Falstaff Brewery
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The Falstaff Brewing Corporation was a major American
brewery A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of bee ...
located in
St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
,
Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
. With roots in the 1838
Lemp Brewery The Lemp Brewery was a beer brewing company established in 1840 in St. Louis, Missouri that was acquired by the Griesedieck Beverage Company in 1920, which subsequently became the Falstaff Brewing Corporation. The brewery complex property consis ...
of St. Louis, the company was renamed after the
Shakespearean William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
character Sir
John Falstaff Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays ''Henry IV, Part 1'' and ''Henry IV, Par ...
in 1903. Production peaked in 1965 with 7,010,218
barrels A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, u ...
brewed and then dropped 70% in the next 10 years. While its smaller
labels A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product, on which is written or printed information or symbols about the product or item. Information printed d ...
linger on today, its main
label A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product, on which is written or printed information or symbols about the product or item. Information printed ...
Falstaff Beer went out of production in 2005."Falstaff Brewing Corporation"
, Retrieved 4/1/2008.
The rights to the brand are currently owned by
Pabst Brewing Company 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 ...
.


History

Falstaff Brewing's earliest form was as the
Lemp Brewery The Lemp Brewery was a beer brewing company established in 1840 in St. Louis, Missouri that was acquired by the Griesedieck Beverage Company in 1920, which subsequently became the Falstaff Brewing Corporation. The brewery complex property consis ...
, founded in 1840 in St. Louis by German immigrant Johann Adam Lemp (1798–1862). Over the next 80 years, the Lemp family was devastated by personal tragedies as it built its beer empire over the
caves of St. Louis The Caves of St. Louis have been important in the economic development of St. Louis, Missouri, United States. The city was built upon a complex of natural caves which were once used for the lagering of beer by early German immigrant brewers. Cave ...
. It adopted its famous "Blue Ribbon" moniker quickly, as an 1898 trial proved when it took the Storz Brewing Company of Omaha to court for tying blue ribbons on its bottles and won. The
Lemp Brewery The Lemp Brewery was a beer brewing company established in 1840 in St. Louis, Missouri that was acquired by the Griesedieck Beverage Company in 1920, which subsequently became the Falstaff Brewing Corporation. The brewery complex property consis ...
company closed in 1921 and sold its
Falstaff Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays '' Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Part 2'', w ...
brand to the brewery then named Griesedieck Beverage Company. Griesedieck Beverage was renamed the Falstaff Corporation and survived
Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...
by selling
near beer Low-alcohol beer is beer with little or no alcohol content and aims to reproduce the taste of beer while eliminating (or at least reducing) the inebriating effects of standard alcoholic brews. Most low-alcohol beers are lagers, but there are some ...
, soft drinks, and cured hams under the Falstaff name.Tremblay, V.J. (2005). ''The U.S. Brewing Industry: Data and Economic Analysis''. MIT Press. p. 96.Mittleman, A. ''Brewing Battles: History of American Beer''. Algora Publishing. p. 110. Falstaff Brewing was a publicly traded company on the
New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed ...
, which was rare for a brewing industry in which families closely guarded their ownership. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the first two cases of beer made by the brewery were airlifted from nearby Curtiss Stienberg Airport to the governors of Illinois and Missouri. After Prohibition, the company expanded greatly. Its first acquisition was the 1936 purchase of the
Krug Brewery __NOTOC__ Krug may refer to: * Krug (surname), people with this surname * Cossack krugs, the assemblies of several Cossack hosts. * Champagne Krug, a prestige brand of Champagne * 2K11 Krug or Lyulev 9M8 Krug, a Soviet and now Russian medium-rang ...
in Omaha, which made Falstaff the first brewery to operate plants in two different states. Other facilities bought in this period included the National Brewing Company of
New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
in 1937; the Berghoff Brewing Company of Fort Wayne,
Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
, in 1954; the Galveston-Houston Brewing Company of
