I and Nancy were at the Moerlein Lager House Thursday prior to seeing "Merchant Of Venice" at the Shakespeare Theater

Written by

Cliff Radel

What to get a guy for his 194th birthday? Induct him into the Beer Barons Hall of Fame.

That happened to Christian Moerlein during Saturday’s inaugural induction ceremony for the hall held – appropriately – at the Moerlein Lager House in the John G. and Phyllis W. Smale Riverfront Park next to Great American Ball Park.

The birthday boy – Moerlein was born on this date 194 years ago in Bavaria – did not attend. He remained in Spring Grove Cemetery where he was buried after his death in 1897.

Photos: Moerlein Lager House opening

But, 24 people with Moerlein blood in their veins and his beer on their lips gathered with the standing-room-only crowd in the restaurant’s Beer Barons Hall of Fame room to hear speakers praise the brewer and see strangers raise pints in his memory.

“This ceremony unnerved me,” said Mary Born of West Bank, British Columbia. The Canadian artist is Moerlein’s great-great-granddaughter. “Moerleins are behind-the-scenes people,” she whispered. “Christian Moerlein quietly made lots of donations.”

His obituary called him “a modest man ... avoiding display or publicity.”

Added his great-great-granddaughter: “We don’t do things to be recognized.”

Steve Moerlein, from South Bend, Ind., stepped up to say: “But, it’s nice to see Christian Moerlein and his accomplishments being noticed – finally! – after all these years.”

Christian Moerlein was the lone inductee in the hall’s first class. That’s only right.

He was the Babe Ruth – a man who also knew his way around a pitcher of suds – of Cincinnati’s beer barons.

“Christian Moerlein was way up here,” said Greg Hardman, the managing partner of the $10-million restaurant and CEO of the revived Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. He raised his hand way above his head to indicate Moerlein’s standing. Lowering his hand to his belt, he said, “this is where the list of the other great brewers in town starts. “That’s because,” he added, “Moerlein and his brewery in Over-the-Rhine set the standard for Cincinnati’s great brewing tradition.”

Hardman has carried on that tradition by reviving a stable of Queen City beers, opening the Lager House and establishing the Beer Barons Hall of Fame.

“This hall is a dream come true,” Hardman said, while sipping a glass of water. “The hall celebrates the brewers who came to this city and built Cincinnati.”

Moerlein’s beers were not just hometown beverages. They won national and international awards. And, they went across the country and into foreign ports.

Don Heinrich Tolzmann, author of the just-published “Christian Moerlein, the man and his brewery” (Little Miami Publishing, $18.95,

noted that the brewer “came to Cincinnati with 50 cents in his pocket.”

“He started brewing beer when he was 35,” Tolzmann said. “When he was 60, his brewery was the largest in Ohio and the fifth largest in the nation.” At his death, his three-block-long Elm Street complex was brewing 500,000 barrels a year. By contrast, the Lager House’s planned annual output is 5,000 barrels. “Moerlein,” Tolzmann said of the self-made millionaire, “epitomized the realization of the American dream.” And he paved the way for dozens of other Queen City brewers to follow his trail from Germany.

Two of his fellow brewers, said Michael D. Morgan, author of “Over-the-Rhine: When Beer was King” and a member of the hall’s selection committee, will be honored in the fall in the second class of inductees. Those beer barons are John Hauck and Ludwig Hudepohl II.

Their descendents will have a tough act to follow.

“They will have to match,” Morgan said, “the number of Moerleins who turned out to honor their boy.”

Cliff Radel welcomes e-mail at snipped-for-privacy@enquirer.com.

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