New York Breweries History: Iroquois Beverage Corp
The Iroquois Brewery was successor to the Jacob Roos Brewery,
originally founded in 1842 in Buffalo New York. Much of the Iroquois
advertising that appeared
after prohibition cites this 1842 date as the brewery's founding.
The brewery was located between Hickory and Pratt Streets. It was operated
by Jacob Roos and, after his death, by George Roos, until 1892, when it was sold
to Leonard Burgwerger. Burgwerger razed the buildings and built a new brewery
on the site. This was the start of the Iroquois Brewing Company.
In the 1950s, Iroquois merged with a group of other regional brewers
and formed the International Brewing Company. Iroquois' partners in this
venture included Silver Bar (Tampa, FL), Frankenmuth (Frankenmuth, MI),
and Old Dutch (Findlay, OH). The brewery went independent again in 1965
untill its closing in 1971.
The Iroquois brand name was well-known and highly regarded in the
Lake Erie region and, after the Iroquois Brewery closed, the brand was kept
alive for quite a number of years by a succession of regional brewers.
These included Meister Brau Brewery (Toledo, OH, closed 1972), August
Wagner Brewery (Columbus, OH, closed 1974), Erie Brewing (Erie, PA, closed 1976),
and Fred Koch Brewery (Dunkirk, NY, closed c. 1980).
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