Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company History, a secondary source that I happened to come across on Findinguniverse.com, gave me an excellent overview of Leinenkugel’s history, and also how it has transformed into what it is today, as being part of the powerhouse brewery of Miller. The article starts out by delivering the early history of Jacob Leinenkugel and his founding of the Leinenkugel Brewery in the northwoods of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. I chose this source because it gave specific examples of how the brewery was able to thrive in a town like Chippewa Falls. This town was perfect to start a brewery in. Pure water was vital for having a brewery, especially in a remote and small town like Chippewa Falls, and the town sure did have plenty of pure water. The article gave a great opening source for my research by educating myself on the key points of the Leinenkugel Brewery.
The source reveals how the Leinenkugel’s Brewery has stayed true to itself from its founding and even to present day. Leinenkugel has maintained its original recipe of its first beer, and has also maintained a select few of brews. When Miller bought Leinenkugel in 1988, employees and customers were worried that the Miller would take over Leinenkugel in a negative way. However, Miller was strategic in the way it approached the Brewery of Leinenkugel. Leinenkugel was able to operate in its original way, but with the financial support and the marketing support of Miller.
This source offered me many ideas of where I can take my research. Through this source, some of my research questions were briefly covered throughout the article, but I will need to go into further detail in them to get a better understanding of them. This source of the Leinenkugel history gave me an excellent start to my research by giving me the right influences in where I want to take my research.
Good first research post. But I would question to validity of the website. I would personally not trust a website for a research project. Even if you believe the website completely, doubt its credibility. On the information sheet, the fourth bullet point is to offer your strong response to this source. Believing and doubting it.
You can probably find a source with the same information in the library. Then there would be a cloud of doubt hanging over this source.
This is good! I’m glad that you started to talk about Jacob. From here maybe try to find things that didn’t work out so well for them, like set backs, or maybe a bad batch of beer? Or even a beer that they made that didn’t sell well. This blog also makes me think about what does Leinenkugels do for the Chippewa valley? Maybe start to look at the economic sides of things and tourism!
I understand the concept of what the article was trying to achieve by giving a brief overview of the Leinenkugel history, but, like Aaron stated I would question the credibility of this article. Overall, it shows that a brief overview of the company itself which helps the reader understand what your research is about.
It would be interesting to learn or to get first hand accounts of the individuals who actually worked at the Leinenkugel Brewery during the time of the take over. I would imagine the Leader Telegram or other local news articles would have information for you when this event took place.
Findinguniverse.com may seem to be a good website, but how do you know that it is valid? I would try using sources that wouldn’t bring any doubt to whether or not the information is valid. I wouldn’t put all of my eggs into my basket if I was banking on only information from a website.
Using a website isn’t bad, but as your classmates allude to, you’ll want to assess the usefulness of this website. Things to consider: Who runs this website? What sort of website is it? Who is it’s audience? What’s its purpose? How reliable is the information on it? These are things to consider in discussing the context of this source.
I tried going to findinguniverse.com, and the browser said website not found. Are you sure this is the website?