The Voice on the other end of the phone, fattened by a guttural German accent which suspends in time the vowels of each word is strongly reminiscent of the radio spots which have made Karl Strauss more than a household name, but a kind of icon.  Everyone, it seems, has an exaggerated version of the growling advertising tagline; and this one is clearly a cheap imitation.

The question as to whether Karl Strauss is a real person or a marketing gimmick is still a common one.  He is very much a real person.  The voice on the phone, however, is not him.

The voice is Walter Scheuerle, brewmaster for Samuel Adams, and self-proclaimed protégé of Karl Strauss.  For a time as a young brewer for Pabst Blue Ribbon, Walter answered directly to Karl, who was then Vice President of Operations for the corporation.  Scheuerle’s recollection of his work relationship with the elder Strauss might explain the accented impersonation: “Vis Uzzers, he vasn’t so tough.  But vis me, he vuz very stricht.”

The impersonation, it turns out, is not an impersonation at all.  Both Strauss and Scheuerle were born and raised, as well as educated in the art of brewing, in their native Germany.  The accents are real.

And perhaps that Strauss had preceded Scheuerle in emigrating years earlier from a foreign land and forged a successful career in a highly commercial and competitive industry accounted for the older-brotherly fondness extended to a junior brewmaster.  “He took me under his wing and I really learned a lot.” Recalls Walter.  “Karl is phenomenal; he’s a good man to know.”

Undaunted by Scheuerle’s remarks is senior brewmaster for San Diego’s Karl Strauss Breweries, Marty Johnson.  His observation: “Karl is, as they say, The Man.  He’s a consultant for major breweries around the world.  But don’t take my word for it, ask around.”

Sentiments of Karl Strauss’s artisan brewing expertise are not exclusive to fellow immigrants or employees, they’re more of an industry standard.  One of the pioneers of microbrew movement in the early eighties, launching several microbreweries around the Bay area including Buffalo Bill’s and The Bison, is Bill Owen. 

Says Owen: “Karl was the only person to cross over from a major brewery to microbrewing.  Many of the gentleman who have been in the business for 30 or 40 years, retire from the big breweries to go ply golf.  He is the great-grandfather of the whole industry.”

Pete’s Brewing Company’s creator of a slew of wicked brews, Pete Strassberg, discovered the microcosm of Strauss expertise in the early years.  His story: “I remember – it must be six or seven years ago – having a Strauss Octoberfest beer in San Diego that was unbelievable.  Everytime I’d be in town for a trade show, I’d always go over to the brewery on Columbia Street.  Karl’s been in the industry forever and not only can he make the big, industrial beers, but his beers in San Diego are some of the best I’ve ever had. 

Such celebrity status has, for decades, extended even to Hollywood.  And although a precursor to the microbrew revolution, Dennis Hopper’s Blue Velvet preference for Pabst Blue Ribbon over Heineken may have actually been a prophecy of the masterful brewing of Karl Strauss…

The Man.

You literally grew up on the premises of your father’s brewery in Germany, living there until you were 18.  Where did you go from there?

I first took a trainee’s job with a larger brewery in the city of Hanover.  Then I went to college near Munich, at the Munich Technical University at Weihenstephan, where in those days they taught brewing, distilling, food science, agriculture, horticulture, dairy science – not unlike the University of California at Davis, California.  Today, at both schools additional disciplines are being taught as well.

Weihenstephan is about 60 kilometers outside of Munich, and on the campus there is a full-size commercial brewery owned by the State of Bavaria.  In addition, the college has smaller pilot-plant sized breweries and malting facilities for teaching purposes.

Describe your formal education in Bavaria.

Before I ever went to Bavaria I attended junior college for 3 years, which gave me a good foundation in the sciences; I spent two years in Weihenstephan to get my degree in the Science and Practice of Malting and Brewing.  In addition, I received certification as a Master Brewer, which means the right to teach apprentice brewers.

Nowadays, more extensive opportunities for study are available and one can even earn a Ph.D. at Weihenstephan.

You left Germany in 1939, before the outbreak of World War II.  Describe the conditions that prompted you the make that decision.

I came to the United States on March 3, 1939.

Actually, it became obvious in 1938 - the crisis of ’38 - that war was unavoidable.  When Mr. Chamberlain went to Munich with his umbrella and proclaimed “Peace in our Times” and all that, everybody with any brains who lived in Germany at the time knew he was blowing smoke.  There was no way the German Government could maintain the level of military preparedness with the building of weapons and other strategic materials on the income and the money that was available in Germany; Germany had to do something else, it was obvious.  Nobody knew whether it would happen in 1939 or 1940, but everybody sensed it was going to happen.

