The first time Henry Weinhard made beer in America wasn’t in the Oregon Territory but in Cincinnati, Ohio. The 22-year-old left Wurttemberg, Germany, his birthplace, and immigrated to New York in 1852. Soon after, he headed to the Midwest. He found a thriving German community in Cincinnati with businesses — saloons, candy stores, bakeries, butcher shops and breweries. He spent four years there as an apprentice learning the brewing trade and refining the beer recipes he’d later be known for.
He headed to the Oregon Territory traveling by sea around Chile’s Cape Horn to San Francisco, then Portland. He found the climate like Wurttemberg and conducive to a brewing and distribution business. The area provided easy access to water for beer-making and better weather. While Ohio’s freezing winters limited wagon deliveries, often making them impossible, Oregon’s temperate winters would allow regular distribution to saloons and distant markets.
John Muench ran a brewery in Washington Territory at Fort Vancouver, and Weinhard found work there. After six months, he returned to Portland and established a partnership with a local brewer, George Bottler. But Weinhard, frustrated with the business’s growth, returned to the Muench Brewery at the fort. In 1859, he bought the brewery outright, renaming it the Vancouver Brewery. He brewed about 600 barrels a year, selling it for 50 cents a gallon along the lower Columbia.
A few weeks before Oregon gained statehood in 1859, Weinhard wed Louisa Wagenblast in Oregon City. She was from the same area of Germany, but the two hadn’t met until they were in Oregon. After the ceremony, the newlyweds fought a fierce snowstorm to return to their home in Vancouver. Louisa suffered from a childhood illness and couldn’t walk far, so she focused on their home and family while her husband focused on brewing. The couple had five children, but only one survived the parents.
