Breweries have been a part of Dayton almost from the beginning. Colonel George Newcom, one of the original settlers of the city, was said to have opened a brewery next to his tavern around 1810. This was three years before Davis Embree would open the first brewery in Cincinnati. Several breweries came and went, making mostly common beer, ale, porter and stout. Then, in 1852 John and Michael Schiml introduced lager beer to Dayton. The brewing business boomed. Lager was lighter in taste, with an effervescent quality that reminded the German community in Dayton of their homeland. By 1908 more than 200.000 barrels were being made annually, with $300,000 being paid each year in wages. "Breweries of Dayton" tells the history of the city's breweries from 1810 to 1961, as well as biographies of some of the men who owned them. Also included is a small history of how the local breweries brewed their beer in the early 1900's, how they fought against prohibition, and how Dayton's brewing industry never fully recovered from the "Noble Experiment," the last brewery closing it's doors in 1961.