Beer has a long history. Recently there was an entire exhibit dedicated to the history of beer at the Field Museum in partnership with the Chicago Brewseum that ran from November 2, 2018 to September 27, 2020. It revolved around the idea that beer transformed Chicago—Conrad Seipp is a big part of that story.
In resurrecting the Seipp brand, Mack has an eye towards what beer means for community, history, and the story we tell about the places we’re from. The first beer this new/old brand launched was the Pre-Prohibition Lager, which comes from the actual recipe brewed in Chicago during important events like the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. People might have had Seipp beer in the stands of the 1908 World Series where the Cubs famously won their second most recent title, or in 1919 when the White Sox made their own kind of history. People could have enjoyed a cold Seipp beer after a hard day’s work of reversing the flow of the Chicago River in 1900. This beer and this company act as a sort of time travel device that puts you directly in touch with these far away times and places that we still have a connection to here.
Mack reminded me of something that I had forgotten—the World’s Fair here in Chicago also saw the invention of the brownie, the chocolate dessert first made at the Palmer House. Mack provided individually wrapped brownies that she had made for the event from Emeche Cakery and Cafe that operates a few blocks from the former site of the Conrad Siepp brewery. The bock went perfectly with these delicious, and oddly historically significant treats.