My immigration into the United States was sponsored by relatives.  My Grandmother on my father’s side came from a rather large family.  Six or seven of her sisters and brothers went to the United States in the 19th century.  One of the brothers lived in San Francisco; he and his wife visited Germany in 1936, and they turned out to be sponsors, together with another relative living in New York.  I was actually going to go to San Francisco to live, but an uncle of mine had friends in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who invited me to stop there for a visit and I accepted.  While I was in there, I picked up a job at the Pabst Brewing Company, so I stayed in Milwaukee. (laughs)

I arrived in Milwaukee on St. Patrick’s Day 1939.  I started to work at Pabst on May 11, 1939, and I worked for Pabst for 44 years.

That’s quite a stopover.  In what capacity did you hire on at Pabst?

Actually, when I was first interviewed Pabst had plans for a process change that would have involved the addition of a new department for beer sterile filtration.  I was to be the supervisor of this new department.  The new process had to do with substituting sterile filtration for pasteurization.  But the outbreak of World War II caused the project to be abandoned.  By the way, Coors Brewing Company was the first brewer to adopt that process commercially in the United States, and to the best of my knowledge still follows it today.

After the interview I had been promised a job, and I was waiting to be called to work.  But I was gradually running out of money – I did not have much when I arrived in the USA! (laughs)  So I told the Pabst people that I was sorry, but I could not continue to wait.  They asked me if I would take a temporary job in their plant and I accepted.  During the summer of 1939 I worked at the Pabst plant as a temporary brewery worker.  I went on salaried payroll in the fall of 1939.

The temporary job held a distinct advantage because by working in the plant I could improve my knowledge of English.  I had taken English in high school and in college, and when people spoke slowly enough I had no problem understanding, but I could not reply readily because I needed time to translate from German into English; I could not think in English – it took me almost one year to reach that point. 

In the fall of 1939 I went into a management-training program at Pabst, then became an Assistant Brewmaster and continued to work my way up the ladder.

Summarize your career with Pabst.

As I said, in the fall of 1939 I became a management trainee, and I then was named an Assistant Brewmaster.  A couple of years later I was transferred to Pabst plants in Peoria, Illinois, where I spent about one year supervising malting and malt-extract production.  Returning to Milwaukee, I became First Assistant Master Brewer of the Milwaukee operation until I was transferred to Los Angeles Brewing Company, which Pabst had acquired at that time.

I remained in L.A. until the end of 1955, when I again returned to Milwaukee, this time as Coordinator of Plant Operations and Planning for the Corporation.  In 1959, I was named Corporate Vice President of Production.

At that time Pabst had breweries in Los Angeles, Peoria Heights, Illinois, Newark, New Jersey, Milwaukee, a soft drink plant, a corn grits mill and an Industrial Products plant.  I traveled regularly to all the plants.  I was on the road just about every other week.  The business was expanding and I was deeply involved in plant expansion as well.  We built a brand new plant in Houston County, Georgia.  Usually when I traveled to one of the plants I would stay a whole week because the job cannot be done by just sticking your head in the door and asking is everything alright?  You knew the answer you would get and, furthermore, you can ask that question on the phone and get the same answer.

When you began working for Pabst, how did they rate in comparison to other beers?

Pabst, at that time, rated pretty high – among the top three or four national brands.  There was one year – I have forgotten which – when Pabst was actually number one in volume in this country.  Even in the early 1960’s Pabst was among the top three U.S. breweries.  In the early years, there were very large regional breweries operating in parts of the U.S., such as Schaefer, Ruppert and Liebman in greater New York who distributed maybe as far away as Washington, D.C.  Coors was strictly a regional brewer distributing only West of the Rocky Mountains; Strohs, while fairly large, was a regional brewer.  The only really National brewers at the end of World War II were Pabst, Schlitz and Anheuser-Busch.  Even Miller was relatively small at that time.  Miller did not grow rapidly until after it was acquired by Philipp Morris.

You retired from Pabst in 1983.  Since then you’ve been very active as a consultant in the U.S. and overseas.

Yes, I went into the consulting business in 1983, and my first job was with a major Canadian brewery.  Actually, that was my first brewery consulting job; the very first consulting job was with a U.S. malting company who still uses my services.

Since those days, I have had quite a few assignments that have taken me to foreign countries.  I have been to Russia three times, Poland once, China four times – most recently last March (1996), and numerous times to the islands of the Caribbean.

When prohibition was repealed in 1933, how did the industry standards differ in the U.S. compared to Europe.

