Anheuser-Busch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
Please see the discussion on the talk page. |
 |
This article or section is written like an advertisement. Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view per Wikipedia policy. Mark blatant advertising for speedy deletion with {{db-spam}}. (help, talk) |
| Anheuser-Busch | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Location | Saint Louis, MO USA |
| Year opened | First brewery 1852 Incorporated 1875 |
| Annual production | 121.9 million barrels (143 million hectolitres) |
| Active Beers | |
| Budweiser | premium lager |
| Bud Light | light lager |
| Budweiser Select | light lager |
| Bud Dry | dry lager |
| Bud Ice | ice lager |
| Bud Ice Light | light lager |
| Michelob | premium lager |
| Michelob Light | low-carb light lager |
| Michelob Golden Draft | premium lager |
| Michelob Golden Draft Light | light lager |
| Michelob AmberBock | dark lager |
| Michelob Honey Lager | Specialty honey lager |
| Michelob ULTRA | low-carb light lager |
| Michelob ULTRA Amber | light amber lager |
| Busch Beer | lager |
| Busch Ice | ice lager |
| Busch Light | light lager |
| Natural Ice | ice lager |
| Natural Light | light lager |
| Harbin Lager | International premium lager |
| Rolling Rock | Premium Extra Pale Lager |
| Anheuser World Lager | lager |
| Bud Extra | Specialty beer |
| Bare Knuckle Stout | Classic Irish-style dry stout |
| Stone Mill Pale Ale | Organic pale ale |
| Wild Hop Lager | Organic, lager |
| BACARDI SILVER | Flavored malt beverage |
| PEELS | Flavored Malt Beverage |
| Tequiza | Fruit beer |
| SPYKES | Flavored malt beverage |
| TILT | Caffeinated malt beverage |
| Hurricane | malt liquor |
| Hurricane Ice | ice lager |
| King Cobra | malt liquor |
| 180 Blue | energy drink |
| 180 Sport | sports drink |
| 180 Energy | energy drink |
| O'Doul's | Non-alcohol |
| O'Doul's Amber | Non-alcohol |
| Busch NA | Non-alcohol |
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. (NYSE: BUD) is the world's third largest brewing company in volume after InBev and SABMiller. In the USA, Anheuser-Busch is the largest brewing company in volume with a 48.8 percent share of beer sales. Worldwide, Anheuser-Busch's beer sales volume was 121.9 million barrels in 2005. The company is based in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. "A-B", as the company is often called, operates 12 breweries in the United States and several others overseas.
Anheuser-Busch's best known beers include brands such as Budweiser, the Busch and Michelob families, and Natural Light. The company also produces a number of smaller-volume and specialty beers, nonalcoholic brews, malt liquors (King Cobra and the Hurricane family), and flavored malt beverages (e.g. the Bacardi family and Tequiza).
Contents |
[edit] History
Anheuser-Busch began as a small brewery located in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1860, Eberhard Anheuser, a prosperous soap manufacturer, became owner of the struggling brewery. Adolphus Busch, Anheuser’s son-in-law, became partner in 1869, and became president when Anheuser died in 1880.
Adolphus Busch was the first U.S. brewer to use pasteurization to keep beer fresh, the first to use artificial refrigeration and refrigerated railroad cars and the first to bottle beer extensively. In 1876, Busch introduced America’s first national beer brand - Budweiser.
Anheuser-Busch became the largest brewer in the United States in 1957.
Anheuser-Busch's international operations, Anheuser-Busch International, Inc., was established in 1981 and is responsible for the company's foreign beer operations and equity investments.
Today, Anheuser-Busch operates 12 breweries in the United States and has operations around the world.
[edit] United States Breweries and Headquarters
In the United States, Anheuser-Busch operates 12 breweries:
- St. Louis, Missouri (World Headquarters)
- Baldwinsville, New York
- Cartersville, Georgia
- Columbus, Ohio
- Fairfield, California
- Fort Collins, Colorado
- Houston, Texas
- Jacksonville, Florida
- Los Angeles, California
- Merrimack, New Hampshire
- Newark, New Jersey
- Williamsburg, Virginia
[edit] St. Louis corporate headquarters and brewery
The world headquarters for Anheuser-Busch is in St. Louis, Missouri. The brewery there, the largest of the Anheuser-Busch breweries, was opened in 1852 and includes three buildings that are on the register of National Historic Landmarks. At the headquarters, near downtown Saint Louis, free tours of the brewery are available to the public. The tour takes visitors through the complex, and those of the legal age can enjoy two free glasses of any Anheuser-Busch product in the Hospitality Room at the end of the tour. Tourists can see beer being made live in front of them in hot and steamy vats in a working part of the brewery (from behind plexiglas shields).
The company keeps a rotation of its famous Clydesdale horses at its headquarters, and visitors to the brewery can observe the Clydesdales in their exercise field and see their places in the carriage house. The bulk of the herd is kept at the company farm in St. Louis County. The farm, known to many a St. Louisan as Grant's Farm (having been owned by former President Ulysses S. Grant at one time), is also home to a varied menagerie of animals. The current manager of the famous Clydesdales is Benjamin Underwood.
[edit] International breweries
Overseas, Anheuser-Busch operates 15 breweries - 14 in China and one in the United Kingdom; In China, A-B operates Budweiser Wuhan International Brewing Company, Ltd. and Harbin Brewery Group Ltd which A-B fully acquired in 2004. Chinese production of AB products in China started, in Wuhan, after their purchase of a local brewery in 1997. In the United Kingdom, the Budweiser Stag Brewing Company Ltd. produces and packages Budweiser.
