Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
Hops Dealer Tom Gimbel Supplied Brewers Around the World
86 views
Skip to first unread message
Dave P.
Nov 2, 2022, 2:19:08 AM11/2/22
to
Hops Dealer Tom Gimbel Supplied Brewers Around the World
By James R. Hagerty, Oct. 25, 2022, WSJ
When Louis S. “Tom” Gimbel III was a boy, his father’s side of the family ran the Gimbels department-store chain, including a huge store at Herald Square in Manhattan. His mother’s family brewed Rheingold beer and traded in hops.
After graduating from Yale and serving in the Air Force, Mr. Gimbel chose hops over retailing. He joined the family’s S.S. Steiner Inc. in the 50s, took a crash course in brewing, moved into sales and by the late 60s, was running the company with his younger brother, Stinor. He later bought his brother’s stake and ran the company on his own.
Mr. Gimbel invested in machinery to process hops into easier-to-ship pellets. He opened new markets in Asia and Africa. He steered the company through an antitrust dispute in the mid-80s and a collapse of hop prices due to overproduction in 1983. The company, now known as Hopsteiner, grows hops and buys from other producers. It also processes hops and sells them around the world. Adam Gimbel, one of Tom Gimbel’s sons, says Hopsteiner is one of the world’s top five suppliers of hops.
By contrast, the Gimbels retailing business was sold to a British tobacco company in 1973 and disappeared in 1986 when the stores were sold and renamed or closed.
Mr. Gimbel died Sept. 26 at a hospital in Red Bank, N.J. He was 93.
Hopsteiner survived periods when mass-market brewers were making their beers less hoppy in an attempt to appeal to a broader market. It benefited over the past three decades as many craft brewers promoted hoppier beers.
Born March 22, 1929, Louis Steiner Gimbel III, known as Tom, was the 2nd of 3 sons. His father, Louis Gimbel Jr., worked for the Gimbel Brothers retailing business and helped run Saks Fifth Avenue, then owned by Gimbel Brothers. His mother, Elinor Steiner Gimbel, was part of the family that established the hop business in Germany in 1845. Her mother, Sadie Liebmann, came from the family that brewed Rheingold beer.
Young Tom learned to ride horses at a farm the family rented near Wayside, N.J. He competed at the National Horse Show in Madison Square Garden and went fox hunting with his father. The family also had a home in Manhattan, where he attended the Lincoln School.
The family sailed to England in 1937 on the RMS Queen Mary and watched a parade to mark the coronation of King George VI. That trip helped make him a lifelong Anglophile.
During WWII, his father enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and died in the crash of a military plane in May 1942.
In 1947, the younger Mr. Gimbel enrolled at Yale, his father’s alma mater. The university was so jammed with returning war veterans that he initially had to live about a mile from campus in a former army barracks with bunk beds. He rode a secondhand bicycle to classes.
His major was a hybrid of history, economics and political science. He played polo and signed up for the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.
After graduating from Yale in 1951, he worked briefly as a trainee at Chase National Bank in New York and later served as a first lieutenant in the Air Force, which sent him to Germany, where his duties included purchasing supplies.
When he completed his military service in 1954, his mother noted that there were no young family members in the Steiner hop business. “I decided to take advantage of the opportunity,” he wrote in a memoir.
At a cocktail party, he met Valerie Battine, who was the daughter of a British military officer and shared his love of horse riding. They married in London, at the Brompton Oratory, in 1965. She insisted on a Roman Catholic service. “I agreed although I do not subscribe to any religion,” he wrote. Their honeymoon included stops in Greece, Iran, Singapore, Australia and Thailand, where he called on the brewmaster at the Boon Rawd Brewery.
She survives him, along with 3 sons, 5 grandkids and his brother, Stinor Gimbel. His son Louis S. Gimbel IV now is president of Hopsteiner, and Adam Gimbel is vice president.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hops-dealer-tom-gimbel-supplied-brewers-around-the-world-11666704987
By James R. Hagerty, Oct. 25, 2022, WSJ
When Louis S. “Tom” Gimbel III was a boy, his father’s side of the family ran the Gimbels department-store chain, including a huge store at Herald Square in Manhattan. His mother’s family brewed Rheingold beer and traded in hops.
After graduating from Yale and serving in the Air Force, Mr. Gimbel chose hops over retailing. He joined the family’s S.S. Steiner Inc. in the 50s, took a crash course in brewing, moved into sales and by the late 60s, was running the company with his younger brother, Stinor. He later bought his brother’s stake and ran the company on his own.
Mr. Gimbel invested in machinery to process hops into easier-to-ship pellets. He opened new markets in Asia and Africa. He steered the company through an antitrust dispute in the mid-80s and a collapse of hop prices due to overproduction in 1983. The company, now known as Hopsteiner, grows hops and buys from other producers. It also processes hops and sells them around the world. Adam Gimbel, one of Tom Gimbel’s sons, says Hopsteiner is one of the world’s top five suppliers of hops.
By contrast, the Gimbels retailing business was sold to a British tobacco company in 1973 and disappeared in 1986 when the stores were sold and renamed or closed.
