The man who brewed city's 1st legal beer

All local beer lovers know of the colorful 1879 statue of King Gambrinus, "the patron saint of brewers," which stood in a niche for years above a door of the old J. F. Wiessner Brewery in the 1700 block of N. Gay St., beckoning passersby to enjoy a cold one. It now rests in the Maryland Historical Society.

But how about raising a chilled mug to the idea of erecting a statue to Irish immigrant John J. Fitzgerald? "Who's that?" you're probably asking yourself.

My column several weeks ago, about the return of legal beer to Baltimore after partial repeal of the despised Volstead Act in 1933, brought an e-mail and later a phone call from Abbie Fitzgerald McCormack Flynn Sullivan Schaub, who lives in Laurel and is the granddaughter of John J. Fitzgerald.

"I'm proud of my Irish family even though I'm married to a German," said Schaub, 56, with a laugh.

She wanted to tell me about her grandfather, John J. Fitzgerald, who is credited with brewing the first batch of legal beer served in Baltimore. And she provided ample documentation to support her claim.

Fitzgerald was, at the time of Repeal, assistant brewmaster at the Globe Brewing Co., at Hanover and Conway streets, which produced Arrow Beer.

"To John J. Fitzgerald, then assistant brewmaster, fell the honor, distinction and extreme pleasure of being the first brewer in Maryland to produce legal beer after the repeal of Prohibition," wrote William J. Kelly in his 1965 book, Brewing in Maryland: From Colonial Times To The Present. "His satisfaction in changing from 'near beer' to real beer was one of inexpressible joy."

Kelly bore witness in a downtown Baltimore hotel (he doesn't say which one), when the first truckload of Arrow arrived one minute past midnight April 7, 1933.

"At that precise moment the author, along with probably more than one thousand parched gulleted Baltimoreans saw and tasted the first Arrow Beer delivered to one of Baltimore's downtown hotels," he wrote.

"Of course, real beer drew the long suffering and anxious patrons, and curiosity to taste the long shelved article brought the crowds out at that moment, at various spots," he wrote, "but the real underlying purpose was the return of liberty and the overthrow of illiberal puritanical reform and a desire to take part in a demonstration in such a celebration."

Kelly pulled no punches in recalling the significance that glorious evening.

"It was akin to the spirit of those present when the bell in Philadelphia in 1776 proclaimed liberty to all the world," he opined.

Fitzgerald was born in 1870 in Newmarket, County Cork, Ireland, and emigrated in 1887 to Baltimore, where he took a job as an apprentice brewer at Thomas Beck's Rock Spring Brewery at Baltimore Street and Calverton Road.

While at the brewery, Fitzgerald learned to brew ales, and later was sent to the Philadelphia Brewers' Academy, where he continued his education, graduating in 1901.

He then moved to Scranton, Pa., and went to work at the Fountain Spring Brewery as brewmaster. He returned to Baltimore in 1902 and joined with a partner, Daniel O'Neill, in establishing O'Neill & Fitzgerald Brewing Co. at Chester and Bank streets.

After a year, the business failed, and Fitzgerald returned to Scranton, where he took a position with the Anthracite Brewing Co.

He tried his hand again at operating a brewery and established Fitzgerald & Sullivan, which brewed only stouts and porters, in Scranton. It too, failed.

"His partner absconded with all the possible assets, so they were bankrupt," wrote Mary Fitzgerald Keczmerski, a daughter, in an unpublished family memoir.

"Pop took all the debt on himself and worked better than ten years to pay them all off," she wrote.

He returned to Baltimore again as brewmaster at the Dukehart Brewery, which was later purchased by Gottlieb-Bauernschmidt-Straus Brewing Co.

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