Photo Caption: Jerome Nowotny with his “Beer Bottles of the World” collection in 1970.

By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

On February 27, 1977, Herb Skoog recorded the 21st interview of the Sophienburg Museum’s “Reflections” oral history program. Herb interviewed Jerome Nowotny. It is one of the best episodes in the series — a real humdinger.

Jerome Nowotny is perhaps best remembered for his enormous “Beer Bottles of the World” collection. 6,000-plus bottles are on permanent display on the Wurstfest grounds inside the Spass Haus. In his oral history interview, Jerome revealed that his passion for collecting beer bottles began when he was a child growing up during Prohibition. I’ll share a bit of his reminiscing:

… There were so many wonderful places to buy illegal homemade beer. They were called bootlegging joints. New Braunfels was very famous for good bootleg joints. People from Houston, San Antonio … they came from everywhere to get this good New Braunfels beer…

Albert Nowotny was Jerome’s dad. Albert ran a business known as “The House the Jack Built” on W. San Antonio Street. It was a restaurant, gas station and Indian relics museum with a tourist camp of cottages out back. The business began in 1927 and added a concrete building in 1930. It flourished through the 1940s, then became Zoeller’s Funeral Home in 1953. In 1981, the building became the Comal County Juvenile Residential Supervision and Treatment Center. Just a few weeks ago, the building was demolished to make way for a new building on the Connections Individual and Family Services campus. (See https://sophienburg.com/the-house-that-jack-built/).

The House the Jack Built sold near-beer during Prohibition. Near-beer had only ½ of one percent alcohol. Jerome explained to Herb Skoog that breweries still made real beer and then “distilled it, warmed it up” to evaporate the alcohol. Only near-beer could be legally sold.

… When people came to our place for hamburgers, they would often ask, “Where can we get good beer?” There were so many places it wasn’t difficult to find one if you knew … but you could drive all over town and never find a place if you didn’t know, because every yard had a ligustrum hedge …

Many yards in New Braunfels were bordered by ligustrum hedges instead of wooden fences. It was common practice to set up your bootlegging operation behind the hedge in the back yard. As a child, Jerome’s father would periodically send Jerome to one of the known bootleg places to get real beer for the customers. He always had to go to different ones so that “the Revenuers” wouldn’t catch on and friends get in trouble. Customers tipped Jerome $5 to go on these procurement expeditions. Jerome jokingly said that some people said he was “a pimp for the bootleggers.”

The 18th Amendment made it illegal to SELL alcoholic beverages from 1920-1933. As a citizen, you could brew up to 200 gallons of beer a year to use for personal consumption. You could NOT SELL beer to anyone else. Legally, you needed to have a doctor’s prescription to purchase any kind of alcohol to use “for medicinal purposes.”

Comal Brewery was the only beer brewery still in business by the time of Prohibition (the building is now the New Braunfels Smokehouse Ice Plant facilities). Comal Brewery made real beer and then turned it into near-beer; however, over time, the alcohol content began inching its way back up to real beer. At that point, “the Revenuers” (government agents who collected taxes and enforced laws against illegal alcohol manufacture) raided the place and destroyed all the brewing equipment:

… ”The Revenuers” came in and chopped up all the big copper kettles and everything…that was the end of it. Then it became an ice factory …

I am envisioning a whole “Andy Griffith” episode. I can only imagine how distraught the citizens of New Braunfels were.

Mr. Skoog asked Jerome if there were other folks in New Braunfels who got caught and sent to jail for bootlegging. The answer was “yes”, but they both agreed it was still too early to drop any names — several well-known bootleggers were still living! In New Braunfels, those men who did a spell in jail for bootlegging were not looked upon as hardened criminals.

The discussion on bootlegging is just one part of this great interview. Jerome also told wonderful stories about collecting the almost 14,000 beer bottles that made up his collection. Jerome also shared fascinating memories about his time as a comic actor in Hollywood!

If you want to hear all of Jerome’s interview, you can visit the Sophienburg Museum & Archives to hear or purchase this oral history; there are over 2,000 recordings of other New Braunfels citizens to choose from. You can also go to the New Braunfels Public Library and check out “Reflections” interviews to listen to.

FYI: Jerome Nowotny passed on in 1992 at the age of 77. Sadly, for many of us locals, Herb Skoog passed away recently on February 3, at the age of 93. Herb and his velvety voice will be truly missed.

Sources: Sophienburg Archives, “Reflections” oral history program #21 — Jerome Nowotny.

“Around the Sophienburg” is published every other weekend in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.