History
It was made in San Marcos before the Alamo Brewing Company of San Antonio in 1874, the company was purchased by Anheuser-Busch in 1895, when it was housed in the Old Lone Star Brewery located on 200 West Jones Avenue. The original Lone Star Bottling Works opened in San Antonio in the 1890s, and by 1903 was selling 65,000 barrels of beer annually.
With the end of Prohibition in 1933, a new brewery under the name Sabinas Brewing Company was constructed at 600 Lone Star Boulevard and operated under the Sabinas name until 1939. The company then operated under name to the Champion Brewing Company until 1940, when it was purchased by the Muchlebach Brewing Company of Kansas City, Missouri. The company rebranded itself as the Lone Star Brewing Company and began officially producing Lone Star Beer that year. [1] The brewery also produced Lone Star Light, low-calorie Lime Lager (1970), and Brut Super Premium (1969).
In 1940, brewer Peter Kreil from Munich created the formula for the first beer to actually be called Lone Star beer. In 1949, under the leadership of Harry Jersig, Lone Star went public. By 1960, the brewery had 651 employees and by 1965, annual sales exceeded 1 million barrels.
In 1956, the Lone Star Brewery purchased the Buckhorn Saloon and Museum collection. Harry Jersig, president of the brewery and a friend of the Friedrich's, continued to add to the collection and had a special building erected on the Lone Star grounds to house the collection.
In the 1970s, Lone Star's sales benefited from Jerry Retzloff, former marketing and promotions manager for Lone Star Beer and his close association with Willie Nelson, the Austin music scene and their Giant Armadillo. The beer is mentioned frequently in the title track of Red Steagall's 1976 album "Lone Star Beer and Bob Wills Music".
Olympia Brewing Co. of Washington bought Lone Star in 1976, and it changed hands again in 1983 when Wisconsin's G. Heileman bought Olympia.
Detroit-based Stroh Brewery Co. then bought Heileman and closed the San Antonio brewery in 1996, moving beer production to Longview, Texas, and signaling the end of San Antonio as a major brewing town. In the 1990s, Lone Star introduced Lone Star Ice and Lone Star Dry for a short period of time. [2]
Milwaukee-based Pabst bought most of the Stroh brands, including Lone Star, in 1999, and began brewing Lone Star at the San Antonio Pearl Brewery to great fanfare. In 1999, the company began to sponsor Texas singers and musicians, such as Two Tons of Steel, with the beer's "It's a Texas Thing" advertising campaign. [2] In 2000, the Pearl Brewery was closed because it was outdated and would have been too expensive to continue to operate or to bring up to date. Production of Lone Star is currently contracted out to non-Pabst-owned breweries (e.g. Miller Brewing Company in Fort Worth).
Pabst Blue Ribbon, commonly abbreviated PBR, is an American lager beer sold by Pabst Brewing Company, established in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1844 and currently based in San Antonio. Originally called Best Select, and then Pabst Select, the current name comes from the blue ribbons tied around the bottle’s neck between 1882 and 1916.
Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company is an American brewery based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was once the largest producer of beer in the United States. Its namesake beer, Schlitz, was known as "The beer that made Milwaukee famous" and was advertised with the slogan "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer". Schlitz first became the largest beer producer in the US in 1902 and enjoyed that status at several points during the first half of the 20th century, exchanging the title with Anheuser-Busch multiple times during the 1950s.
The Rainier Brewing Company was an American brewery based in Seattle, Washington. It brewed Rainier Beer, a popular brand in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Although Rainier was founded in 1884, the Seattle site had been brewing beer since 1878. The beer is no longer brewed in Seattle, nor is the company owned locally. After a series of ownership transfers starting in the 1970s, the company was sold to Stroh's and then to Pabst Brewing Company by the late 1990s. The brewery was closed by Pabst in 1999 and sold, while Rainier beer continues to be sold by Pabst.
The Stroh Brewery Company was a beer brewery in Detroit, Michigan. In addition to its own Stroh's brand, the company produced or bought the rights to several other brands including Goebel, Schaefer, Schlitz, Augsburger, Erlanger, Old Style, Lone Star, Old Milwaukee, Red River, and Signature, as well as manufacturing Stroh's Ice Cream. The company was taken over and broken up in 2000, but some of its brands continued to be made by the new owners. The Stroh's brand is currently owned and marketed by Pabst Brewing Company, except in Canada where the Stroh brands are owned by Sleeman Breweries.
The Pabst Brewing Company is an American company that dates its origins to a brewing company founded in 1844 by Jacob Best and was, by 1889, named after Frederick Pabst. It is currently a holding company which contracts the brewing of over two dozen brands of beer and malt liquor: these include its own flagship Pabst Blue Ribbon, as well as brands from many now-defunct breweries.
