History of Territorial Brewing Company
In July 1832, the Lagermeister brothers, Ehrhard (19) and Dankmar (18), arrived in Battle Creek Township in the Michigan Territory from Schweinfurt Bavaria.
They quickly set about bringing a piece of their old home to their new and in January 1833 opened the Erhard und Dankmar Bierbrauerei Kompanie. The business struggled until February when, at the request of a confused passerby, they changed the name to Ernie and Dan’s Brewing Company and business began to pick up.
On June 30th, 1834, Ehrhard married Gertrude Territorial, the second oldest daughter of Bensonhurst Territorial, the owner of Benny’s Beer, the largest and most successful brewery in Battle Creek.
On July 7th of the same year, Dankmar married Gertrude’s older sister Maude. One day later, the previously healthy Bensonhurst Territorial died from unknown causes. Having only two daughters, control of Benny’s Beer was handed down to the Lagermeister brothers. Ehrhard and Dankmar merged the two breweries and became Ernie and Dan’s Brewing Company Presents Benny’s Beer.
Due to a shortage in sign lumber, Gertrude and Maude persuaded the brothers to shorten the name and honor their late father, thus Territorial Brewing Company was born.
August 17, 1836, Ehrhard and Gertrude welcomed a son, Horst. One week to the day later, August 24th, Dankmar and Maude were also blessed with a son, Doerk. Horst and Doerk grew up very close.
Tragedy struck on April 1, 1854. While exploring the bottom of Goguac Lake in an improvised two-man diving bell, Ehrhard and Dankmar were overcome by a trout and later succumbed to hypothermia.
After the death of their fathers, Horst and Doerk took over Territorial Brewing Company. Due to their young age, Gertrude and Maude played a large advisory role and for the next 10 years the brewery thrived. On October 15th 1862, Horst and Doerk were wed in a joint ceremony to Amber and Nichole, the twin daughters of Ronwell Von Richten who owned and operated the burgeoning Hastings Wig Pin Corporation. The honeymoon was cut short when the Lagermeister cousins left to fight in the American Civil War, Horst for the Union and Doerk for the Confederacy. Sadly, both cousins were the only two to fall at the now forgotten Battle of Bockwurst Bluff in Saskatchewan, of which they were the only participants.
In February of 1865, with no one left to run Territorial Brewing Company, Amber and Nichole sold the brewery to Robbington Zimmern, the illegitimate son of Tonya Zimmern-Shaponey. Robbington’s father was rumored to be either Horst or Doerk Lagermeister but his mother would never reveal this secret and took it to her grave. Robbington, a self-made man, funded his buyout by selling his patent for an effective snail trap. More than 90% of snail traps sold today still have the Zimcon name stamped on the side. His invention is the basis for the now-common turn of phrase “A head like a Zimcon Snail Trap.”
Territorial Brewing Company flourished under the leadership of Robbington, expanding its distribution territory as far west as Augusta Creek. Robbington and his wife Charlese, by most accounts a homely and insignificant woman, were blessed with the arrival of twin boys. In an homage to the men he thought might be his father, he named them Hoerk and Dorst. On the 1st of April 1895, during a pheasant hunting trip, Hoerk and Dorst accidentally, tragically and simultaneously bayonetted their father atop Spedunkel Ridge, overlooking the mill pond. Though he was penetrated by just the tip of each bayonet, he died three days later from a brewer’s yeast infection. Because of this event, the highway that today passes nearby is known by locals as the Penetrator.
For the next few years, Hoerk and Dorst Zimmern jointly ran the company. Three years into the partnership, Dorst was in Cuba attempting to expand the brewery’s distribution. In early 1898, he was apparently enjoying an afternoon siesta in the warm sun on a hillside outside of Santiago. He awoke in a state of shock realizing he was surrounded by a flock of large birds. Terrified, he leaped to his feet and attempted to flee, but tripped and rolled down the hill toward a herd of grazing sheep. He violently collided with a black ram and came to a stop with the injured ram on top of him. An old shepherd ran to Dorst’s aid and attempted to remove the sheep, but it aggressively gnashed its teeth and kicked at him. He had no choice but to unholster his pistol and dispatch the ram. Locals joked that was the only shot fired at the Battle of Sandhill Crane.
