This silent 16mm home movie was made by someone who worked for (or possibly even owned) the Gettelman Brewery in Milwaukee. The Gettelman Brewery was established on Milwaukee's west side in 1856, and was justly famous for its brews $1000 Beer and Milwaukee's Best. (The $1000 label was a guarantee: the brewery promised $1,000 to anyone who could prove that Gettelman didn't use anything but pure malt, hops and water.) Gettelman never cracked the top four of nationally known Milwaukee breweries; Miller, Pabst, Blatz and Schlitz, but Gettelman wasn't any less innovative. The brewery produced and sold beer. But it also made snowplows and Fritz Gettelman invented the steel keg in 1933.
The brewery was known for its slogan "Get-Get-Gettelman," and was among the first in Milwaukee to advertise on television.
A labor strike in 1953 hurt the company financially. When Fritz Gettelman died in 1954, his son Tom took over the brewery with his brother Fred as chairman of the board. Miller Brewing bought Gettelman in 1961 and operated it as a stand-alone brewery until about 1970.
Home movie includes the following:
1:00 Exterior shots of the brewery, showing loading areas and at :22, the front entrance with Gettelman sign. At :55, steel kegs are seen being rolled to a loading dock. At :16 a delivery truck is seen. At 1:31, tasting of product is seen in a laboratory setting. At 2;24, beer is taken directly from the line and sampled, while at 2:40 raw hops are dropped into the vat. The bottle line is seen at 4:00. At 4:25 there is a dinner of some sort with the owner(?) possibly in attendance. At 4:43, picketers are seen on the property with AFL-CIO signs -- possibly this was shot in 1953 during the labor strike. At 5;14 a building with a Gettelman advertisement painted on it is seen. At 5:23 a new roof is added to the brewery and a nice panel truck is seen. At 6:20 it appears the brewery is to be expanded with construction going on. At 7:10 a fishing trip is undertaken -- these are home movies after all.
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