GEORGE
SCHERRER
EAGLE BREWERY
Bio - Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: HARTMAN,
George Scherrer is proprietor of the Eagle Brewery, the first beer-brewing establishment in Santa Clara County, it having been established in 1853 on a very small scale by the late Joseph Hartman. The beer is still sold under the name of “Old Joe’s” beer. Mr. Hartman commenced the manufacture of beer with a very small outfit, having a capacity of about eight barrels per day. This soon gave place to the large and complete establishment carried on since Mr. Hartman’s decease by Mr. Scherrer, which now has a capacity of fifty barrels per day. This beer is mostly consumed in San Jose and Santa Clara County. They do not make any lager, but all steam beer, which requires only six weeks to become perfect, while lager requires four months. Mr. Scherrer has been identified with the Eagle Brewery for the past twenty-eight years, having come to this county in 1860. He was born in Alsace, France (now Germany), in 1832, and remained in his native town until twenty-one years of age, attending school and learning the brewing business. In 1853 he came to New York. For the next five years he was employed in various breweries in different parts of the country. In 1858 he came to San Francisco, where he worked for two years in the Germania Brewery. He was there recommended to Mr. Hartman, of San Jose, by whom he was at once employed, and remained with him nineteen years, as foreman and manager most of the time. On the death of Mr. Hartman, in 1879, he succeeded to the business, which he has continued to conduct to the present time, being now the proprietor.
Mr. Scherrer was married, in 1875, to Miss Georgiana Hartman, daughter of Joseph Hartman, the proprietor of the brewery. George Scherrer is a member of San Jose Lodge, No. 34, I. O. O. F., and of the Encampment also; is a member of the Independent Order of Red Men and of the San Jose Turnverein.
Mr. Hartman was a
native of Hesse Darmstadt and came to America about 1846, and to California in
1852, engaging at once in the brewing business, being in the Lion’s Brewery in
San Francisco for one year before coming to San Jose and establishing the Eagle
Brewery, as before stated, in 1853. He died in 1879, leaving five children.
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.
Pg. 383-384
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
Proofread by Betty Vickroy
SANTA CLARA COUNTY BIOGRAPHY PROJECT