Beer in Movies – The Shawshank Redemption

Released in 1994, The Shawshank Redemption tells the story of an intelligent banker named Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) who is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, and sentenced to 2 life terms in Shawshank prison.  Once there, he meets Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman) with whom he begins a friendship with along with Red’s circle of inmate friends.  The movie is filled with themes of man’s attempts to find hope and dignity in an impossible situation; which Andy finds himself in when he’s pulled into service by Warden Samuel Norton who uses Andy’s expert banking skills to launder money Norton is receiving for using the prison inmates as skilled labor in the public sector.
The movie has a couple elements that make the it note worthy.  First, it was based on a novella by Steven King entitled, “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” that was published in his 1982, “Different Seasons” collection.  Also the movie began what I call, “the Morgan Freeman” narration.  The scenes of the movie are tied together by a voice-over performed by Freeman’s character Red.  Freeman’s deep, non-wavering voice throughout the movie has become iconic and has been parodied on everything from TV commercials to Family Guy.
The movie  benefits from a stellar cast.  Robbins and Freeman are both excellent in their respective rolls, and Bob Gunton is superb as Warden Norton.  One of my favorites however is Clancy Brown who, as Chief of the Guards Captain Hadley, delivers one of the best profanity laden performances in a movie by a non Drill Sergeant character. Sadly, you miss out on this on network TV as most of Brown’s tirades are either cut or overdubbed.  The Shawshank Redemption was nominated for seven Academy Awards including best picture and best actor (Freeman) but sadly went home with none having been over shadowed that year by Forrest Gump (https://thedogsofbeer.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/beer-in-movies-the-shawshank-redemption/).


 ...common theme through the film is man’s constant struggle to find dignity in the brutal environment of prison.  This theme is very well depicted when, tarring the roof of one of the prison buildings, Andy over hears Hadley bemoaning to the other guards about a large sum of money he’s just come into and how the I.R.S is going to take a large portion of it.  Andy informs him (while Hadley is about to push him off the roof for ease dropping) that he can keep all the money tax free if he gifts it to his wife.  This exchange really shows off cinematographer Roger Deakins at his best.  When Hadley pushes Andy against the edge of the roof the camera shot is over head looking straight down Andy’s back to the ground below.  The camera then pans over head and down behind Hadley, catching Andy in his first line of the shot and then swings around along side the two for a dialog exchange and then ends behind Andy on Hadley’s face for his last line of the shot.  Andy offers to do the paper work to set up the gift for a price – three bottles of beer for each of his co-workers who are tarring the roof. The next scene shows Andy’s co-workers (and the guards) sitting on the roof of the building enjoying what Red’s voice tells us was, “…ice cold Bohemian style beer.”
“Bohemian style” beer, was (back in the time frame of the film) a common term used in America to describe pilsner beer.  Pilsner gets its name from Pilsen, a city in Bohemia which is in today’s Czech Republic. Brewers in the city of Pilsen started producing beers with bottom fermenting yeasts rather than the more commonly used  top fermenting yeast and aging the beer in caves to produce a clearer, better quality beer.  The beer type can be considered the father of the early American lager beer as many of the beers initialed brewed back then (and still brewed today) came from a Bohemian style background and indeed, used the term “Bohemian” as a description.  The best example today is probably National Bohemian Beer (or Natty Bo, as it is known in the region) which has been brewed since 1885.  Another brand known for its Bohemian label is Stroh’s which started brewing in Detroit in 1850.  Other examples that have long since faded into time (or prohibition) are Knapp’s, Burger, Duluth, Weideman, Old Tap, Forest City, Prager, Dorf and Cooper’s out of Philadelphia
So which beer are the men supposed to be drinking on the roof ?  The movie never says.  But if you compare the images below, I think we can make a strong case for what the movie makers thought was Andy Dufrense’s  “bottle of suds” of choice.
(https://thedogsofbeer.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/beer-in-movies-the-shawshank-redemption/).

Left and Center: Screen shots from Shawshank Redemption.
Right: Post 1950’s Stroh’s beer bottle label.
While The Shawshank Redemption might not be for all people with its hard look into prison life and rough language, I highly recommend it.  Its gripping story, excellent acting and Oscar nominated cinematography make it a definite American classic.  Just make sure you have some ice cold Bohemian style beer to go with the popcorn.
(https://thedogsofbeer.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/beer-in-movies-the-shawshank-redemption/).


