Lion Brewery, Inc is the operator of the Lion Brewery, located in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, which was founded in 1905. A "heritage brewery", it is one of only 10 United States pre-Prohibition breweries that has independently and continuously operated since the repeal of Prohibition. It produces beers under its own Lionshead brand, and contract brews beer for other companies.
History
Early history: 1905 to 1933 The Lion Brewery traces its origins to 1905 when the Luzerne County Brewing Company was organized and ground was broken on its four-story brick brewery located at 700 North Pennsylvania Avenue, Wilkes Barre. The brewery was built on land acquired from Delaware and Hudson Company in 1905. The land was purchased for one dollar on the terms that the company would build a brewery capable of producing 100,000 US beer barrels (120,000 hl) per year in just the first year and sell each barrel for no less than a dollar a piece. If the terms were not met, the land would return to the Delaware and Hudson Company. The brewery formally opened May 25, 1906, and was especially designed to brew Bohemian and Bavarian Beers. Its beers included a pilsner and a porter brewed under the Edelbrau name, and Munchner Bock Beer. Luzerne County Brewing Company went into bankruptcy in May 1908 but continued to operate under a receiver. In 1911, the company was reorganized as Lion Brewing Company. In 1912, it began marketing Lion Beer, which included a pilsner and a bock. After the arrival of Prohibition in 1919, the Lion Brewing Company produced near-beers called Buck-O and Gold Label. The company struggled to survive, and after its president was charged in 1923 with violation of prohibition laws, went into receivership. The brewery was then purchased by the Malt Beverage Company, the president of which was Charles Gibbons. The brewery operated until 1928, when it was raided by Federal agents and was again closed for making high-alcohol beer.
Ownership After Prohibition Ends: 1933 to 1993 The brewery remained closed until the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, when it was purchased by The Lion, Inc., a company owned by two sets of brothers: Henry, Ted, Morris and Louis (Laffe) Smulowitz along with Philip, Leo, and James Swartz. When the brewery resumed operations in the summer of 1933, Charles A. Gibbons was plant manager as well as Secretary Treasurer of the company. The brewery had an annual capacity of 200,000 barrels at that time. The beer it initially produced was marketed as Lion Beer. In 1936, in order to avoid confusion with other similarly named brands, it changed the name of its beer to Gibbons beer (named for Charles Gibbons), which became its flagship brand, and included lager, ale and porter varieties. For most of the next 40 years, the brewery traded as Gibbons Brewing Co. The Lion Brewing Company underwent many changes during the ownership of the Smulowitz and Swartz families. In the 1940s, brewery officials sensed changing tastes and successfully introduced the first lighter bodied beer in Northeast Pennsylvania. Post-Prohibition, the beer brewing industry as a whole grew by leaps and bounds until around 1960, when the big breweries began to take control of the market. Henry Smulowitz died in 1960 and the management reorganized with James Swartz as president, Laffe Smulowitz as vice president, and Ted Smulowitz as treasurer and secretary. Leo Swartz continued in his capacity managing the Gibbons distribution until his retirement in 1978 when the Smulowitz family assumed full ownership of the brewery. In 1957, William Smulowitz, Ted's son, started with the brewery. He became president of The Lion in 1969 upon James Swartz's death and ran it until 1993, when the Smulowitz family sold the brewery. In 1964, the Brewery received the prestigious La Medaille D'Or award for brewing quality. It was only one of three North American breweries to receive the award that year. In 1967, with consolidation taking place in the brewing industry, Bartels Brewing Company, a brewery located in nearby Edwardsville, Pennsylvania, went out of business and The Lion acquired its labels and recipes. A much larger acquisition occurred in 1974 when The Lion's cross-town rival Stegmaier Brewing Company went out of business and The Lion acquired its labels and recipes Founded in 1857, the Stegmaier Brewery had been the dominant area brewery and had been much larger than The Lion. Although Stegmaier Gold Medal Beer became The Lion's largest selling brand, there was a loss of brand loyalty and national brands continued to take market share, and sales slipped with time. In 1983 Lionshead beer was introduced. It has since become the flagship brand of the brewery. The 1980s were a period of diversification for The Lion. In 1981, it began brewing Malta, a non-alcoholic malt beverage, for Goya Foods. In 1986 it first produced malt-based wine coolers, and in 1987 began brewing natural soda. In 1987, The Lion also began contract brewing for craft brewers. Its first contract brewed craft beer was Manhattan Gold, which was brewed for Manhattan Brewing Company. It has since contract brewed numerous beers for many companies. Stegmaier 1857, an all-malt lager brewed in accordance with the German Reinheitsgebot, was introduced in 1988. It would go on to win many awards, including a gold medal at the 1994 Great American Beer Festival.
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