picture is that the Mississippi River runs in front of the brewery.  So the cave that is wrongly identified as the beer storage site is on the wrong side of the river!  Sure, there were some breweries that had off site storage but only when it made some sort of logistical sense.  Emphatically not in a situation where a very nice cliff face was available and when hauling it to the other side of the river would involve a trip of several miles and hauling it up and down a steep slope.  Twice.

So how did this mis-identification happen?  Before getting to that a couple of notes on the photos.

It can be said with high confidence that the second photo was taken between 1890 and 1893.  The sign partially visible says MINNEAPOLIS BREWING COMPANY.  This was the mega company formed by the merger of all the major breweries in town in 1889.  And it is known that the plant was only used for production - as suggested by the smoke and steam - for about three years.

The first photo is a little harder to judge.  All that can be said with certainty is that it is before 1903 when the structures were all razed.  If I had to guess I'd put it earlier but it is difficult to know how to interpret the taller trees when you can't even see the Mississippi in the foreground!

The Mueller and Heinrich brewery was established in the 1860s and presumably expanded a natural cave at that time.  Mention in early accounts describes "The Famous East Side Cave" on the site.  I think the confusion around the photo at the top of this post in part results from this description.  The brewery was on the west side of the river.  But from the perspective of people living in Minneapolis this was on the east side of town.

An 1877 newspaper article indicates that the cave system extended for a total length of nearly half a mile.  In 1881 mention is made of an expansion of their cave system with a new section being excavated:  18 feet tall, 22 feet wide and 150 feet deep.

Although the Mueller and Heinrich caves still exist they are mostly filled in with sand and are not suitable for a visit.  Among other reasons to stay out, they are considered bat habitat and have a locked gate across them.

The cave on the east bank of the river that looks across towards the former brewery site seems to have vanished in the last century.  It may be covered by rock slides or have been modified and extended as a steam tunnel to help heat the University of Minnesota buildings on the top of the bluff.  Several are in approximately the right location to provide the perspective of the vintage pre-1903 photo.  These all have locked, barred gates and signs stating the obvious, that steam and high voltage electricity are bad things to mess with.