Heim Brewing Company

Among the available libations at the J. Rieger & Co. distillery in Kansas City’s East Bottoms is a specially brewed lager, Heim Bier – a homage to a pre-Prohibition family brewery that once operated and thrived on the site. A What’s Your KCQ reader recently enjoyed a pour and inquired about the name.

What’s the Heim history? It traces to Austria, where Ferdinand Heim Sr. was born in 1830. He and his brother Michael were trained by their father as ropemakers, emigrated to the United States when Ferd was 21, and tried their hands at a number of ventures before purchasing a small brewery in Manchester, Missouri, near St. Louis. They were part of a massive influx of German immigrants who settled in Missouri in the 19th century, drawn to the fertile land along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Producing German lager proved to be a viable business. The Heims found their way to East St. Louis, Illinois, where they opened the Heim & Brother Brewery (later named the Heim Brewing Company). Michael passed away at an early age in 1883, and Ferd’s eldest son Joseph stepped into his uncle’s role.