Is this a real beer or not? We don’t care. The rooftop beer-drinking scene in the film, The Shawshank Redemption, has to be one of the best movie scenes of all time (so you should watch the clip below before you knock off for the day and enjoy a bottle of suds yourself). If you look a the beer label, as the Dogs of Beer blog has done, you can see it bears a striking resemblance to ‘Stroh’s Bohemian Style Beer’, from the 1950s (https://blog.loyalive.com/international-beer-day-our-ten-top-beers-from-around-the-world/).

I suppose a slight case can be made for the beer  .. savoring of Stroh’s Bohemian Style Beer on the roof of the laundry in “Shawshank Redemption” (http://beernexus.com/beermyway15.html).

beer and freedom are shown to be natural companions in The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a banker imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, offers to help one of the guards with a financial transaction in exchange for “three bottles of beer apiece for each of my co-workers.” The workers in question are tarring a rooftop on a summer’s day. The guard cannot believe what he is hearing. He holds Dufresne by the throat at the roof’s edge. But Dufresne continues, “I think a man working outdoors feels like more of a man if he can have a bottle of suds.” The guard sees the wisdom of having his own financial adviser, pulls him back from the brink and the entire crew finds itself drinking Stroh’s Bohemian (in accurately labeled 1949 bottles) while Red (Morgan Freeman), the film’s narrator, intones, “We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men. Hell, we could have been tarring the roof on one of our own houses. We were the lords of all creation.” (http://faithfulreaders.com/2012/05/12/beer-in-the-movies/)

Submitted by Nitpicker :Anonymous
Movie :Shawshank Redemption, The - 1994
Nitpick Category :Technological Fact
Nitpick Number :9413
Approximate time of Nitpick :1/3 of the way through
Summary :beer bottles have twist off caps (Refuted)
Detail :When they are tarring the roof in the prison and the guar brings beer, one prisoner picks up a stroh's longneck and twists off the cap. Twistoffs were not around in 1948-49.

Strohs Bohemian Style  (RETIRED)
Pabst Brewing Company
Formerly brewed at Miller Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
Style: Pale Lager
Los Angeles, California USA
Serve in Dimpled mug, Lager glass, Shaker
COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTION
Since 2001, contract-brewed for Pabst Brewing (San Antonio), as Pabst no longer owns a brewery of its own (www.ratebeer.com/beer/strohs-bohemian-style/11429/).

AS WITH MANY OF AMERICA’S GREAT FORTUNES, the Stroh family’s story starts with an immigrant: Bernhard Stroh, who arrived in Detroit from Germany in 1850 with $150 and a coveted family recipe for beer. He sold his brews door-to-door in a wheelbarrow. By 1890 his sons, Julius and Bernhard Jr., were shipping beer around the Great Lakes. Julius got the family through Prohibition by switching the brewery to ice cream and malt syrup production. And in the 1980s Stroh’s surged, emerging as one of America’s fastest-growing companies and the country’s third-largest brewing empire, behind only public behemoths Anheuser-Busch and Miller. The Stroh family owned it all, a fortune that FORBES then calculated was worth at least $700 million. Just by matching the S&P 500, the family would currently be worth about $9 billion.
Yet today the Strohs, as a family business or even a collective financial entity, have essentially ceased to exist. The company has been sold for parts. The Stroh Companies has doled out its last dividends to shareholders. The last remaining family entity owns a half-empty office building in Detroit. While there was enough cash flowing for enough years that the fifth generation Strohs still seem pretty comfortable, the family looks destined to go shirtsleeves-to-shirtsleeves in six.
“We made the decision to go national without having the budget,” sighs Greg Stroh, a fifth generation family member and former Stroh Brewery employee. “It was like going to a gunfight with a knife. We didn’t have a chance.” His analysis comes tinged with inevitability. It wasn’t. A handful of family-owned regional brewers such as Yuengling and Schell’s continue to thrive, while others, like Olympia and Hamm’s, sold out. And the Strohs’ largest rivals during the 1980s and 1990s, the Coors, who also aspired to turn their no-frills, regional suds into a national powerhouse, remain in the top 100 on the FORBES America’s Richest Families list.
The Strohs chose a different path, a saga that serves as a powerful reminder: Hard as it is to build a family business designed to last in perpetuity, it’s shockingly easy for any successor to tank it. (www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2014/07/08/how-the-stroh-family-lost-the-largest-private-beer-fortune-in-the-u-s/#3ba78dbd1ede).

