In a story that’s all too familiar with historic Cincinnati Breweries, Red Top Brewing Company started as a small business, until it grew to be one of the largest brewing operations in Ohio. Instead, though, of being destroyed by prohibition like many before it, it came to life in the middle of the “Noble Experiment”.

Notable Beers

• Red Top Beer
• Wunderbrau Beer

The Complete Red Top Brewery Timeline

• 1904 – Louis Ullman and Edgar Mack Jr start the Red Top Malting company, during prohibition they keep growing by making near beer, soda. They lease out space in the John Hauck Brewing Company.
• 1933 – After prohibition, The Red Top Brewery is born and opens up inside the old Hauck Brewery on Central Ave.
• 1939 – By this time the brewery was producing upwards of 259,000 barrels of beer, up from the 50,000 barrels that they started at.
• 1946 – The owners buy up the Clyffside Brewing Company for a million dollars to start work on “plant number 2”.
• 1947 – By this time, production was up to 650,000 barrels a year, making Red Top one of the largest breweries in the state.
• 1951 – Ullman becomes president of the company, and at this time the beer was being sold in 20 different states.
• 1954 – Declining sales start to take hold of the business, and they bring on Tommy Heinrich, a former baseball player, to run the company as president. After introducing a couple of new beers, and using some expensive tv advertising, things start spiraling downhill, again. Frank Scoby of Better Brands gains control of the brewery and Heinrich resigns after losing $1,000,000 years in his three years of control.
• 1957 – The brewery is forced to close, and the brewery’s assets are purchased by the Terre Haute Brewing Company who briefly produces Red Top out of their Indiana Brewery.