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The Galveston Brewing Company and Fall Staff Brewery were important contributors to the beer industry in Texas in the late 1800s and 1900s. The Galveston Brewing Company, established in 1896, became one of the largest and most successful breweries in Texas. After changing ownership and becoming Galveston Houston Breweries Inc., the brewery was eventually purchased by St. Louis-based company Fall Staff in 1955. The brewery produced popular beer brands and employed hundreds of workers until it was heavily impacted by Hurricane Carla in 1961. Despite two decades of declining sales and financial troubles, the 1896 brewery still stands tall today as a reminder of Galveston's economic diversity and the beer industry's significant contribution to the city's history.
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The Galveston Brewing Company and Fall Staff Brewery. Before the 1880s, beer was hard to come by in Texas due to poor conditions for shipping beer to meet the growing demand for beer in Texas; St. Louis Brewers Adolphus Busch and William Lemp partnered with Galveston businessmen to form a corporation and build a state-of-the-art brewing facility. Galveston Brewing Company produced its first batch of beer in October 1896. It became one of Texas's largest and most successful breweries at the time. The brewery produced a variety of beers, including loggers and ales. The Galveston Brewing Company was a large brewery complex with an ice plant, brewhouse, storage house, boiler house, wash house, and racking house. It also had railroad tracks running along two sites to transport the beer to the mainland for larger distribution. The brewery had the capacity to produce up to 100,000 barrels of beer each year. Just before prohibition, the assets of the Galveston Brewing Company were sold to the Southern Beverage Company, established in 1917 when prohibition was repealed.
In 1934, the company was reorganized and became Galveston. Houston Breweries Incorporated. After a few ownership changes, St. Louis-based company Fall Staff purchased the brewery in 1955. Fall Staff continued its operations in Galveston at its original site; the brewery produced popular beer brands such as Fall Staff and Pearl and employed hundreds of workers at its peak. Unfortunately, the brewery was heavily impacted by the devastation caused by Hurricane Carla in 1961. After two decades of declining sales and financial troubles, the brewery was ultimately closed down in 1981. However, the 1896 brewery still stands tall in the Galveston skyline. It stands as a reminder of the products produced in Galveston and Galveston's 20th-century economic diversity.