CV History

The story starts more than 165 years ago in a sleepy town on the banks of the Wabash. The Terre Haute Brewery was making beer at 904 Poplar Street near the canal on the east side of town as far back as 1837. Mathias Mogger bought the business in 1848 and ten years later built a second brewery across the street. Soon they were shipping it by barge to other towns. So life went on during the 19^th century - Civil War, death of the canals, coming of the railroads, removal of the Hoosier forests for agriculture. And beer. In 1904 they introduced Champagne Velvet Pilsner. At the turn of the century there were scores of breweries in Indiana and THBC was the 7^th largest brewery in the US. Stables were a block away with 50 Clydesdales and Belgians delivering beer to the immediate area.

THBC made it until prohibition and died in 1918. Fear not, in 1934 Oscar Baur reorganized the THBC, bought all new equipment and 1.5 million barrels of CV hit the streets annually by the ‘40s and ‘50s. Why not, with over 900 employees, a large advertising budget, and slogans like Sparkling as Champagne and Smooth as Velvet, The Nation’s Flavor-rite Drink, and The Beer with the Million Dollar Flavor, (the secret recipe was insured for $1M.

By 1958 there were only a dozen breweries in the state and THBC closed. The Champagne Velvet trademark went to Heilman, Strohs, Schlitz, and Pabst during the next 42 years but CV beer wasn’t made after the 1960s.

Mike Rowe opened a new Terre Haute Brewing Co. back at 904 Poplar Street in 2000 and brought the CV trademark back to town. He was trying to help us remember what it used to be like way back when. In fact, the new THBC grew enough to necessitate opening a larger 20 bbl brewery across the street just like 150 years ago.

This large-scale building was ready for use as the Vigo Brewery after Mr. Rowe shut down his operations in 2006.

© 2003, 2008 - Bob Ostrander

More Terre Haute Brewery history