Bitter Brew: The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America's Kings of Beer - Hardcover

Knoedelseder, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062009265 ISBN 13: 9780062009265

Publisher: HarperBusiness, 2012

Synopsis

“Bitter Brew deftly chronicles the contentious succession of kings in a uniquely American dynasty. You’ll never crack open a six again without thinking of this book.”
—John Sayles, Director of Eight Men Out and author of A Moment in the Sun

The creators of Budweiser and Michelob beers, the Anheuser-Busch company is one of the wealthiest, most colorful and enduring family dynasties in the history of American commerce. In Bitter Brew, critically acclaimed journalist William Knoedelseder tells the riveting, often scandalous saga of the rise and fall of the dysfunctional Busch family—an epic tale of prosperity, profligacy, hubris, and the dark consequences of success that spans three centuries, from the open salvos of the Civil War to the present day.

About this title

About the Author

William Knoedelseder was a longtime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and he has been a television news executive for Knight Ridder, Fox, and the USA Network. His books include Stiffed: A True Story of MCA, the Music Business, and the Mafia, and I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-Up Comedy's Golden Era. He lives in Woodland Hills, California.

From the Back Cover

The engrossing, often scandalous saga of one of the wealthiest, longest-lasting, and most colorful family dynasties in the history of American commerce—a cautionary tale about prosperity, profligacy, hubris, and the blessings and dark consequences of success.

From countless bar signs, stadium scoreboards, magazine ads, TV commercials, and roadside billboards, the name Budweiser has been burned into the American consciousness as the "King of Beers." Over a span of more than a century, the company behind it, Anheuser-Busch, has attained legendary status. A jewel of the American Industrial Revolution, in the hands of its founders—the sometimes reckless and always boisterous Busch family of St. Louis, Missouri—it grew into one of the most fearsome marketing machines in modern times. In Bitter Brew, critically acclaimed journalist Knoedelseder paints a fascinating portrait of immense wealth and power accompanied by a barrelful of scandal, heartbreak, tragedy, and untimely death.

This engrossing, vivid narrative captures the Busch saga through five generations. At the same time, it weaves a broader story of American progress and decline over the past 150 years. It's a cautionary tale of prosperity, hubris, and loss.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Bitter Brew

By William Knoedelseder

HarperCollins Publishers

Copyright ©2012 William Knoedelseder
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-06-200926-5

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

"BEER IS BACK!"

A crowd began gathering at the brewery gates in the early eveningof April 7, 1933, milling around near the intersection of Broadwayand Pestalozzi Streets on the south side of the city near the river. Asthe hands of the lighted clock on the Gothic Brew House towerapproached midnight, the number of people swelled to an estimated35,000, standing shoulder to shoulder for blocks around, growingincreasingly boisterous in anticipation: America's thirteen yearprohibition against the sale of beer was about to end.

"Happy days are here again, the skies above are clear again,"they roared out in a raucous chorus, "Let us sing a song of cheeragain."

Similar scenes played out in smaller scale all around town.Over at Kyum Brothers Café at Ninth and Pine, patrons sangIrving Berlin's teetotaler's lament "The Near Future" - "How dry Iam ..."- while hundreds of customers at the German Houserestaurant joined in an old Deutschland drinking song,"Was Wilst du Haben?" (What will you have?).

Inside the iron gates of the giant brewery complex, 300 truckspressed up to the loading dock, while 1,200 more lined up bumper-to-bumperon the street outside, ready to take their place. Fromwithin the plant the rumble of machinery signaled that the longhibernating giant was now fully awake, as seemingly endlesscolumns of brown Budweiser bottles, with their famous red-and-whitelabels, clattered along snaking conveyor belts to be packedin wooden crates proudly stamped, "Property of Anheuser-Busch,St. Louis Mo."

On the bottling plant floor, brewery president August A. BuschSr. and his two sons, Adolphus III and August Jr., posed forphotographers as they packed a twenty-four count crate destined forPresident Franklin D. Roosevelt, who'd swept into office in - Novemberon the promise of a "new deal" for America that includedthe repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, which banned themanufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States.Full repeal would not come for eight more months because itrequired another constitutional amendment and thus neededratification by the legislatures in thirty-six (three-fourths) of theforty-eight states. But FDR had already made good on his campaignpromise to the nation's brewers. On March 4, nine days after hisinauguration, he asked Congress to immediately modify theso-called Volstead Act, which had set the maximum legal alcoholiccontent of beverages at .05 percent, to allow the sale of beer witha 3.2 percent alcohol. "I deem action at this time to be of highestimportance," he said. Both the House and the Senate quicklycomplied, setting April 8 as the date when the sale of beer couldresume.

The Busches had been preparing for this moment ever sincethe election, spending more than $7 million to refit and modernizetheir plant, purchase supplies, and gather the ingredients forthe brewing process, notably the expensive Bohemian hops theyconsidered crucial to the character of Budweiser, which had beenthe No. 1 selling beer in the world when America's state lawmakersshut off the tap.

