Pre-Pro

Pre-Prohibition Arizona Brewers

Street in Tucson, Park Brewery.

Territorial brewers such as Alex Levin, who built Arizona's first brewery in 1866, found that brewing beer in the desert southwest was a challenging endeavor. Levin lacked the proper provisions for making beer and had to do with what was on hand. Brewers such as Levin dealt with high alkalinity in water, a scarcity of proper brewing ingredients, grueling manual labor, insufficient refrigeration, high transportation costs, and a shortage of bottles among other things. Despite these problems, Arizona brewers were able to produce a variety of beers to satisfy their consumer's needs.

1870s Park Brewery Newspaper Advertisement

1883 Val Blatz Trade Booklet

By the early 1870s, most Arizona towns had their own brewery. Prescott, Bisbee, Tombstone, Globe, Flagstaff, Pinal, Williams, and other towns, all had at least one brewery in operation. By the 1880s, the completion of the railroad brought more out-of-state beers with better shelf-life into the territory, which negatively impacted the state's breweries. The reduced need for locally made beer caused many to close during this time. By the 1890s, the majority of beer was supplied by out-of-state breweries.

The Back Side of the 1883 Booklet

1880 ~ Pacific Brewery Advertisement

1881 Newspaper Ad for the Pinal Brewery in Globe

1881 Arcade Brewery Ad ~ Phoenix

Copper City Brewing Company ~ Douglas

c. 1905 Colored Post Card, Copper City Brewery

The Copper City Brewing Company was being planned at the same time the Arizona Brewing Company opened in Prescott. Copper City opened in 1904, in the southern border town of Douglas. During Prohibition, the brewery made an attempt to produce near beer, but was threatened under penalty if they chose not to stop its production, which was prohibited. The brewery closed in 1915 and soon after re-opened under the same ownership as the Peoples Ice & Manufacturing Company.

1910 Lithograph ~ Bassett Collection

c.1904 Beer Label

c.1905 Tannhauser Beer Label: Anheuser-Busch sued the Copper City Brewery and forced it to change its design since it was too similar to their Budwesier label.

c.1910 Beer Label

Arizona Brewing Company ~ Prescott

1905 Advertisiement for the Arizona Brewing Co.

Although most breweries in Arizona had closed by 1900, some enterprising individuals believed a brewery could succeed. The Arizona Brewing Company in Prescott became the first brewery to open in the territory following the turn of the century. Construction began in 1903 and its first beer was sold in 1904. But with Prohibition arriving early in Arizona, it closed just before the new year in 1915.