Dorst survived, though he had broken several ribs when he was crushed by the sheep. The shepherd took Dorst to his home on top of the hill where his daughter, Ethania, tended to his care and recovery. Over the next few months Dorst and Ethania fell in love. Dorst knew the old shepherd would never allow him and Ethania to marry. One night in April, the two lovers attempted to flee together. As they ran down the hill into the night, the old shepherd grabbed his pistol and fired several shots into the air. This startled Dorst who once again tripped and fell down the hill. When Ethania caught up to him, Dorst was seriously injured, having suffered several blows to his head. She comforted him at the bottom of the hill until a group of Americans curious about the gunfire arrived. A man named Ted knelt beside Dorst and asked him what happened. Perhaps from embarrassment over fear of birds, or from his severe head trauma, Dorst told Ted he and Ethania had been held captive by Spanish Soldiers who were firing at them as they bravely escaped. Ted and Ethania held Dorst in their arms until he passed away, Ted vowing to punish the Spanish soldiers.
Ethania made her way to Michigan to tell Hoerk the terrible news about his brother. The two found comfort in each other and soon fell in love and were married. In the early morning hours of April 1st, 1901, the couple was blessed with the arrival of a baby girl, Jessalyn. Ethania had little interest in helping with the brewery, instead devoting her time to breeding and training fighting sheep. She started an infamous sheep fighting ring, but after murdering a rival trainer she had to go on the lamb and was never herd from again.
Jessalyn grew up in the brewery, being raised by her father Hoerk and her grandmother Charlese. She worked her way up to being head brewer by the time she was eighteen years old. While she loved all things beer, she hated all things sheep and, according to legend, never once wore wool. In tribute to her mother, however, she created a lager as black as night and named it Finsterschaf, meaning dark or sinister sheep in German. Though fiercely independent, Jessalyn met her match in steam pump tycoon Chelston Combshead IV, the most eligible bachelor in all of Calhoun County. Chelston was known for both his fiery red beard and his even more fiery temper but Jessalyn was the one to tame him, or so it seemed.
A week after the wedding of Jessalyn and Chelston on April 1st, 1919, Hoerk and Charlese were tragically killed in a freak boiler explosion at Zimmern Mansion. Both the house and Zimmern name died that day. Jessalyn became solely in charge of Territorial Brewing Company and the brewery thrived. As the world continued to move toward electrical and internal combustion powered pumps, Combshead Pumps struggled to compete and eventually closed its doors. Chelston battled with depression and a crippling opium addiction, drawing Jessalyn’s attentions away from the brewery. The start of prohibition in 1920 should have been the final nail in the Territorial coffin if it weren’t for the ingenuity of Jessalyn Zimmern-Combshead. She devised a plan of using underground steam pipes to distribute beer to speakeasies around Battle Creek and the city never went dry.
On the first day of April 1933, Jessalyn gave birth to twin girls, Seantelle and Erica. Everyone suspected Chelston was not the father, due to his 13-year opium stupor. The father was rumored to be international ice dancing superstar Ricardino Centepedia, though those rumors were never confirmed. Jessalyn’s rumored affair with Ricardino and marriage to the fiery Chelston is a possible inspiration to the George R.R. Martin series of books A Song of Ice and Fire.
With the repeal of prohibition in December 1933, Territorial was again a legitimate company. Under Jessalyn’s leadership, the brewery thrived again, expanding its distribution as far as Marshall Michigan. Seantelle and Erica spent their formative years in the brewery with Jessalyn, as Chelston was usually in an opium stupor.
Ricardino Centepedia would stop by every year when his ice dancing tour would come through Battle Creek. This always enraged Chelston, to see the man he believed was his daughters’ biological father. When Ricardino’s tour “The Skates of Hell IV, Hell Freezes Over Again” came to town in October of 1941, Chelston assaulted him. Both of Ricardino’s ankles were broken in the altercation, forcing the remainder of the tour to be canceled. Jessalyn gave Chelston an ultimatum: Make amends with Ricardino or get out. To set things right, Chelston vowed to never smoke opium again and booked a trip for two to Hawaii that December and invited Ricardino. Amazingly, the two hit it off and had a great time. On Sunday morning, December 7th, Chelston helped Ricardino into his wheelchair. “Take me to see the boats, Chelsty,” Ricardino begged. They had a few hours before they were scheduled to depart so Chelston wheeled his friend toward the harbor. As they got close, sounds of explosions and air raid sirens frightened them. In a panic, Chelston let go of the wheelchair and turned to flee but ran smack dab into the path of an ambulance. He survived the accident, but later died in the hospital from an infected needle. Ricardino’s chair careened down the hill toward the harbor. A stray bomb exploded right beside him, the blast sending his body flying. He landed on the tail of a Japanese Zero, still alive. He survived for several months on a Japanese aircraft carrier, entertaining troops with daring tales of ice dancing. However, on the 1st of April 1942, while trying to demonstrate his signature move, the Centepedia Shuffle, he fell into the Pacific Ocean, where he was eaten by a school of tuna.