New Jersey's other maltsters
Van Vliet - Newark, NJ
Hinchliffe > Paterson > National
Paterson, NJ
Turn of the century postcard view of the Van Vliet's Passaic Malt House (center) on Commercial Wharf.
To the right in the far background are the smokestacks and buildings of P. Ballantine and Sons ale brewery and malt houses.
VAN VLIET PASSAIC MALTING CO.
The F. G. & I. N. Van Vliet company appears to have originated as a partnership with Matthew White (son of John G. White, of Albany, NY who was said to be "...the first American maltster to conduct the industry and trade on a broad basis" (100 Years of Brewing) and is probably the basis of the claim above of being the oldest maltsters in the US.
(above) 1860's era NYC Directory ad
Owned by brothers Frederick G. and Isaac N. Van Vliet, the company also had a malt house in NYC and were headquartered in the city at 402 Produce Exchange. Called "the leading maltsters in the United States" in an 1897 history of New England industries.
(above) Colorized drawing of the Van Vliet Passaic Malt House from an 1874 map of Newark
(below) from 1895
HINCHLIFFE - PATERSON MALTING CO.
The Eagle Brewery and malt house would be built by John Hinchliffe in 1870 and run initially with two partners as Shaw, Hinchliffe & Penrose. After the latter's retirement, it would become Shaw & Hinchliffe, then just Hinchliffe and, after his sons took over the business, Hinchliffe Brothers.
(Above- click for larger view)
PBMC would close Hinchliffe in 1917 and convert it to cold storage for WWI supplies.
NATIONAL MALTING COMPANY
After Repeal, in April, 1935 then-Paterson mayor, John V. Hinchliffe announce he would be leasing the Hinchliffe malt house to a Syracuse NY firm (he declined to name the company) which would open New Jersey's only malting plant.
In 1935, members of the European family maltsters Brach (malt houses in Dresden and in Czecho-slovakia) took over a portion of the former Hinchliffe facility and operated it as the National Malting Co. Unknown if they were related to the "Syracuse firm" mentioned in early reports.
In the late 1930s, the students of the United States Brewers' Academy of NYC would visit National for the study of malting.
Ferdinand Gero was a cousin of Robert and Alfred Brach according to Dresden passenger ship records. As shown, later spelled "Garrow", with wife Etta, formerly treasurer, now listed as "chemist" at National.
Over the years National Malting would supply malt to a number of NY-NJ metro area brewers, including The F & M Schaefer Brewing Co., but their initial primary market were South American breweries which had previously purchased European malt, unavailable during WWII.
Arthur Hahn [ABOVE] was a Brach in-law.
Robert B. Dresner and Andrew Kardos were other executives at National.
A 1999 obituary for Andrew G. Kardos claimed he had been owner and president of National Malting. Kardoz was listed in Paterson city directories through the 1940-1950s as "supt" (superintendent) at 9 Ann St. but in his home directory of Fair Lawn, 1958, as "mfr" (manufacturer). Unknown if he later bought the firm. Andrew Kardos held a patent for a Malting Apparatus.
In the 1960s, National Malting, along with the New Jersey Crop Improvement Association, the NJ Ag Dept and Rutgers College of Agriculture, participated in attempt by local NJ and southeastern PA (via C.V. Cooperative) farmers to grow Tschermak barley, a 2-row winter barley of Austrian origin. At the time, most malting barley was grown in the north central US, and most malt houses were located there, besides those in and around Buffalo and Lake Ontario in NY.
The firm was purchased by Great Lakes Malting Co. of Kewashkum, WI - a joint venture of Buffalo Malting Co. and Red Wing Malt Co., in 1984.
(Brach family records claim they sold out in 1981).
In 1985, when one of the earliest east coast craft beer "microbreweries" opened in New York City (previously contract brewed at F. X. Matt in Utica), Mathew Reich's Old New York Brewing Co., purchased National Malt for his New Amsterdam Amber Beer and other beers, according to a story in The New York Times, 12-11-1985. NYC's other brewery at the time, Manhattan Brewing Co., also used National Malt.
[ABOVE RIGHT] New Amsterdam's Mathew Reich posses with a handful of National Malt.
At the time, National produces about 1 million pounds of malt a year, about a quarter of it specialty malts.
The National Malting Corp. of Paterson, NJ apparently closed sometime in the late 1980s.
[BELOW] The remains of the Hinchliffe brewhouse today (center portion in illustration of the Governor Street view) from Google.
The 1997 fire which destroyed the malt house, seen below in a PrePro era photo, Ann Street view.
Long after closing, in 1997 yet another fire destroyed the remains of the malt house.
A 1944 fire - always a threat at malting facilities - destroyed part of the complex (described only as a "three story structure" in newspaper reports) and another nearby fire in 1978 caused "explosions ... of high alcohol content material" within National Malting.
Promotional pocket knife and what appears to be a National Malt sample bag - images found on several collectors' websites.
FIRST CARAMEL MALTING CO.
Another malt company existed in this area of Paterson, the First Caramel Malting Corp., owned by Justus Weisenfeld. The address noted in the late 1950s ad (RIGHT) - 71 Warren Street - is several blocks from the National Malting facility, but the address noted on Weisenfeld's WWII draft registration (BELOW) for the company is essentially the same as National's (see map above), part of the old Hinchliffe brewery complex. First National was probably only a dealer in malt - the company would survived into the 1960s. Weisenfeld died in 1969, while visiting in Munich, his place of birth.
Articles on the 1944 fire at the malthouse noted that a "National Caramel Malting Co." had offices in the old brewery but this was likely an error on the part of the newspaper, confusing the two malting companies, and it referred to the First Caramel Malting Co's offices in the building, which might have been the cause of moving the company to the Warren Street address.
Michigan in the pre-Prohibition period, operated a brewers supply company in north Jersey (previous to the ad, in South Orange) and was connected to National Malting Co., possibly only as one of their local distributor.
Fred. Eick, who had been associated with the American Malting Co. of
