A geneology of Beer

Anheuser-Busch was purchased by InBev, a Belgian-Brazilian brewery giant,  in 2008.  Before that it was the largest  American brewery company, which of course was started by some German immigrant entrepreneurs.  

It started out as a brewery owned by George Schneider in St. Louis, Missouri in 1852.  In 1860, in financial trouble, the brewery was acquired by a local pharmacist, William D'Oench and Eberhard Anheuser, a prosperous soap manufacturer. 

The company became known E. Anheuser and Company, and then the E. Anheuser company's brewing association.  

Adolphus Busch was a German immigrant and wholesaler who arrived in St. Louis from Germany in 1857.

He married Eberhard Anheuser's daughter in 1860, and then served in the civil war.  On returning to civilian life he worked for Adolphus Busch and in 1869 bought D'Oench's share of the business.  

Busch's innovation was to use pasteurization to keep beer fresh, which allowed the transport of the beer greater distances.  Visiting Europe he studied the developments in beer brewing occurring at the time.   A pilsner beer from Budweis was one that especially caught his notice.   In 1876 he introduced Budweiser, which,  along with the introduction of refrigerator cars and pasteurization   became the first national brand of beer in the US.  

Eberhard Anheuser died in 1880, after which the Adolphus Busch became company president.   The Busch Family ran the firm for the next 128 years.  The growth of the business was phenomenal, at least until Prohibition set in in the early part of the century.  In 1875, 31,000 barrels, in 1881, more than 200,000 barrels, and by 1907, 1.6 million barrels.  

During the years of prohibition, the company made low alcohol beer and no alcohol beer.  In 1908 its most successful product of the type came out, Bevo.  It also made brewer's yeast, malt extract, and ice cream.  

Over the years Anheuser-Busch has directed its advertising to the sports fan.  Consequently they owned the St. Louis Cardinals from 1953 to 1996, but certainly do not limit their advertising to the Cardinals or the National League.

This is evident at least in Chicago, where if you go to a Cubs game you will see prominent advertising for the St. Louis beer.  The most celebrated TV sportscaster for the Cubs meanwhile was Harry Caray, whose former prominence as a Cardinals sportscaster has mostly been forgotten except for those of us who remember the1960s Cardinals. 

Following the 1968 series Caray was  fired from his job there, allegedly because he was having an affair with the daughter in law of Gussie Busch. 

Besides the sports angle,  Anheuser-Busch has opened a number of theme parks over the years, including Busch Gardens, Grant's Farm, and Sea World.  AB InBev was in the process of selling them off in 2009.  

The Eagle has flown

Apart from the thirteen regional breweries in the US, there are 14 in China and one in the UK.  Anheuser Busch was involved in the Mexican brewer, Grupo Modelo, and Tsingtao in China as well.  

The takeover by InBev was basically hostile, however by 2008 members of the Busch family owned less than  5% of the firm's stock, which was less than certain other investors, such as Berkshire Hathaway.  Anheuser-Busch resisted until finally offered $70 a share for the company.  Upon regulatory approval this created the world's largest brewer  "Anheuser-Busch InBev".   After the takeover only 4 of the top executives at Anheuser-Busch remained.  To pay for the acquisition, AB InBev sold off various ancillary parts of the company, such as the theme parks, the company plane.  There was also no more free beer, no more personal executive assistants,  and there seems to be a movement under way to transfer the Anheuser Busch headquarters to New York. 

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Miller Brewing Company, like Anheuser Busch is now owned by a foreign conglomerate but in Miller's case, SAB Miller.    It is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, another heavily German city in the midwest.   The founder of the company, Frederick Miller was born Friedrich Eduard Johannes Müller in 1824 in Riedlingen, Germany.

   In 1855 he purchased the Plank Road Brewery in Milwaukee and started his brewing empire.  

Like Anheuser Busch, Miller started pasteurizing and mechanical refrigeration of its beer in the late 1880s.  This allowed for wider distribution and easier manufacturing of the beer.  They introduced their distinctive clear bottling and labeling of their "Miller High Life" beer in the early 1900s.

As with most brewers that survived prohibition, they turned to other malt products and non-alcoholic beer during the years of prohibition, resuming normal beer brewing in the 1930s following repeal of prohibition. 

In 1966 53% of the stock was sold to W.R. Grace and Company, a chemical manufacturer, who in turn sold Miller to Phillip Morris, the tobacco company now known as Altria.  In 2002 Phillip Morris sold Miller to South African Breweries, which changed its corporate appellation to "SAB Miller". 

However Phillip Morris also retained 1/3 of the stock and 1/4 of the voting rights.   In 2007 SAB Miller formed a joint venture its US operations with Molson Coors to form "Miller-Coors", based in Chicago. 

That is to say they are still separate companies but they are working together with regulatory approval to better compete with AB-InBev.    

Miller-Coors also is tasked with brewing beer for Pabst Brewing Company,

which any more is just a holding company based in Los Angeles that brews a variety of beers from now defunct breweries, including Pabst Blue Ribbon, Strohs, Olympia, Schlitz, Colt 45, Old Style, and Old Milwaukee.  

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The Valentin Blatz Brewing Company was based in Milwaukee and operated between 1851 to 1958, when it was sold to Pabst Brewing Company.  In 1959, antitrust difficulties invalidated the sale and the Blatz brewery closed.  In 1960 Pabst bought what was left of Blatz.  In 1969 G. Heileman Brewing company bought Blatz from Pabst.  In 1996 Stroh Brewing bought G. Heileman Brewing, and then later Stroh's sold its brands to Pabst again.   Pabst beers in turn are brewed by Miller-Coors.  Confused?