Bernhard Stroh immigrated to the US from Germany in 1850 at the age of 28 and began producing Bohemian-style beer using the knowledge he had learned from his father, who operated a family owned in and brewery in Kirn, Germany. Bernhard's original operation operated from his basement and was sold door-to-door in a wheelbarrow. Initially billed as 'New Beer', the name was changed to B. Stroh Brewing Company when Bernhard Stroh Jr took over on his father's death. In 1893, it won a blue ribbon at the Columbian Exposition, and in 1902 the name was finally changed to Stroh Brewery Company. The fire-brewing method was introduced after Bernhard's brother Julius took a tour of famous European breweries and is still used today, making Stroh the only fire-brewed beer on the American market. Stroh rode out the Prohibition by operating under the name The Stroh Products Company and producing near (non-alcoholic) beer. They began expanding in 1964 with the acquisition of the Goebel Brewing Company and continued to grow until hitting their peak in the 1980s and beginning a rapid freefall. Finally, the 149-year-old company was sold to Pabst Brewing Company and Miller Brewing Company on February 8, 1999 (www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/6523-strohs-and-goebel-beer-circa).

Bernhard Stroh started Stroh's brewing business when he arrived in Detroit from Germany in 1850 with $150 and a treasured family recipe for beer. But in the 1980s, some disastrous acquisitions saw the company spiral. In 1999, Stroh's was sold off for scraps with many of its brands being discontinued. At one point, the family's fortune saw them make the Forbes list of the richest families in the country, worth $700 million in 1988. And Forbes today believes that the family would currently be worth about $9 billion.
Stroh's was an American beer powerhouse but then the family squandered what would have been a $9 billion fortune in just a few short years. Bernhard Stroh started the brewing business when he arrived in Detroit from Germany in 1850 with $150 and a treasured family recipe for beer. He began selling the beer door to door out of a wheelbarrow and soon Stroh's Beer was being shipped first around the Great Lakes where they had a loyal following and then around the country. In 1980, Stroh's became the third largest brewing business in the United States when Bernhard's great great grandson Peter Stroh became CEO and purchased F&M Schaefer and Joseph Schlitz Brewing.
The family's new fortune saw them make the Forbes list of the richest families in the country, worth $700 million in 1988. And Forbes today believes that the family would currently be worth about $9 billion. But the something went wrong (www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2699668/How-one-Americas-beloved-family-beer-company-squandered-9-billion-fortune.html).