The Olympia Brewing Company was a brewery in the northwest United States, located in Tumwater, Washington, near Olympia. Founded in 1896 by Leopold Friederich Schmidt, it was bought by G. Heileman Brewing Company in 1983. Through a series of consolidations, it was acquired by Pabst Brewing Company in 1999; the Tumwater brewery was closed in 2003.
Lucky Lager is an American lager with U.S. brewing and distribution rights held by the Pabst Brewing Company. Originally launched in 1934 by San Francisco-based General Brewing Company, Lucky Lager grew to be one of the prominent beers of the Western United States during the 1950s and 1960s. In 2019, Pabst announced that the beer brand would be revived and would be brewed by 21st Amendment Brewery, based in San Leandro.
Falls City Brewing Company was based in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. The company operated from 1905 until 1978. After the company closed the Falls City brand was purchased by differing groups of investors over the years.
National Bohemian Beer, colloquially Natty Boh, is an American lager originating from Baltimore, Maryland. It was first brewed in 1885 by the National Brewing Company, but was eventually purchased by Pabst Brewing Company.
The G. Heileman Brewing Company of La Crosse, Wisconsin, United States, was a brewer that operated from 1858 to 1996. It was ultimately acquired by Stroh's. From 1872 until its acquisition, the brewery bore the family name of its co-founder and brewer Gottlieb Heileman.
The Pearl Brewing Company was an American brewery established in 1883 in downtown San Antonio, Texas, United States. In 1985, Pearl's parent company purchased the Pabst Brewing Company and assumed the Pabst name.
The Valentin Blatz Brewing Company was an American brewery based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It produced Blatz Beer from 1851 until 1959, when the label was sold to Pabst Brewing Company.
Hudepohl Brewing Company is a brewery established in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1885 by founder Ludwig Hudepohl II. Hudepohl was the son of Ludwig Hudepohl who emigrated from Malgarten, Kingdom of Hannover, in 1838. Ludwig II had worked in the surgical tool business before starting his brewery. Hudepohl combined with Schoenling Brewing Company in 1986. Today, the Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewing Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Christian Moerlein Brewing Company.
Rheingold Brewery, also referred to as Rheingold Breweries, or Liebmann Breweries, was the producer and marketer of Rheingold Beer from 1883 until 1987. This article is about both the brewery and its primary brand “Rheingold,” which has been sold by other companies intermittently since Rheingold Brewery was ended.
Johann Gottlieb Heileman was the founder of the G. Heileman Brewing Company in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Heileman founded the brewery in 1858. His business strategy focused on producing the best local beer, rather than expanding nationwide like his company's contemporary Anheuser-Busch.
The Falstaff Brewing Corporation was an American brewery located in St. Louis, Missouri. With roots in the 1838 Lemp Brewery of St. Louis, the company was renamed after the Shakespearean character Sir John Falstaff in 1903. Production peaked in 1965 with 7,010,218 barrels brewed and then dropped 70 percent in the next 10 years. While its smaller labels linger on today, its main label Falstaff Beer went out of production in 2005. The rights to the brand are owned by Pabst Brewing Company.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has one major brewery and dozens of microbreweries, and is home to several iconic beer brands from a variety of brewers. It has had an association with beer throughout its history, with the brewing industry getting its start prior to its official founding as a city and was nationally recognized as such by the end of the 19th century. This heritage can be found explicitly in its Major League Baseball team, the Milwaukee Brewers, and on recognizable beer brands such as Old Milwaukee and Milwaukee's Best. This recognition of Milwaukee as a brewing hub dates back to the early 20th century, and boasted the world's largest brewing capacity as late as 1981. The city is nationally recognized with the nickname "Brew City" due to its nearly two centuries of brewing heritage from multiple past major brewers including Miller Brewing Company, Pabst Brewing Company, and Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. Today, through the ownership of MillerCoors, the city's largest brewery produces 10 million barrels of beer annually.
The 1981 Schlitz strike was a labor strike involving approximately 700 brewery workers of the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The strike began June 1, 1981 after the labor contract between Schlitz and the local union expired without a replacement. The strike came at a time when the company was still recovering from financial difficulties it had sustained in the years prior. After almost two months of striking, the company announced that it would be closing its Milwaukee brewery in an effort to stay competitive and reduce excess production capacity. The plant closed on September 30, and Schlitz was acquired by the Stroh Brewery Company the following year.
1884 Lone Star Brewery, 200 West Jones Avenue, San Antonio, TX
1933 Lone Star Brewery, 600 Lone Star Boulevard, San Antonio, TX
Lone Star Beer Bottle