Mr. Gimbel died Sept. 26 at a hospital in Red Bank, N.J. He was 93.
Hopsteiner survived periods when mass-market brewers were making their beers less hoppy in an attempt to appeal to a broader market. It benefited over the past three decades as many craft brewers promoted hoppier beers.
Born March 22, 1929, Louis Steiner Gimbel III, known as Tom, was the 2nd of 3 sons. His father, Louis Gimbel Jr., worked for the Gimbel Brothers retailing business and helped run Saks Fifth Avenue, then owned by Gimbel Brothers. His mother, Elinor Steiner Gimbel, was part of the family that established the hop business in Germany in 1845. Her mother, Sadie Liebmann, came from the family that brewed Rheingold beer.
Young Tom learned to ride horses at a farm the family rented near Wayside, N.J. He competed at the National Horse Show in Madison Square Garden and went fox hunting with his father. The family also had a home in Manhattan, where he attended the Lincoln School.
The family sailed to England in 1937 on the RMS Queen Mary and watched a parade to mark the coronation of King George VI. That trip helped make him a lifelong Anglophile.
During WWII, his father enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and died in the crash of a military plane in May 1942.
In 1947, the younger Mr. Gimbel enrolled at Yale, his father’s alma mater. The university was so jammed with returning war veterans that he initially had to live about a mile from campus in a former army barracks with bunk beds. He rode a secondhand bicycle to classes.
His major was a hybrid of history, economics and political science. He played polo and signed up for the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.
After graduating from Yale in 1951, he worked briefly as a trainee at Chase National Bank in New York and later served as a first lieutenant in the Air Force, which sent him to Germany, where his duties included purchasing supplies.
When he completed his military service in 1954, his mother noted that there were no young family members in the Steiner hop business. “I decided to take advantage of the opportunity,” he wrote in a memoir.
At a cocktail party, he met Valerie Battine, who was the daughter of a British military officer and shared his love of horse riding. They married in London, at the Brompton Oratory, in 1965. She insisted on a Roman Catholic service. “I agreed although I do not subscribe to any religion,” he wrote. Their honeymoon included stops in Greece, Iran, Singapore, Australia and Thailand, where he called on the brewmaster at the Boon Rawd Brewery.
She survives him, along with 3 sons, 5 grandkids and his brother, Stinor Gimbel. His son Louis S. Gimbel IV now is president of Hopsteiner, and Adam Gimbel is vice president.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hops-dealer-tom-gimbel-supplied-brewers-around-the-world-11666704987
Louis Epstein
Nov 4, 2022, 2:00:22 AM11/4/22
to
Dave P. <imb...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Hops Dealer Tom Gimbel Supplied Brewers Around the World
> By James R. Hagerty, Oct. 25, 2022, WSJ
>
> When Louis S. ?Tom? Gimbel III was a boy, his father?s side of the family ran the Gimbels department-store chain, including a huge store at Herald Square in Manhattan. His mother?s family brewed Rheingold beer and traded in hops.
> Hops Dealer Tom Gimbel Supplied Brewers Around the World
> By James R. Hagerty, Oct. 25, 2022, WSJ
>
>
> After graduating from Yale and serving in the Air Force, Mr. Gimbel chose hops over retailing. He joined the family?s S.S. Steiner Inc. in the 50s, took a crash course in brewing, moved into sales and by the late 60s, was running the company with his younger brother, Stinor. He later bought his brother?s stake and ran the company on his own.
>
> Mr. Gimbel invested in machinery to process hops into easier-to-ship pellets. He opened new markets in Asia and Africa. He steered the company through an antitrust dispute in the mid-80s and a collapse of hop prices due to overproduction in 1983. The company, now known as Hopsteiner, grows hops and buys from other producers. It also processes hops and sells them around the world. Adam Gimbel, one of Tom Gimbel?s sons, says Hopsteiner is one of the world?s top five suppliers of hops.
>
> By contrast, the Gimbels retailing business was sold to a British tobacco company in 1973 and disappeared in 1986 when the stores were sold and renamed or closed.
The Gimbel & Sons store in Maine,which the NY Gimbel Brothers
> By contrast, the Gimbels retailing business was sold to a British tobacco company in 1973 and disappeared in 1986 when the stores were sold and renamed or closed.
(the company actually originated in Indiana) tried & failed to
shut down over trademark infringement allegations in the 1970s,
is still around,though they appear to have given up the gimbels.com
website while another unrelated entity is gimbelstore.com.
(For a while,the NY-from-Indiana Gimbels owned Washington-DC-born-moved-to-NY
Saks,which survives under other ownership).
-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.
A Friend
Nov 4, 2022, 4:40:04 AM11/4/22
to
In article <tk29pj$54c$1...@reader2.panix.com>, Louis Epstein
We brave souls who worked the Christmas rush at Gimbels in 1973 trooped
across the street to a cheap bar for lunch, which we drank. This is
how we got through the evening rush.
across the street to a cheap bar for lunch, which we drank. This is
how we got through the evening rush.
0 new messages