The Stroh Brewery Company was a beer brewery located 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. Stroh's beer is currently owned and operated by Pabst Brewing Company.
The Stroh family began brewing beer in a family-owned inn during the 18th century in Kirn, Germany. In 1849, during the German Revolution, Bernhard Stroh, who had learned the brewing trade from his father, emigrated to the United States. Bernhard Stroh established his brewery in Detroit in 1850 when he was 28 and immediately started producing Bohemian-style pilsner, which had been developed at the municipal brewery of Pilsen, Bohemia, in 1841. In 1865 he purchased additional land and expanded his business. He adopted the heraldic lion emblem from the Kyrburg Castle in Germany and named his operation the Lion's Head Brewery. (The lion emblem is still visible in its advertising and product labels.)
Bernhard Stroh's original beer selling operation consisted of a basement brewing operation and was then sold door-to-door in a wheelbarrow. The new beer (Stroh's) sold door-to-door was a lighter-lager beer, brewed in copper kettles; copper kettles enhanced the rich flavor of the beer, promoting carmelization of the wort "while the fire brewed distilling made the beer lighter", thus forming a tradition of "pure water beers" without the heavier mineral content. Making the "new beer" lighter did not reduce the flavor.
Bernhard Stroh Jr. took charge of the brewery on the death of his father. He changed the brewery's name to the B. Stroh Brewing Company. With the introduction of pasteurization and refrigerated rail cars, Stroh was able to ship some of his beer as far as Florida and Massachusetts. In 1893 Stroh Bohemian Beer won a blue ribbon at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The company's name was changed to The Stroh Brewery Company in 1902. In 1908, Bernhard Stroh's brother Julius Stroh took over the brewery. After a tour of famous European breweries, he introduced the European fire-brewing method in the Stroh brewery. Common in Europe before World War I, the fire-brewing process uses a direct flame rather than steam to heat beer-filled copper kettles. The company claims that the resulting higher temperatures bring out more of the beer's flavor.
During Prohibition, Julius Stroh operated the business under the name The Stroh Products Company, producing near beer (beer with its alcohol extracted), birch beer, soft drinks, malt products, ice cream, and ice. Though production of most of these items ceased when Prohibition ended in 1933, a special unit of the brewery continued to make Stroh's Ice Cream (this facility remained in Detroit until February 2007, when the operation was moved to Belvidere, Illinois, though the distribution facility in Detroit still remains). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroh_Brewery_Company)
FOR ITS FIRST CENTURY the Stroh beer business, based in Detroit, grew by following the basics: respect your customers; respect your employees. The former meant catering to Midwest working-class tastes at working-class prices (the family watered down Bernhard Stroh’s precious recipe, after hops and wheat shortages in World War II left Americans accustomed to weaker brews). The latter by treating every employee like an honorary member of the clan. John Stroh, who oversaw a dramatic sales surge in the Eisenhower years, “was known for walking the brewery and knew everyone’s first name,” his grandnephew Greg remembers. “Employees would run through walls for the family.” As if to connect the customers and the business, the Stroh signature was emblazoned on every bottle, topped by a family crest with a lion. Sales surged in lockstep with postwar Detroit, from 500,000 barrels in 1950 to 2.7 million barrels in 1956 (www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2014/07/08/how-the-stroh-family-lost-the-largest-private-beer-fortune-in-the-u-s/#3ba78dbd1ede).
Upon Julius Stroh's death in 1939, his son Gari Stroh assumed the presidency. Gari's brother John succeeded him in 1950 and became Stroh's chairman in 1967. Gari's son Peter, who had joined the company following his graduation from Princeton University in 1951, became president in 1968.
In 1964, the company made its first move toward expansion when it bought the Goebel Brewing Company, a rival across the street. The company had decided it could no longer compete as a local brewer and was about to move into the national scene. One reason was a costly statewide strike[3] in 1958 that halted Michigan beer production and allowed national brands to gain a foothold. When Peter Stroh took over the company in 1968, it still had not regained the market share lost in the strike ten years earlier.
Stroh ended a 40-year relationship with a local advertising agency for a large national agency and began targeting the larger national market. Led by creative director Murray Page, Stroh's came up with the slogan "The One Beer...", and by 1971, Stroh Brewery had moved from 15th to 13th place nationally. In 1972, it entered the top 10 for the first time. A year later it hit eighth place. Peter Stroh's willingness to depart from years of tradition enabled Stroh's to survive, but the changes were hard to swallow for many Stroh's employees. Stroh broke the company's tradition of family management and recruited managers from companies such as Procter & Gamble and Pepsico. He also introduced a light beer, Stroh's Light.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroh_Brewery_Company)
The mammoth changes came in the early 1980s. John Stroh had moved into the chairman’s role in 1967 and handed control of the brewery to his nephew, Peter, who became CEO in 1980. Like John, he had a plan to grow, but not incrementally: He would do it by acquisition. In 1981 Stroh bought New York-based brewer F&M Schaefer, which, like Stroh, was founded by a German immigrant in the mid-1800s and also offered low-priced suds to its regional fans (famous marketing line: “The one beer to have when you’re having more than one”). The next year, in what family members describe as “the minnow swallowing the whale,” Peter Stroh bet the family business, borrowing $500 million (the book value of the Stroh business was $100 million at the time) to buy Joseph Schlitz Brewing of Milwaukee.
Suddenly Stroh was the third-largest brewer in the U.S., with seven plants and a national footprint. On paper there was synergy. FORBES valued the company at $700 million in 1988, listing the Strohs with one of the largest family fortunes in the U.S. at the time, shared by 30 relatives.
But Peter Stroh’s grand vision of a thriving U.S.-wide brewer failed to materialize. It largely missed the boat on the biggest industry trend in a generation: light beer. And Stroh’s core product–cheap, watery, full-calorie beer–was a commodity. But saddled with debt, Stroh couldn’t afford to match the ad spending of its bigger rivals, Anheuser-Busch and Miller. Unable to spur demand through marketing, Stroh turned to price, introducing a 15-pack for the price of 12 cans and a 30-pack for the price of a case of 24. While the latter had legs, it wasn’t enough to outrun the shrinking margins.
Meanwhile, an ambitious family from Colorado began moving into the Stroh markets. “It became a competition between Stroh and Coors,” says Scott Rozek, a former director-level employee who spent 12 years at Stroh. “At that time there were four big breweries in a three-brewery industry–there was really only room for three.” By the end of the 1980s Coors overtook Stroh as the country’s third-largest brewer. (www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2014/07/08/how-the-stroh-family-lost-the-largest-private-beer-fortune-in-the-u-s/#3ba78dbd1ede).

