Iowa brewing titan Mathias (Matthew) Tschirgi was born in Heilig Kreuz, St. Gallen Switzerland. His father was a brewer and with his guidance Mathias learned his father's trade.
At age 21 Tschirgi boarded the steamer Howard in Rotterdam, Holland and made his way to the United States. He arrived at the port of New Orleans on the 15th of November 1845. From there he journed up the Mississippi River to the town of St. Louis, Missouri, found work in the Washington Brewery and became aquainted with American ways. Here he met Joseph Anton Gehrig, a fellow Swiss immigrant brewer 27 years his senior. Despite a difference in age of more than a generation, the two became friends.
Tschirgi and Gehrig soon set their sights on Dubuque, Iowa, and after only two months of obtaining his position at the Washington, Tschirgi headed once again up the Mississippi for the 350 mile journey into the Iowa Territory. Iowa at this time was in the process of becoming a state, and Dubuque, with its lead deposits and situation on the Mississippi, promised to become a boomtown.
Tschirgi and Gehrig landed in Dubuque in the spring of 1846 and the two set up a brewery on Couler and Eagle Point Streets. As it turns out this was the first business of its kind in the entire state. When Gehrig died at the end of August, Tschirgi wrote to Gehrig's daughter Katharina and her fiancee Anton Heeb. Along with the horrible news was a plea for help in the brewery.
Katharina and Anton were due to get married in November and they had their hands full taking care of his two children from his previous wives, the last of whom died earlier that year. He wrote back saying he needed some time to get his business closed in St. Louis before he could join Tschirgi in Dubuque.
Meanwhile, Tschirgi persevered. According to Biographies and Portraits of the Progressive Men of Iowa, Sales were slow due to competition from a more established brewery across the river in Galena, Illinois. Tschirgi, lacking equipment and resources, ground his grain in a coffee mill and distributed his product to customers by wheelbarrow. Eventually sales along the river grew, but Tschirgi later admitted, "I became despondent and wanted to return to the old country, but could not get my money out of the brewery so I remained."
Heeb eventually arrived in Dubuque. Heeb was a newlywed, a family man, and at age 37 years had a lifetime of experience on the 24 year old bachelor, Tschirgi. Nonetheless, Heeb became junior partner to Tschirgi. The brewery was Christened the Dubuque Brewing and Malting Company.
In 1848 Mathias Tschirgi married Miss Kathrina Zollicoffer. Their union produced 8 children. This was also the year Tschirgi claimed to have sold the first beer in Minnesota.
In 1850 Tschirgi left the Dubuque Brewing and Malting Company to Anton Heeb and set up a stand of his own on Main Street in town. After four years he sold out to Kurtz & Welder and built a new, larger faclity made of brick at the corner of Delhi and Julien. He found a new partner in John Schwind. The two named the brewery the Western, and ran it together until Schwind's death in 1881. Tschirgi leased the Western to Schwind's sons after that, then sold the business and retired in 1892.
Mattias Tschirgi died on November 11th, 1903, at 79 years of age. The Dubuque Brewing and Malting Company he founded had long ago eclipsed the Galena brewers in sales, but ultimately succumbed to growing Pohibition forces in the state and closed in 1896. His Western Brewery suffered the same fate, and also closed in 1896.