First of all, you must realize that I was not in the U.S. in 1933, and that my knowledge is not first hand.  But as I understand it – and based on what I saw in 1939 I believe it to be true – the principles were no different.  However some of the equipment in the U.S. was more antiquated because breweries restarted by the large with the same equipment that they had shut down at the start of prohibition.  Repeal not ready with new designs, they just built what they had built before prohibition.  However, soon imports of equipment resumed; for example filters from Europe.  So gradually modernization proceeded only to be interrupted again during World War II.

The most striking difference, probably, was the introduction of beer in cans.  There had been, up to that point in time, absolutely no canned beer in Europe or to my knowledge, anywhere else in the world.  Canned beer was introduced shortly after the repeal of prohibition, and at that time there were two typed of cans: The flat-top, similar to the one we know today, but without the pull-tap opening.  This can was developed by the American Can Company and introduced by the Krueger Brewing Company of Newark, NJ.  The first national brewer to the same type of cans was Pabst, in 1935.

The second type of can was developed by the Continental Can Company.  This was a cone-top can that had a regular bottle crown for a closure.  The advantage of this can was that it could be filled on a bottle-filler.  Blatz and Schlitz were among the major brewers using this can.

Cans for beer were banned during World War II; after the war both types of cans re-entered the U.S. market but the cone-top can disappeared about 1950 and only the flat-top can survived.

What was the impact of Government regulations after Prohibition.

Again, I must emphasize that I first came to the U.S. in 1939.  However, I can tell you that prohibition was repealed in two stages.  The first stage allowed the brewing and marketing of 3.2% (Alcohol by weight) beer which was considered non-intoxicating.  In order to permit the brewing of higher alcohol-content beer an amendment to the constitution was required; two thirds of the states had to ratify the amendment before it could take effect.  So, while beer came back in the spring of 1933, prohibition did not really end before fall or early winter of 1933.

Of course, to this day the brewing industry is regulated on many items.  For example, federal regulations govern the language that may be used on beer labels.  And there are many rules, state and federal, regulating beer advertising, promotions, and so on.

How do you see the boom in the microbrewing industry?

You see, I am probably the worst prognosticator.  When microbrewing first started to make a little progress in this country, I was still working for Pabst.  One of the vendors for hops, a German fellow, called on us and in the course of my conversation with him, he asked me what I thought of the microbrewing movement.  He asked me, should we be thinking of that and packaging hops in smaller units?  I said to him, and I quote pretty accurately: ‘Robert, don’t bother.  In America this won’t last; it’s not what Americans for pasttime’.  I could not have been more wrong.  Thinking back now, I am sure that I was thinking of the average pre-World War II American.  I forgot for the moment how many millions of Americans had been to Europe and had gotten a taste of more flavorful beers, which should have led me to conclude that there would probably be a sufficient number of Americans to sustain the brewpub movement, and microbrewing in general.

Today, we know of course that microbrewing is alive and well and here to stay, even though it represents still less that 2% of all the beer consumed in the USA.

How do you see microbrewed beer in the overall evolution of the American beer industry?

Look at it this way, the microbrewing industry will have a lasting effect on the U.S. beer industry.  What it will do is upgrade – I hate to use the word quality – let me first define the word quality relative to beer.  The quality of a Budweiser, or a Miller or a Coors or a Karl Strauss Amber Lager…the quality of each of them is excellent.  In other words, everybody has the same access and uses the finest malt, the best hops and does in fact buy the best ingredients available.  So what we are talking about when we discuss beer quality, is not the quality of the ingredients or workmanship, we are discussing the type, taste and appearance of the product.  It is almost as if – and this may be a poor comparison – you attended a dog show, and there was a champion in one of two different classes.

Well, the quote/unquote mass-produced beers in the country are not competing with the high flavor-level imported beers or high flavor-level microbrewed beers.  They belong to another class altogether. 

Returning for a moment to what I said earlier about the quantities of microbrewed beer; it would be very difficult to make a tiny quantity of honey-flavored beer in a big tank of one of the giant breweries in this country, and highly uneconomical.  In short, it just would not make sense.  It is just like the mom and pop store or the cobbler down the street who will put a new heel on your shoe; you don’t ask a giant factory to do it, you don’t go back to Florsheim and say “put a new heel on my shoe.”  Or if you want a hand-knit sweater you would not look for it at Target.

Same thing in the beer business.  Microbrewing is a specialty and not a high volume business; there is a need and room for both.

You are obviously highly-regarded in the industry…

Well, I have been and still am quite active in the Master Brewers Association.  I have been a member for over 50 years.  I have been a president of the organization and I have served on a number of committees and still serve on two of them.  But mainly I have devoted much time to the educational committee because I believe quite strongly that it is very important that the younger people in this industry be taught brewing correctly so that the integrity of the product may be preserved.