By 1978, Stroh's served 17 states when it produced 6.4 million barrels of beer. By this time, the original Detroit facility was 128 years old and had a capacity of seven million barrels annually. As it became difficult to make efficient shipments to new markets in the East, the company recognized that it required a new brewery.  The F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company had fallen victim to the Miller beer wars and Stroh's purchased all of Schaefer's stock. In 1981, the combined breweries ranked seventh in beer sales. In addition, Stroh was able to take advantage of Schaefer's distributors in the northeastern part of the country. The acquisition also brought Stroh three new brands: Schaefer and Piels beers, and Schaefer's Cream Ale. The company now had a volume of over 40,000,000 barrels (6,400,000 m3) and 400 distributors in 28 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean islands.
In 1982, Stroh bid for 67 percent of the Schlitz Brewing Company. By spring of that year, Stroh had purchased the entire company, making Stroh's the third largest brewing enterprise in America: it owned seven brewing plants and reached the market value of $700 million in 1988 (according to Forbes). During the takeover, Schlitz fought a fierce battle in the courts trying to remain independent. Schlitz finally accepted the takeover when Stroh raised its offer from an initial $16 per share to $17, and the U.S. Justice Department approved the acquisition once Stroh agreed to sell either Schlitz's Memphis or Winston-Salem breweries.
On February 8, 1985, Stroh announced that it would close its 135-year-old brewery on Detroit's east side. Chairman Peter Stroh said that the facility was simply outdated and had no room to expand. The structure was imploded the following year.
Stroh's had taken on a heavy debt burden to finance the Schlitz acquisition. But it then found itself unable to compete nationally with the likes of Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing Company, and Coors Brewing Company. Stroh's began to lose market share and profit margins, leading it to begin laying off employees. After Coors passed Stroh's in size, Peter Stroh agreed to sell the company's operations to Coors, but the deal ultimately fell through (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroh_Brewery_Company)
In August 1989 the Stroh Brewery Co. was in retreat. The company that had treated employees like family laid off 300 people, one-fifth of its white-collar workforce. “I had to let go four of the five people in the marketing research department. It was heartbreaking,” remembers Ed Benfield, former director of market research at Stroh.
The next month Peter Stroh, who died in 2002, agreed to sell the family business to Coors for $425 million. But Coors got cold feet and pulled out of the deal a few months later. “It had something to do with due diligence, and Bill Coors,” says Benjamin Steinman, longtime editor of newsletter Beer Marketer’s Insights. “There were lots of stories.”
(www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2014/07/08/how-the-stroh-family-lost-the-largest-private-beer-fortune-in-the-u-s/#3ba78dbd1ede).

