Trommer's Malt Beer Button

Red button with white scalloped rim. White, red and blue text.

Trommer’s Malt Beer, founded in 1897, was brewed with 100% malted barley and hops, even in the war years when malted barley was expensive and scarce.  Their malt extract was sold in drug and specialty stores and was used for malted milk.  Trommer's Evergreen Brewery was founded in Brooklyn, N.Y., by German immigrant John F. Trommer. Unfortunately, John Trommer died a year later.  His eldest son, George, inherited the brewery and ran it until 1951. Trommer established a hotel, restaurant and beer garden in his brewery complex called the Maple Garden. Around the turn of the century, Brooklyn could boast housing 49 breweries. At the height of Prohibition in 1929, Trommer produced 300,000 barrels annually of their “near bear” which remained legal and was widely distributed.

Several strikes by workers and drivers led to the demise of the Trommer brand. The first was in 1948 and most crippling in 1949 when for 72 days the strikers who took over the plant did not care for the yeast strains and they died. Because the unique taste of beer brands depends on their developed strand of yeast for fermentation, Trommer had to attempt to re-create their strand, but with no success. In 1950 George Trommer sold the plant to another beer manufacturer, and the brand was eventually discontinued in 1962.