Eager to reestablish their brand as the "King of Beers," thecompany's board of directors had authorized August Jr., thesuperintendent of the brewery, to buy several teams of Clydesdaledraft horses "for advertising purposes." Gussie, as he was called,purchased sixteen of the massive 2,000-pound animals for $21,000at the Kansas City stockyards. He also found two wooden wagonsfrom back in the days when the company employed eight hundredteams of horses to deliver its beer, and set about having themrestored to the exacting standards of his late grandfather, breweryfounder Adolphus Busch, who liked to conduct weekly inspectionsfrom a viewing stand, with his son August at his side as all the driverspassed in parade, hoping to win the $25 prize for the best keptteam and wagon.

Gussie's wagon restoration was conducted in secrecy behindlocked doors in the brewery's famed Circular Stable because hewanted to surprise his father with this majestic symbol of thecompany's history and the old man's youth. Gussie even tracked downBilly Wales, who had been the company's best eight-horse driverfor years prior to Prohibition, when he left to work in the Chicagostockyards because he couldn't bear to be away from horses.When all was ready, Gussie and his brother Adolphus III calledtheir father out of his office, telling him they wanted to show hima new automobile. Instead, as they walked across the street towardthe stable, the big doors swung open and the first team of perfectlymatched Clydesdales - each with white stockings and feathers, awhite blaze on its face, and white ribbons braided into its mane andtail - high-stepped into view, pulling a bright red brass-trimmedwagon with Billy Wales sitting up in the driver's seat. Speechless,the old man wept at the sight.

And now, finally, the big moment had arrived. A brass bandwas playing outside the brewery as the crowd counted down theBrew House clock. At the stroke of midnight, the plant whistlesshrieked, setting off widespread jubilation, with cars honking andbells ringing all across the city. At 12:01, beer trucks began rollingthrough the gates and onto the streets. Sirens wailed as policecars escorted the first truck to the St. Louis airport, where one caseof Budweiser was loaded onto a Ford Trimotor plane bound forWashington, D.C. and President Roosevelt, and another was putaboard a flight to Newark, New Jersey, for former New York Governor,Al Smith, a hero to August Sr. because of his anti-Prohibitionpresidential campaign against Herbert Hoover in 1928. A six-horsehitch of Clydesdales had been sent ahead to Newark, New Jersey,where it now waited on the tarmac to carry the precious cargo onthe last leg of the journey.

In the train yard of the Anheuser-Busch complex, newly hiredworkers loaded cases of bottled Budweiser onto 130 freight carswhile the brewery's fleet of bright red trucks fanned out throughthe city, making priority deliveries to the Jefferson, Mayfair,Lennox, and Chase Park Plaza hotels, where crowds of well-heeledpatrons waited. In the lobby of the bottling plant, Gussie Buschstepped to a microphone that had been set up by the fledgling CBSRadio Network for a nationally broadcast report on the celebrationsgoing on in three "beer cities"—St. Louis, Chicago, and Milwaukee'shis ailing father listened to the radio broadcast at his home,Gussie addressed the nation for the first time:

"April seventh is here, and it is a real occasion for thankfulness,marking a new found freedom for the American people, made possibleby the wisdom, foresight and courage of a great president andthe cooperation of an understanding Congress. There is a song inour hearts: it's 'Happy Days Are Here Again.' And they are hereagain," he said, "for out of a maze of confusion and anxiety hascome a beacon light to guide the way to better times. Happy, gratefulmen are back to work after what seemed an endless idleness."

Reading from a script he surely had not written but every wordof which he certainly believed, Gussie went on for more than twominutes, linking the country's economic future to that of the brewingindustry. "Once again freight cars are rolling in, loaded withgrain from American farms, bottles and cases and various equipment,as well as coal and supplies from industries long suffering fromthe Depression, while others soon will be rolling out and onward,contributing their share toward the rehabilitation of industry,agriculture, and transportation." With brewers and politiciansnow working together, he said, "a new and greater era looms on thehorizon for our people, one that will result in a happier and moresecure existence for all of us."

He closed with a sign-off that would be made famous someyears later by newsman Edward R. Murrow, "Good night andgood luck," then walked over to a VIP table and announced, "Beeris now being served."

Indeed it was. Over the next eight hours, America's beer citieswent on a bender unlike anything ever seen before, not even after theArmistice in 1918. Back at Kyum Brothers Café, a local politiciannamed Larry McDaniel squeezed his ample belly behind the bar,raised a ten-cent glass of golden liquid, and hollered to the cheeringcrowd, "This is Democratic beer." At 2:30 a.m., four apparentlydemocratically inclined beer lovers attempted to hijack an Anheuser-Buschtruck but were interrupted by the police. By breakfast time,Anheuser-Busch had moved the equivalent of 3,588 barrels out of itsplant, and the citizens of St. Louis had literally drunk the town dry;there wasn't a drop of beer left anywhere outside the brewery.

