Vaclav Humel, a local merchant, was president. In addition to brewing the beer, Medlin was also the brewery's manager and treasurer. Medlin, after all, was one of the very few brewers in the city who had learned his art in the world-famous brewing city of Pilsen, Bohemia. Known as the Medlin Pilsener Brewing Company, the brewery's primary brand was called Extra Pilsener Beer. Medlin's new enterprise began production in 1892. Here, Medlin established the 'Wenzl Medlin Bohemian Brewery.' Three years later, Medlin sold the brewery to his manager, Simon Fishel, but continued to work as brewmaster there until leaving to establish the Pilsener brewery.

In 1886, he came to Cleveland and purchased the brewery at the corner of Pearl (West 25th) Street and Vega Avenue, which had been operated for a number of years by William Aenis & Company. Medlin had come to America in 1866 and, for the next twenty years, was employed in various breweries and malteries in Chicago, Milwaukee, Buffalo, and Jersey City. The history of the Pilsener Brewing Company began in 1892 when Bohemian immigrant Wenzl Medlin established a brewery on Gordon (West 65th) Street near Clark. Its maker, the Pilsener Brewing Company, occupied an enormous complex at the corner of West 65th Street and Clark Avenue, fondly known as 'Pilsener Square.' Although most of the brewery still survives, it stands quietly in decay and gives little sense of the high regard in which Clevelanders once held the beer brewed within its walls. Dubbed 'Pride Of Cleveland' (not by the brewery, but by its patrons), the venerable brand was the city's top selling beer at various points in its history. Beer still lingers in the memories of Clevelanders. Even today, many years after its disappearance from bar tops and beer stores, P.O.C.

The phrase 'P.O.C.' was a cornerstone in Cleveland's brewing industry for more than a half-century. Pilsener Brewing Company, Cleveland, OhioĮxcerpt from the book, Breweries of Cleveland, by Carl H.

Pilsner beer origin