What did Edward Hall’s Successors Brew?
In the historical website Polish Beer Labels, a page for a prewar Warsaw brewery starts with an ownership outline.
A single beer label follows, seemingly from the 1920s or 30s. The brewery is Warszawski, meaning in context here, Warsaw Brewery, but Edward Hall is in the timeline.
Compare this to the chart discussed in my Part I, from the Browary Mazowsza site. Mazowsza suggests F. Kleinbaum continued into the late 1930s, while the other offers no detail after 1903.
For Icek Nest, the detail is similar except in Mazowsza, Nest starts and Hall ends a few years later. And Mazowsza has much more chronology for Hall.
The two sources are, still, broadly consistent, but something further: Polish Beer Labels has the address at 68 Nowolipie. Hall brewery advertising in Mazowsza has it at no. 72, with the last year in 1891.
Did Hall move to no. 68 at some point after 1891, before Icek Nest bought the brewery? Or did Nest later make the move and no. 68 has been ascribed to Hall as well?
Questions I can’t resolve, but one way or another, Nest then Kleinbaum succeeded to Hall. The business name changed, but with Hall having departed this makes sense.
If we look at the label in Polish Beer Labels, it states Stary-Polskie, which means Old Polish. The alcohol is fairly low, 2.5% (by weight), but this may reflect interwar austerity. What style of beer was it?
There is no usual lager designation. A heraldic-style lion decorates the label, which might be the Lion of Judah, or a symbol of England – or both. (The Nest family name was I believe a Jewish one).
I think it quite possible Stary-Polskie was an ale, especially as the label contains words stating sugar is used. Sugar was a common adjunct in British top-fermentation brewing by then, certainly for ale. Not so common for lager beer, vs. maize or rice that is, although one can’t be categoric, I suppose.
If Hall’s mild ale and porter used sugar in the 1890s, or just the ale, maybe the new owners continued that for their beers.*
A picture of the brewery might help to orient us further. An image of no. 68 Nowolipie in 1938 appears in this website, a historical foundation that sourced it from a government archive.
It is a pitched-roof, shed-like structure, that might well suit the simplicity of top-fermentation brewing. It does not resemble a lager brewery.
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*Among the historic Hall advertisements linked in my Part I, is one for March beer, which states it is all-malt. The other ads, for porter and ale, do not state that, from what I can see. This may suggest Hall’s ale and porter, at least by the late 1800s, used sugar. For further information on Polish March beer and much else for Poland beer history, see my new post (May 30, 2021) on Lukasz Czajka’s excellent site.