You have the distinction of being the only person ever to receive the AWARD OF HONOR and the AWARD OF MERIT from the Master Brewers Association of the Americas.  How does that make you feel?

Well, obviously, I feel greatly honored.  However, as time goes on there are likely to be others that will be recipients of both Awards.  The Award of Merit is for exceptional service to the industry while the Award of Honor is given for special services to the Association.  That I have received both awards stems mostly from the fact that I was the Pabst representative to the United States Brewers’ Association Technical Committee and as such had a hand in a number of assignments that benefited the industry as a whole.  Not everybody has that same opportunity.  Quite often the brewmaster in a brewery is relegated exclusively to the technical end of the business and has very little exposure outside of the company and his professional organization.  I was fortunate to be allowed to branch out a little bit at Pabst.

A former associate of yours, an employee at Pabst at the time, Walter Scheuerle is now a brewmaster for Samuel Adams and he seems to think very highly of you.

Walter Scheuerle worked for Pabst in Milwaukee – by the way I recently spoke with him at a Master Brewer’s Convention in Portland, Oregon.  Walter is a graduate of a brewers’ school in Ulm, Germany; he is a good brewer, a very competent brewer as a matter of fact, and a nice guy.  I believe Pabst transferred him to Portland when Pabst owned Blitz-Weinhard Brewing Co., however I could be wrong on that point.

According to Walter, he learned a lot from you.

Well, I don’t know about that.  I guess when you work in a play you learn from the people who make the rules, good or bad, by the way. (laughs)

The Northwestern United States is the origin, and currently the hub of microbrewed beer in this country.

That is where it all started.  Bert Grant in Yakima, Washington, with his microbrewery (Buffalo) Bill Owen in Hayward, California, with his brewpub and with his efforts to get legislation changed state by state to allow brewpubs.  Almost all states allow brewpubs now, though there may be a couple of exceptions and there are still restrictions in some states that microbrews would like to see lifted.  From the initial interest in the Northwest interest seems to have spread first to the Northeast and then slowly through the rest of the country.  Strangely enough Milwaukee has only one brewpub and at that this pub sells probably more Pabst and Miller beer than it can brew of it’s own brands.  For the longest time Greater Chicago had only a couple brewpubs; recently additional ones have opened or will open in the near future.

Is San Diego and the southern west coast in general at a disadvantage in the microbrewery market?

No.  Let me point out one other thing.  California, looking back over the years, had hardly any draft beer consumption.  This was not draft beer country.  It was almost all bottled and canned beer.  I believe the first step towards the brewpub popularity was an educational process, making people want to drink tap beer.  A person that does not want beer from the tap is not a potential brew pub patron.  When I first came to Los Angeles in 1948, there were very few draft beer accounts in the city, and most of them were downtown – and I mean downtown.  I remember calling on an account in San Bernadino, a real beer bar, where patrons actually bought quart bottles of beer over the bar and consumed them by pouring the beer in to small – probably 4 oz. – glasses.  That was the way they drank beer in San Bernadino.  A comparable tavern in the Midwest or East would have had draft beer on tap.

Draft beer requires care and proper cooling and dispensing equipment as well as refrigerated storage for spare kegs.  In the East, buildings have basements were keg storage is usually provided.  Lack of storage space and the investment required were natural barriers to draft beer dispensing in warmer climates.  However, in the past 25-30 years, the interest in draft beer has been growing in the West.

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut claimed one of his ancestors in Germany brewed superior beer in which the secret ingredient was coffee.  In fact many stouts on the market today have a hint of coffee flavor.  What is your opinion of the recent introduction of commercial beers that brew with coffee.

The hint of coffee flavor you refer to comes from the malt – dark specialty malts are prepared in coffee roasters.  The recent publicity given to the addition of name brand coffee beans as an ingredient comes under the heading of flavored beers, which have recently gained popularity.  Flavored beers further segment the market place and give the consumer additional choices.

If Mr. Vonnegut’s relative brewed beer with coffee beans in Germany, he was in violation the German Purity Law, which allows no other ingredients but water, malt, hops and yeast to be used in brewing beer.

What is Karl Strauss’s Favorite beer?

Basically, I like amber beer.  Taste quality being equal, I prefer amber beer to a clear pilsener, for instance.  I am not a drinker of ales.  I guess that is typical – you grow up in Germany and you prefer Lager Beers; you grow up in the U.K. and you prefer Ales.  Why do I like amber or dark lagers?  I guess it has the slight sweetness that creeps in with the use of specialty malts.  I like that combined with a moderate hop flavor.