Everyone Here Likes Fitger’s Beer: The Fitger Brewing Co.

Authors Tony Dierckins and Pete Clure present from and sign copies of their new book “Naturally Brewed, Naturally Better: The Historic Breweries of Duluth & Superior.”

August Fitger and Percy Anneke established Fitger’s in 1885 and grew the brewery into the largest manufacturer of beer in the Lake Superior region, and when it closed in 1972 it was the longest-lived manufacturing concern at the Head of the Lakes. The book describes how Fitger’s survived stiff competition, the Temperance movement, Prohibition, and two world wars only to succumb as regional breweries disappeared in the 1960s and ’70s and became the first home of Lake Superior Brewing Co., the state’s first craft brewery.