The situation was the same in all the big brewing towns, as demandoutstripped all capacity for supply, prompting Gussie Buschto make a public plea for moderation. "We are asking people tohold back their orders," he said. "I believe they are for not less thanfive million cases. Our Pacific Coast division has ordered 74,000cases, and a man in Seattle has asked us to send him a seventy-fivecar trainload as soon as we can." In what would become a recurringtheme in the decades to come, he explained, "The reason the supplyis so limited is that beer must be thoroughly aged. This processtakes more than three months, and cannot be hurried even underpresent exceptional conditions."

In New York on the morning of April 8, thousands gatheredto watch as the Clydesdales clopped through the Holland Tunnelinto Manhattan and down Fifth Avenue to the Empire State Building,where Al Smith was waiting with a live radio microphone.

In Washington, the White House was inundated with shipmentsfrom breweries all over the country, but Anheuser-Busch's hugebay horses with their white-feathered hooves caused a sensationwhen they pranced proudly along Pennsylvania Avenue with theirpackage for the president.

The Clydesdales were featured prominently in the company'sfull-page newspaper ads the following day, along with heroicallyrendered images of American male archetypes - the Farmer, theLaborer, the Hunter, the Athlete. "Beer is Back!" the ads proclaimed,expounding on the same patriotic, Depression-busting themeas Gussie's radio address the night before:

Beer is back. But is that all? No. To cheer, to quicken Americanlife with hospitality of old, the friendly glass of goodfellowship is back. Sociability and good living return to theirown, once more to mingle with memories and sentiments ofyesterday. America looks forward, and feels better.

No one felt better than the Busches, of course, because no onehad more to gain - or regain - from the repeal. Before Prohibition,they had been to beer what Rockefeller was to oil and Carnegie tosteel, and the story of their rise in America rivaled that of the mostfamous robber barons of the Gilded Age.

Adolphus Busch, the second youngest of twenty-two childrenborn to a well-to-do wine merchant in Kastel, Germany, arrivedin the United States in 1857 at the age of eighteen, in themidst of a massive influx of German immigrants. More than amillion of them had arrived in the previous decade, a "Teutonic tide,"in the words of one historian. Unlike the Irish, who were pouringinto the country desperately impoverished, the German émigréstended to be middle-class liberals seeking social and economicfreedom following the failure of a political revolution in 1848. Theycame to America with money to spend and migrated inland, withhuge numbers of them settling in an area of the Mississippi Rivervalley that became known as the German triangle, the points ofwhich were Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis.

Adolphus landed in New Orleans and traveled up the MississippiRiver to St. Louis, where the German-born population hadswelled from a mere sixteen families in 1833 to fully one quarter ofthe city's 161,000 residents the day he stepped off a steamboat. AJune 1857 editorial in the newspaper the Republican described howthe city had been transformed by his countrymen: "A sudden andalmost unexpected wave of emigration swept over us, and we foundthe town inundated with breweries, beer houses, sausage shops,Apollo Gardens, Sunday concerts, Swiss cheese and Hollandherrings. We found it almost necessary to learn the German languagebefore we could ride in an omnibus, or buy a pair of breeches, andabsolutely necessary to drink beer at a Sunday concert."

St. Louis even had a German-language newspaper. TheMississippi Hansel-Zeitung reported in detail on the operations of thecity's thirty to forty breweries, which were producing more than60,000 barrels a year, or about 18 million five-cent glasses of beer,all of which were consumed locally.

Adolphus worked for two years as a clerk on a riverboat. Whenhis father died in 1859, he used his inheritance to buy into a brewerysupply business, forming Wattenberg, Busch & Company. Oneof his early customers was Eberhard Anheuser, a prosperous soapmanufacturer who had come into ownership of the failed BavarianBrewery through a defaulted $90,000 loan, and was trying tomake it profitable.

On March 7, 1861, three days after the inauguration of AbrahamLincoln, Adolphus married Anheuser's daughter Lilly in St. Louis'sHoly Ghost German Evangelical Lutheran Church. It's unlikelythat Anheuser's beer was served at the wedding reception; itwas so foul tasting that tavern owners were accustomed to patronsspitting it back across the bar at them. Anheuser, struggling to sell4,000 barrels a year, soon ran up a sizable debt to his son-in-law'ssupply house. In 1865, after a four-month stint in the Union Army,Adolphus went to work for his father-in-law, and by 1873 theE. Anheuser & Co. brewery was profitably producing 27,000 barrelsa year. Eberhard rewarded Adolphus in 1879 by making him apartner in the rechristened Anheuser-Busch Brewing Associationand allowed him to purchase a minority stake in the company,amounting to 238 of the 480 shares of stock. When Eberhard died in 1880,he divided his stock among his five adult children. WithLilly's 116 shares added to his own 238, Adolphus controlled amajority, and his own destiny.

One of the first things he did as president of his own brewerywas to acquire, through a close friend and local restaurant ownernamed Carl Conrad, the recipe for a beer that for years had beenproduced by monks in a small Bohemian village named Budweis.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Bitter Brew by William Knoedelseder. Copyright © 2012 by William Knoedelseder. Excerpted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperBusiness
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062009265
• ISBN 13: 9780062009265
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 416