Desperate, Peter Stroh brought in renowned adman Hal Riney to give the Stroh’s brand a more upscale look and position. The cherished Stroh signature gave way to block print, prices were raised, and the 15- and 30-packs were nixed. It could not have been a worse decision. But since the product hadn’t changed, customers could do the math: Sales of Stroh’s-brand beer fell more than 40% in one year, “the biggest drop in sales in the history of beer,” says Benfield.
(www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2014/07/08/how-the-stroh-family-lost-the-largest-private-beer-fortune-in-the-u-s/#3ba78dbd1ede).
In the aftermath, Stroh sought to address the company's cash flow problems through real estate development of the company's former headquarters and by diversifying into other beverages—such as White Mountain Cooler, a fruit-flavored drink with 5 percent alcohol, and Sundance sparkling-water fruit drink. These efforts met with little success, and Stroh's sold its ice cream operation to Dean Foods Company in 1988.
Stroh then implemented a three-pronged strategy to revitalize the company: developing new products, brewing beer under contract for other brewers, and expanding overseas. The new product area was critical because the explosion in beer brand and types of beer in the 1990s undermined the market share for all established brands. Stroh's strategy when seeking to enter the market for a new type of beer was to extend one or more of its existing brands. In the increasingly popular non-alcoholic beer segment, for example, Old Milwaukee Non-Alcoholic was introduced in 1991, while Stroh's Non Alcoholic debuted in 1993. Old Milwaukee NA quickly became one of the top three selling non-alcoholic brews. In the ice beer category, Stroh launched Old Milwaukee Ice, Schlitz Ice, Schlitz Ice Light, Bull Ice, and Schaefer Ice, all in 1994. Another hot category in the early and mid-1990s was the packaged draft beer; Stroh made its presence felt in this category as well with Stroh's Draft Light, Old Milwaukee Genuine Draft, and Schlitz Genuine Draft.
Another important new product area was specialty beer. Its popularity in the 1990s was led by the hundreds of microbreweries that arose to craft the beers, not by the industry leaders. Stroh and the other leaders, however, were not shut out of this category; in some cases they purchased all or part of microbreweries, in others they formed units to produce specialty beers. Stroh did both. It purchased the Augsburger brand in 1989 and over the next several years developed and introduced both specialty and seasonal brews under the Augsburger name. In 1994, Stroh launched Red River Valley Select Red Lager, a regional premium specialty beer produced by a division of the company's St. Paul, Minnesota, brewery called Northern Plains Brewing Company. Two years later, Red River Honey Brown Ale was introduced.
The international market provided growth opportunities for Stroh that were very limited in the stagnant, hyper-competitive U.S. market. In 1986, the company created Stroh International, Inc. to begin to tap into these markets. Canada, India, Japan, Mexico, and Russia were the main targets of Stroh's overseas push. ...Stroh's was the first foreign beer brand to be launched in India, and the first to be sold in cans. Rajasthan Breweries sold Stroh's all over India; the brand is still recognized and remembered in India despite its not having been sold there for several years. The following year, an agreement was reached with Sapporo Breweries Ltd. of Tokyo whereby Sapporo began distributing Stroh's beer nationwide in Japan. By 1995, exports comprised more than 10 percent of overall Stroh sales (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroh_Brewery_Company).

Market share for Stroh’s, as well as for its acquired brands like Schaefer, Schlitz and Old Milwaukee, fell from 13% in 1983 to 7.6% in 1991. Even CEO Peter Stroh admitted the troubles. “We’ve been through a very difficult period,” he told FORBES in 1992. “We tried to do too much.”
And yet it tried to do more. In 1996 Stroh repeated his mistake, borrowing yet more money for the $300 million acquisition of struggling brewer G. Heileman. The purchase fell flat. Heileman had breweries in cities like Seattle and Portland, where Stroh didn’t, but it lacked a big stable of strong brands. One industry analyst remembers the deal described as “two sick chickens–they were both declining.”
It got worse. Peter Stroh had tried to diversify the business, with investments in biotech and Detroit real estate. Both were far from the family’s core competencies and lost them millions more. By 1998 cousin John Stroh III had taken charge at Stroh Cos., the brewery parent. And while the company had turned to contract brewing for others, including Sam Adams, as a way to make up for plummeting sales, Stroh took a mortal hit in 1998 when it lost a contract with Pabst (www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2014/07/08/how-the-stroh-family-lost-the-largest-private-beer-fortune-in-the-u-s/3/#3ba78dbd1ede).

