The Joseph Wolf Brewery Caves
Near Stillwater, Minnesota
Beneath the bluff at the south end of Main Street lies a hidden world carved by hand, the lager caves of the old Joseph Wolf Brewery. The brewery was founded in eighteen sixty eight, in the era before mechanical refrigeration, when a brewer needed cold, steady temperatures to age lager beer through the summer. The solution was to dig, tunneling deep chambers into the soft sandstone of the river bluff where the air stayed naturally cool year round and spring water seeped through the rock.
Over the years the caves grew into a connected maze used for lagering barrels and storing beer. Joseph Wolf, a Swiss immigrant, took over and expanded the operation until it was a major regional brewery. Then came Prohibition.
The brewery stopped making beer when Prohibition arrived, and though the family tried near beer and soft drinks, the business never recovered. The hand dug caves remain, cool and dim under the town, and today they lie beneath a restaurant and hotel that let visitors glimpse this underground relic of Stillwater's brewing past.