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Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company was once the largest beer brewer in the world.  In 1856 Joseph Schlitz took over management of a beer brewery run by August Krug in Milwaukee.

Probably rolling over in his grave during the 1970s.

  After the Chicago fire in 1871, Schlitz moved into Chicago in a big way, forming a network of "tied houses" or bars that were committed to selling Schlitz exclusively. 

In some of the old buildings around Chicago you can see the Schlitz logo in brickwork on the sides of some of these old bars, such as this one.    Schlitz and Anheuser-Busch vied for first and second place through much of the 20th century and as late as 1976. 

In order to cut costs in the early 1970s,  Schlitz altered its beer brewing methods using cheaper ingredients, high temperature fermentation, and experimented with continuous fermentation.  This pretty much destroyed the reputation of the brand, and it was sold after that as "cheap beer" and a "bargain brand".  It was subsequently sold to Stroh's which was bought by Pabst in 1999.   Since 2008 the beer has been resuscitated by reconstructing the pre-decline brewing methods of the 1960s, and re-launching the brand along with Cynthia Myers, 1968 Playboy centerfold playmate as spokesperson.   An interesting account of the "Schlitz mistake" is described here.
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Coors Brewing Company was begun in Golden, Colorado by Adolph Coors and Jacob Scheuler in 1873, with Coors buying out his partner in 1880.  During prohibition Coors produced near beer, malted milk, and other ventures such as porcelain, cement, and real estate.  

During most of its history it was a regional brewer, operating one of the world's largest breweries at Golden, Colorado and generally unavailable on the East Coast.  It was the first to use an all-aluminum can for its beer. 

Coors in a separate business  developed Herold Porcelain which specializes in mainly scientific and technical applications and is now known as CoorsTek. 

In 2005 Coors merged with Molson, the Canadian brewing company to form Molson-Coors. 

They built a brewery in the Elkton, VA make their beer more available on the east coast. 

In 1977 the brewery workers went on strike but Coors managed to break the union and workers decertified the union.   Labor unions sought to boycott Coors and cause marketing problems by persuading states to pass laws against the sale of unpasteurized beer.  Since Coors was sterile filtered rather than pasteurized, this restricted the ability of Coors to extend its market into states that enacted such laws. 

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Molson is an old firm founded in Montreal in 1786, so old that the only older Canadian firm is Hudson's Bay Company, which started with a lot of backwoodsmen going around killing small furry animals long before Canadian confederation.  Molson was started by John Molson, who acquired a small brewery and then expanded it, sensing that all those English and Irish immigrants up and down the St. Lawrence might be receptive.  

While brewing was the mainstay for the Molson company, over the years it has also branched into banking, forming the Molson Bank,

later the Bank of Montreal, and into steamboat transportation up and down the St. Lawrence valley.  In 1945 the Molson family converted their company into an LLC, which made it possible for others to own stock in the company and provided financing to build a second brewery in Toronto. It merged with Carling O'Keefe in 1989.  

John Carling started a small brewery in London, Ontario in 1840.  Eugene O'Keefe, a banker, bought a brewery in 1862.  Around 1930 E.P. Taylor started form Canadian Breweries Limited, acquiring Carling in 1930 and O'Keefe in 1934.  In 1969 it was sold to Rothmans International, a British tobacco company and was renamed Carling O'Keefe.  In 1987 it was bought by the Australian agribusiness firm Elders IXL

and merged with Molson in 1989.  Molson merged with Coors and became Molson-Coors in 2005. 

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Labatt Brewing was started in 1847 by John Kinder Labatt in London, Ontario.   It became one of the leading brands in Canada, vying for the top spot with Molson.  Labatt was purchased by Belgium's "Interbrew"

(which became InBev in 1995).  Labatt Brewing owned the Toronto Blue Jays until InBev bought the company.  Labatt was brewing Budweiser for the Canadian market since the 1980s,  even before InBev acquired the company and long before it became Anheuser Busch InBev.


Prohibition occurred in Canada too, but it was less sweeping and was something restricted to provincial and local governments generally and it didn't last as long.  Nevertheless it was destructive to the Canadian brewing industry there.    Prohibition started in Canada in 1915 with the banning of public bars in Saskatchewan and in 1916 prohibition began in Ontario and had an impact on Labatt's since it was brewed mainly in Ontario.   Even when it was illegal for sale in Canada, firms were allowed in some places to produce liquor and beer for export to the US and for medicinal and religious purposes.  Most Canadian provinces repealed their prohibition laws in the 1920s, but Prince Edward Island persisted with it until 1948.   The US of course had prohibition between 1919 and 1933, which for a number of years provided Canada with some great illicit business opportunities.

   

Labatt's and Molson are available in the US as well, and Labatt's was one of the leading brands in upstate New York which prompted the US Department of Justice to mandate changes.  Labatt's USA was sold to North American Breweries.  North American Breweries is owned by Florida Ice and Farm since 2012, and owns several regional breweries such as Genesee Brewing, and Dundee Brewing.  Florida Ice and Farm Inc. is a company based in of all places Costa Rica.  

This company has been in the beverage industry since 1912, and is also involved in food and soft drink distribution.   


Conclusion: 

I could continue forever on this topic.  Clearly there has been a lot of consolidation going on in the beer biz since the 1950s.   Foreign conglomerates from Belgium, Brazil, and South Africa with trendy corporate nicknames are the order of the day.   Variety in brands is illusory and if you think all beer tastes the same, you may be right.  No matter what you drink, it's basically conglomerate beer.