In early 1995, William Henry assumed Peter Stroh's CEO position to become the first non-Stroh family member to hold that position for the company. The following year Stroh finally landed a long-sought-after target when it acquired Heileman for about $290 million. The Heileman purchase brought more than 30 brands to the Stroh family, many of which Heileman had itself acquired since its founding in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, in 1858. Among the more important brands were Colt 45 malt liquor, which when combined with Schlitz Malt Liquor, gave Stroh more than half of the malt liquor market.
Stroh neared the start of the 21st century in a much stronger position than it had entered the 1990s, but by the end of the decade, Stroh finally gave in to the pressures of the larger brewers and was acquired.
The end finally came on February 8, 1999, when Stroh announced that the 149-year-old brewer was selling its labels to the Pabst Brewing Company and Miller Brewing Company. John Stroh III, now company president and chief executive, said of the decision to sell: "Emotionally, it was an extremely difficult one to make, knowing that it would impact our loyal employees, and recognizing that it would mean the end of our family's centuries old brewing tradition that had become, in essence, an important part of our identity." The Stroh family lost over $700 million, decimating its fortune.
After the company's dissolution in 2000, some Stroh brands were discontinued, while others were purchased by other breweries. The Pabst Brewing Company acquired the most Stroh/Heilman brands. It currently produces Colt .45 malt liquor, Lone Star, Schaefer, Schlitz, Schmidt's, Old Milwaukee, Old Style, Stroh's, and St. Ides. The Miller Brewing Company got Mickey's Malt Liquor and Henry Weinhard's. Most other Stroh/Heileman brands disappeared after 2000.
In Canada, some Stroh brands, such as Old Milwaukee, are still brewed by Sleeman Breweries Ltd. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroh_Brewery_Company).

By 1999 there was internal concern about whether they could even make their interest payments on the debt incurred, says one former executive. And so Bernhard Stroh’s legacy was sold for scraps: Miller Brewing, owned at the time by Philip Morris, bought Stroh’s Henry Weinhard’s and Mickeys brands, while Pabst bought the rest of the brands owned by Stroh’s as well as its brewery near Allentown, Pa., for a price several sources peg at around $350 million–about $250 million of which was used to pay down debt incurred with the Heileman purchase. Some of the remaining $100 million or so was transferred to a fund to pay employee pension liabilities, which Stroh had retained in the sale. The rest went into a fund for the family that dribbled out checks until 2008, when it was completely tapped (www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2014/07/08/how-the-stroh-family-lost-the-largest-private-beer-fortune-in-the-u-s/3/#3ba78dbd1ede).

Family members confessed to Forbesthat acquiring Schlitz, a beer company with six plants to Stroh's one, overwhelmed the business and they didn't have the marketing prowess to keep so many different brands up with rivals Anheuser Busch and Miller.According to Forbes, Peter Stroh continued his disastrous acquisition spree among other moves but still the company failed. By the end of the 1980s, Colorado's Coors overtook Stroh's as the country's third largest brewer and in August 1989 Stroh's laid off 300 employees.
The following month, Peter Stroh agreed to sell the family business to Coors for $425 but Coors pulled out of the deal. Desperate, the company brought in a renowned ad man to reinvigorate the brand. he changed the label, hiked prices and stopped the previous 15 bottles for 12 deal, all of which were disastrous decisions that resulted in 'the biggest drop in sales in the history of beer,' former director of market research Ed Benfield told Forbes. Sales plunged 40 per cent in a year. In 1996, Peter Stroh decided to purchase another brewery with $300 million in borrowed funds, but that business, like Stroh's, was on the decline. He then took a gamble on biotechnology and on Detroit real estate, exacerbating the problems.
By 1999, the company was worried it wouldn't even be able to make the interest payments on its debt, so it sold itself for scraps, brand by brand. Miller Brewing bought some, while Pabst bought the rest at around $350 million.  Some $250 million went into debt service and employee pension fund liabilities while the remaining $100 million went into a fund for the family, but ran out in 2008. After the company's dissolution in 2000, some Stroh brands were discontinued.  The Pabst Brewing Company acquired the most brands, and it currently produces Colt 45 malt liquor, Lone Star, Schaefer, Schlitz, Schmidt's, Old Milwaukee, Old Style, Stroh's, and St. Ides. The Miller Brewing Company got Mickey's Malt Liquor and Henry Weinhard's. Most other Stroh brands disappeared after 2000.
In the 1980s the seven members of the fourth generation got $400,000 a year, according to Forbes.'A lot of people were living off the family business,' 47-year-old descendant Greg Stroh told the website. Though he wasn't one of them, and he co-founded three companies, including Izze Soda. Others ran into trouble with drugs and alcohol (www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2699668/How-one-Americas-beloved-family-beer-company-squandered-9-billion-fortune.html).

