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In the summer of 1996, while working at Gambrinus, I was asked to spend two days with Andrew Oland, who was a member of the family who owns Moosehead in St. Johns.  Andrew at the time was getting his MBA at Harvard, and his summer assignment was to research US beer importers.  Moosehead was looking […]

Around the early 1990s, the golf industry, in anticipation of the soon retiring waves of baby boomers, assuming the boomers would have ample money and free time, would take up golf by the thousands.  Investors started building hundreds of new golf courses.  Many of them were designed by architects or professional golfers who got paid […]

In the early 1970s, the Julius Schepps Co., a wine and spirits company had a small beer division located north of downtown Dallas.  The Schepps beer division represented Lone Star Brewing Co., Hamm’s Brewing Co., and Jax Brewing Co., all of which at that time were independent standalone breweries.  The distributor, the Julius Schepps Co […]

The beer industry, like all industries, is defined by key events which take place over decades that result in the evolution of industry changes.  Philip Morris buying the Miller Brewing Co. and changing how beer was marketed was one of these events.  As mentioned in pervious blogs, Philip Morris used their cigarette marketing knowledge, supported by […]

Texas Stadium was built around 1972 and was the home of the Dallas Cowboys until Jerry Jones built what is now called AT&T Stadium.  AT&T Stadium is located in Arlington, Texas, about half way between Dallas and Ft. Worth.  Texas Stadium was built-in the Dallas suburb of Irving which, at the time, was dry!  Because of […]

Budweiser, The King of Beers, Schlitz, The Beer that made Milwaukee Famous, Miller, The Champagne of Bottle Beer, Coors, America’s Fine Light Beer, and Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.  These were the five national premium brands that for many years dominated the US beer market. The beginning of the end of these brands dominating the market […]

In Texas, it was CR Goodman; in Florida, it was Fresh; in Arizona, it was Little Guy Distributing; in Washington, it was Click; and in Illinois, it was Windy City.  All of these companies became, for different reasons, specialty beer distributors/importers.  None of these companies represented either AB or MC. Each of these distributors sold […]

Oettinger Brauerei is the largest brewery located in Germany with sales of over six million hectoliters annually.  They do this in a very unusually way, they do not advertise and they sell directly to stores (no wholesalers) which can be done in Germany. The brewery is highly automated with very few employees and their sales […]

  In the late 1940s, Coors entered Texas by opening El Paso and Amarillo.  Further expansion did not take place until the mid-1960s when Coors moved into the remainder of West Texas and the DFW market.  The success of the two original markets, El Paso holding a 60%+ share, allowed Coors to appoint new exclusive […]

Sometime between the summer of 1972 and 1973, during one of many trips to my friends’ favorite watering hole, we met John Ahern.  The bar, The Lyon’s Pub, was located just across Central Expressway from SMU, making it a big hangout for college students.  The Lyon’s Pub was also just one block off Greenville Ave., […]