Was chatting with a fellow eBrandonner earlier today who had been working on a construction site in Alexander recently when he came across the bottle pictured to the right.
It reads:
- Empire Brewing Company
- Empress
- Registered Brandon, man
The bottle was found in the same area as a bottle for "Newbros Herpicide" that looks to date back to the early 1900s. Doesn't necessarily for-sure mean that the Empire bottle was quite that old, but it's certainly a good age.
I did a bit of online research into the Empire Brewing Company. There are a few logo pictures on the Hillman archive site at
http://www.hillmanweb.com/brandon/12.html#EMPIRE%20BREWING
But I'm curious what others know about the history of this brewery, where it was located, when (and why?) they went out of business, etc.
So far the best I can find is that:
- it was founded by an Isaac Robinson
- it had a capacity of about 250,000 gallons