The Beer Barons of West Laurel Hill
By Rich Wagner #1317
(Excerpt from article published in Fall 2011 edition of The Keg)
 

Early on in my research of Pennsylvania breweries I was told, “If you start collecting bricks from those old breweries, you’ll know you’ve gone
over the edge.” Not long after that, someone told me about visiting brewers’ gravesites, but I figured I had taken enough pictures of their names carved in stone on brewery buildings, and that if I ever started visiting them in cemeteries, that would definitely be over the top. Well, never say never! Last summer I was contacted by Rachel Wolgemuth about doing a program on brewers buried at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd. The cemetery was trying to reach out to the community and create events that would bring people in to see it in a new light. And what more unlikely pairing for a beer event could there be but a minister with a homebrew club, a cemetery in Halloween season, and a beer tasting!

Rachel had invited Reverend Kirk Berlenbach and his homebrewing club from Saint Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Roxborough to explore the “Beer Barons of West Laurel Hill” in the fall of 2009 and wanted to expand on the event. When I went to meet with them and saw the brewers’ mausoleums, I saw the value in what they were doing and knew right off the bat that people would love it. To start with, right in front of the conservatory are two
huge mausoleums of the Poth and Bergdoll families. A short distance up the road there are some Bergners buried, and just past that is the Hohenadel mausoleum. But the pièce d’résistance was the John F. Betz mausoleum, the largest and most magnificent one in the entire cemetery. Much Much More ...