Category: Uncategorized

    I first met Diane Fall (Hankins) in early 1982 when she visited me at my distributorship headquarters in  South Texas.  I had responded to an ad she had place in Modern Brewery Age searching for distributors to handle Warsteiner.  We had dinner, and I committed to distributing Warsteiner in my area. That evening […]

      When I was a young District Sales Manager for Lone Star Brewing Company, I had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with Harry Jersig, Chairman and founder of the brewery.  He grew up with Lyndon B. Johnson in South Texas and they were friends.  On numerous occasions, Harry mentioned […]

  Albert Cramer – Warsteiner       Some years ago a colleague of mine who had been in the beer industry for 20 years, left the profession to go into real estate.  He had been employed in his new trade for about 12 months when he called me.  We talked for a while and […]

      Over the years many parts of the beer business have changed, but one area that didn’t even exist when I first started in this industry is the area of category management, which has been created partly due to the changing retail landscape. Other drivers in the creation of category management have been […]

    One of the great advantages of working for a German brewery is that the quality of the beer is never, ever questioned. As most of you know, all beer brewed in Germany comes under the basic law of 1516 called the “German Purity Law,” or the “Reinheitsgebot.” The beer does not have any […]

      At the end of WWII and the fall of Germany, the allies, looking for beer, allowed only one brewery to reopen during that time.  The brewery was Becks. While the original intention was to have beer for the soldiers, it turned out to be a great marketing tool for the brand. When […]

    If you’ve been following the Lance Armstrong story over the past weeks, you know that he now has lost all his sponsors including ABI where he had been hired as a spokesperson for Michelob Ultra. The fact that ABI was using Armstrong reminded me of all the athletes and celebrities who have, or […]

If you’ve been around the industry for a while you either have a story or you have heard one of many stories of how Coors Light got its name, “The Silver Bullet.” I have heard dozens of stories from the brewery and wholesalers from coast to coast regarding how the name came into being. Well, […]

    Back in the early 80’s, on a hot summer afternoon, I was getting in a quick 9 when an elderly man drove up in his cart wanted to play in with me. We started talking, and I learned he had been the first Pearl beer distributor in the Texas Rio Grande Valley after […]