Years ago, when I was driving around Pennsylvania — and didn’t know the area — I found myself behind a truck emblazoned with the logo for something called Yuengling, which it trumpeted as America’s Oldest Brewery.
Frankly, the brand name looked Chinese to me — even if the Eagle logo didn’t — and I thought I should have heard of America’s oldest brewery. Nobody in the state seemed to know the story, so here it is:
- The German brewer David G. Jüngling immigrated to the United States in 1823 from Aldingen in the Kingdom of Württemberg. He anglicized his surname from Jüngling to Yuengling and began the “Eagle Brewery” on Center Street in Pottsville in 1829.
- Yuengling’s trademarked phrase “America’s Oldest Brewery” refers to the U.S. only, as the Canadian brand Molson, founded in 1786, is the oldest in North America.
It’s pronounced Ying-ling (/?j??l??/), by the way, and it’s now popular all along the east coast.