Galveston Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Ga ...
,
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
, in 1956;
San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...
in 1952-1973; and the Mitchell Brewing Company of
El Paso El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the s ...
in 1956. By the 1960s, Falstaff was the third-largest brewer in America, with several plants nationwide. The 1965 acquisition of the
Narragansett Brewing Company The Narragansett Brewing Company ( ) is an American brewery founded in Cranston, Rhode Island in 1890. Founders included John H. Fehlberg, Augustus F. Borchandt, Herman G. Possner, George M. Gerhard, Constand A. Moeller, and Jacob Wirth. Narrag ...
of
Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...
proved disastrous, with the state government of
Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...
pursuing an antitrust case against them. The Supreme Court found in Falstaff's favor in '' United States v. Falstaff Brewing Corp.'' (1973), but the company never recovered. Fortunes declined throughout the 1970s as consolidation swept the beer industry. The company was bought in April 1975 by the S&P Company, owned by
Paul Kalmanovitz Paul Kalmanovitz (1905–1987) was a millionaire brewing and real estate magnate best known for owning all or part of several national breweries and their products, including Falstaff Brewing Company and Pabst Brewing Company. Most of the Kalma ...
. In the interim,
Chicago White Sox The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and ...
announcer
Harry Caray Harry Christopher Caray (; March 1, 1914 – February 18, 1998) was an American radio and television sportscaster. During his career he called the play-by-play for five Major League Baseball teams, beginning with 25 years of calling the games ...
endorsed the brew in live TV commercials, many times with a glass of beer in his hand and sipping it. Kalmanovitz also owns General Brewing,
Pabst Pabst is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Adolf Pabst (1899–1990), American mineralogist and geologist *Daniel Pabst (1826–1910), American furniture maker *Frederick Pabst (1836–1904), American brewer *Georg Wilhelm ...
,
Pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...
, Olympia, and Stroh's. That year, the company ranked 11th in sales nationally, and the original St. Louis plant was closed. The brewery Falstaff bought in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
in 1971 was closed just a few years later, in 1978. Subsequent closures included New Orleans in 1979, Cranston and Galveston in 1981, and Omaha in 1983. The Vancouver, Washington, brewery that began producing Falstaff in 1975 closed in 1985, with the entire operation relocated to
Zhaoqing Zhaoqing (), alternately romanized as Shiuhing, is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province, China. As of the 2020 census, its population was 4,113,594, with 1,553,109 living in the built-up (or metro) area made of Duanzhou, Dinghu ...
, China, and reopened there as a Pabst brewery. After the 1990 closing of the last Falstaff brewery in Fort Wayne, the brand name became a licensed property of Pabst, which continued to produce Falstaff beer through other breweries. Selling only 1,468 barrels of Falstaff in 2004, Pabst discontinued production of Falstaff in May 2005."History of brewing in St. Louis"
, Schlafly Beer. Retrieved 4/1/2008.
File:Falstaff Building New Orleans 2012.jpg, Falstaff Brewery building, New Orleans File:Falstaff Beer sign detail, Joey Ks New Orleans LA June 2018 Old Falstaff Sign (cropped).jpg, Vintage Falstaff Beer sign


See also

*
History of beer Beer is one of the oldest drinks humans have produced. The first chemically confirmed barley beer dates back to the 5th millennium BC in modern-day Iran, and was recorded in the written history of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and spread throug ...
*
List of defunct consumer brands This is a list of defunct consumer brands which are no longer made and usually no longer mass-marketed to consumers. Brands in this list may still be made, but are only made in modest quantities and/or limited runs as a nostalgic or retro style i ...
*
List of defunct breweries in the United States At the end of 2017, there were total 7,450 breweries in the United States, including 7,346 craft breweries subdivided into 2,594 brewpubs, 4,522 microbreweries, 230 regional craft breweries and 104 large/non-craft breweries. The following is a pa ...


References


Further reading

* * * * * * * {{Authority control Food and drink companies established in 1903 Beer brewing companies based in St. Louis Defunct drink brands Defunct companies based in Missouri Pabst Brewing Company Food and drink companies disestablished in 2005 Defunct brewery companies of the United States 1903 establishments in Missouri 2005 disestablishments in Missouri