FOR GENERATIONS, GROWING UP STROH meant a life of comfort. “My life with my father felt like being inside a gilded bubble,” says Frances Stroh, whose father, Eric, quit the company after a fight with his brother Peter in 1985. An artist at heart, Eric spent millions buying hundreds of antiques–guns, cameras, guitars–to fill the big house that Frances grew up in. Saving, Frances says, was not a priority.
And why would it have been when the checks rolled in? In the 1980s the seven members of the fourth generation got $400,000 a year. (There were another 20 or so shareholders from the third and fifth generations as well, who received differing amounts.) That enabled a couple Stroh families to live in stately homes on gated Provencal Road in the tony Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe Farms, with maids, cooks, country club memberships, boarding school tuition and no need for 9-to-5 jobs. “A lot of people were living off the family business,” says Greg Stroh, who’s now 47. He is not one of them, having gone on to co-found three companies, including Izze Soda (www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2014/07/08/how-the-stroh-family-lost-the-largest-private-beer-fortune-in-the-u-s/3/#3ba78dbd1ede).

As with too many families with more money than direction, drugs and alcohol followed. Frances Stroh was kicked out of boarding school at Taft after she was caught drinking. Her three brothers also got kicked out of different prep schools. In an excerpt from a memoir about the family that Frances is writing, she describes one incident during her college years when she was snorting cocaine with her brothers while the rest of the family was downstairs having Christmas dinner at their Grosse Pointe Farms home.
One of her brothers, Charlie, narrowly avoided going to prison for dealing cocaine in college in the early 1980s. His parents forced him to join the Marines, and good behavior in the service was the key to evading a prison sentence. Yet the demon of addiction reappeared two decades later, in 2003, when he fell to his death from a tenth-floor hotel balcony in Texas, as the sheets he tied together to form a rope failed to hold. He was 43. One report quoted police saying he called the front desk at the hotel “to report a bank robbery and other nonsensical things.” (www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2014/07/08/how-the-stroh-family-lost-the-largest-private-beer-fortune-in-the-u-s/4/#3ba78dbd1ede)

There have been other tragedies throughout the years. Nick Stroh, a fourth-generation member of the family and a freelance journalist in Africa, was bludgeoned to death by Ugandan troops in 1971 after he investigated reports of an army massacre. Peter’s brother Gari Stroh Jr., who ran the Stroh Ice Cream division, became a quadriplegic after a fall from a horse on his farm in 1982. And so on.
All of which served to make 1989–the year of the failed sale to Coors–something of a shock to the family. For the first time the company couldn’t come up with dividend payments. “My generation probably grew up with the illusion that things were going to be pretty good,” says Greg Stroh. “We had to make adjustments.”
Eric Stroh was hit particularly hard. His first wife had to briefly loan him money to help him make ends meet. In 2009, a few months after the checks stopped for good, the overweight and diabetic Eric collapsed, alone, after letting a leg wound go untreated–most of his estate went into trusts to pay liabilities to his two former wives (the second one had gone to high school with Frances).
(www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2014/07/08/how-the-stroh-family-lost-the-largest-private-beer-fortune-in-the-u-s/4/#3ba78dbd1ede)
Overigens zit het bier ook in een andere film: M*A*S*H :: The Interview (1976)
00:05:19 And a cold beer... Stroh's Bohemian (www.subzin.com/quotes/S3559774ec/M%2AA%2AS%2AH/The+Interview/And+a+cold+beer...+Stroh%27s+Bohemian.)