Bergdoll Beer
One hundred and twenty years ago Bergdoll Beer was one of the most popular beers in the greater Philadelphia region; eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, northern Delaware, and northeast Maryland. However, when Prohibition was enacted soon after Grover and Erwin Bergdoll became notorious draft dodgers, the magnificent Bergdoll brewery could not survive. Despite an attempt to restart brewing operations after the repeal of the Volstead Act, it failed. The Bergdoll beer taps went dry for good. The large building of the brewery, pictured below on the right, is today condominiums. The nameplate/placard on the building, circa 1875, is still visible today but Bergdoll beer is long gone.
The Bergdoll Brewery after the fire and renovations of the 1880s. Hagley Museum Image.
Louis Erwin Bergdoll, son of race car champion Erwin Rudolph Bergdoll, participated in some of the research for The Bergdoll Boys. While discussing his family history one day over lunch in Philadelphia (including a tall lager beer), Erwin said he regretted not being able to taste his family’s beer in the brewery’s heyday. Neither of us thought it would ever be possible to sample a true Bergdoll beer.
Then, in the summer of 2023, just as I was submitting the manuscript for The Bergdoll Boys to Brookline Books/Casemate Publishers, Philip Barth, great-grandson of long-time Bergdoll Brewery brewmaster and manager, Karl Charles Barth, advised me that the Barth family had recently discovered a recipe for Bergdoll beer in the elder Barth’s genealogy collection. It came from Margaret (Nancy) Barth Sutton, granddaughter of Charles Barth (Charles Barth was Emma Barth Bergdoll’s brother). Nancy Barth Sutton had recently died and the beer recipe was found among her papers and photographs by her daughter, Margaret (Meg) Sutton.
Charles Barth’s handwritten recipe for Bergdoll Beer is a simple concoction for a small batch of lager beer but we can presume that it was similar to the large quantities of beer he made in the Bergdoll brewery. We’ll never be able to taste a true Bergdoll beer from 1900, but this is nearly the next best thing.
With the Barth family’s permission, I’ve placed the Bergdoll beer recipe in the book for everyone to enjoy. And, there’s an entire chapter in the book about the Bergdoll Brewery and their beer.