HamStrolympia Brew-Reunion Review

Original post - Sept 2015

Last Sunday, former employees of the Hamm’s, Stroh’s, Olympia and even a little bit of Pabst held their annual get together at the Summit Brewery in St Paul.

As an added bonus to this years event, it just so happened to be the 150th anniversary of Hamm’s Beer, so why not have a party?

The event was organized by Bill Daly,  Pat Bowlin, Jim Driscoll and Gerri Kustelski. The group usually tries to meet every 5 years or so but this was special because of the Hamm’s anniversary and Gerri retiring from Summit and the industry in general. The word was out about the event but it was mainly about the former employees and the turn out still was big! I think the final count was a couple hundred came to celebrate the event.

I was planning on attending, because well if I didn’t I should just retire this blog right now haha. But since I am an actual employee of Summit in the taproom, I was asked to work the event, it all made sense. I didn’t know what to expect as in terms of the crowd if it would be a big drinking crew or what. Of course you had your older retired people and also the grand kids of the employees along with the general fans of Hamm’s there too. I talked to alot of people that day and to my surprise most of the people did not even drink beer anymore!

I was part shocked and part understanding. You have always heard about the myths of the Hamm’s employees drinking from morning to night at the brewery (how did they actually get any work done? haha)

Well I guess after years of doing that, you get to the point of too much of a good thing is just that, too much. So 1919 root beer was the popular drink of the day…and of course Summit Pilsner. A couple people tried some other beers but if your entire life revolved on the pilsner style and you like it, why jump off the train right? Well I could get into introducing different styles to people but these guys were the core of the American Pils generation.

Of course the Hamm’s bear made an appearance along with local Hamm’s celebrities like Barry Travis, Kirk Schnitke and Stevan Miner. Food was provided by Tunicci’s Restaurant and beer by Summit of course. Hamm’s beer was unfortunately and ironically not present at the event. I was thinking about smuggling some in but once the word would’ve got out I don’t think I would’ve had enough for the entire class…haha

All in all I had a great time. It was definitely a different event that I was used to but something was special about it and that was not because I got to wear my Hamm’s work shirt haha. I got meet and serve people I’ve always heard about and wanted to meet some former employees and even including the guy who rode a unicycle dressed as The Hamm’s beer from the 1970’s.

Best of all I got to hear stories about the days of the brewery itself and how it was much different but all kind of the same as it is today. For example I brought a Hamm’s cooler, a very large Hamm’s can and a original bottle of Hamm’s picnic beer for decoration of the bar. Someone came up for a beer and said ” I don’t want to date myself but I used to hand package these bottles”, my mind was blown!

So I just want to thank everyone involved for putting this event on and it was fun to be involved.  I do this blog mainly to keep the good ol drinking days of Minnesota alive and sneak in some new events at the same time, and this event was a high point for me in terms of everything I try to present here. Below are some more pictures from the event.