Budweiser is also locally brewed in eight countries outside the Unites States. They are: Argentina, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Korea and Spain.
Anheuser-Busch strategic equity investments include:
- 49% of Grupo Modelo in Mexico[citation needed]
- 27% of Tsingtao Brewery Company Ltd. in China[citation needed]
- 30% of craft beer Redhook Ale Brewery[citation needed]
- An equity stake in Widmer Brothers Brewery[citation needed]
As of 2006, almost 1/3 of the Anheuser-Busch workforce can fluently speak Mandarin and English, to streamline production.[citation needed]
[edit] Beverage products
Anheuser-Busch brews over 40 different beers and malt liquors.
- Budweiser Family
- Budweiser
- Bud Light
- Budweiser Select
- Bud Dry
- Bud Ice
- Bud Ice Light
- The Michelob Family
- Michelob
- Michelob Light
- Michelob Ultra
- Michelob Ultra Amber
- Michelob Honey Lager
- Michelob AmberBock
- Michelob Golden Draft
- Michelob Golden Draft Light
- Busch Family
- Busch
- Busch Light
- Busch Ice
- The Natural Family
- Natural Light
- Natural
- Natural Ice
- Specialty Beers
- Bud Extra
- Bare Knuckle Stout
- Anheuser World Lager
- ZiegenBock
- Redbridge (gluten-free)
- Rolling Rock
- Non-alcohol
- O'Doul's
- O'Doul's Amber
- Busch NA
- Energy Drinks
- 180 Blue
- 180 Sport Drink
- 180 Energy
- Specialty Organic Beers
- Stone Mill Pale Ale
- Wild Hop Lager
- Specialty Malt Beverages
- Bacardi Silver
- PEELS
- Spykes
- Tequiza
- TILT
- Malt Liquors
- Hurricane Malt Liquor
- Hurricane Ice
- King Cobra
In addition to brewing beer, Anheuser-Busch also is responsible for the import into the United States of:
- Grolsch
- Harbin Lager
- Tiger Beer
- Kirin
[edit] Advertising
The company is known in the United States for its huge advertising presence, including a sports marketing division which creates advertising material for the Super Bowl and many other sporting events. Famous Busch television campaigns have included:
- Clydesdales, both wild and domesticated, such as:
- The Budweiser Clydesdales pulling traditional beer wagons
- The traditional holiday spot featuring the Clydesdales pulling a sleigh through a snowy town, concluding with a closeup of a wreath on a door.
- Wild Clydesdales playing football (with a couple cowboys as the audience, and a zebra for a referee)
- A donkey that thinks he's a horse and wants to be one of the Budweiser Clydesdales
- Dalmatians, also associated with the traditional Budweiser Clydesdales iconoclasm
- The "Gimme a light" spots;
- "You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay" (as referenced in Being There and The Simpsons)
- Frogs saying "Bud-weis-er." The ad campaign later spawned additional characters: Louie and Frankie the chameleons and an inept ferret hit man.
- The annual Bud Bowl.
- The "Waazzzup" series.
- The "Real American Heroes/Real Men of Genius" series of humorous radio and television ads.
- They market their beer through the name NASCAR Busch Series and on Dale Earnhardt Jr's #8 Chevy Monte Carlo
- Bud Man is an advertising character for Budweiser beer. He is a superhero and appears on many products aimed at coeds on University campuses. He also inspired Duff Man, a character on The Simpsons.
Recently, Miller Brewing began a series of commercials which featured "referees" calling "penalties" on people for drinking Bud Light, and they would then take the Bud Light and replace it with Miller. Anheuser-Busch responded with their own "referees" commercials in which referees were taking people's Budweiser and keeping it for themselves.
The company has long been known for its jingles. A few of them are:
- "Here Comes the King" - heard annually over Christmas ads featuring Clydesdales
- "When You Say Budweiser, You've Said It All"
- "Cubs Fan, Bud Man" - a Blues Brothers homage (based on their version of "Soul Man") done by Harry Caray for WGN-TV broadcasts of Chicago Cubs games
- "Under the Anheuser Bush" (an early 1900s popular recording)
[edit] Additional subsidiaries
Anheuser-Busch subsidiaries include:[1]
- Busch Entertainment Corp. is one of the largest U.S. theme park operators, with nine parks throughout the country including several Busch Gardens and Seaworld locations.
- Anheuser-Busch Agricultural Operations Produces and enhances the incoming quality of raw materials for the company's beers.
- St. Louis Refrigerated Car Co. Manages rail/truck transload operation and other properties in St. Louis. This subsidiary was established on February 3, 1878 as Anheuser-Busch's first subsidiary to to facilitate large-scale distribution of the company's products via the U.S. rail network as part of A-B's decision to promote Budweiser as a nationwide beer brand.
- Manufacturers Railway Co. Provides terminal rail-switching services to south St. Louis industries and operates a fleet of insulated beverage railcars and grain hopper cars. Its two trucking subsidiaries provide delivery of cans, bottles and outbound beer for four Anheuser-Busch breweries.
- Metal Container Corp. Produces cans and lids for the company's brewing operations as well as for U.S. soft-drink companies.
- Anheuser-Busch Recycling Corp. One of the world's largest recyclers of used aluminum beverage containers. Provides a positive alternative to mandatory deposits and helps reduce container costs.
- Precision Printing and Packaging, Inc. Produces labels for the company's beer packaging operations as well as for other customers.
- Eagle Packaging, Inc. Supplies 100 percent of Anheuser-Busch requirements for liner material for both the crowns and closures used in beer packaging.
- Longhorn Glass Corp. Supplies glass bottles to the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Houston.
- Busch Properties, Inc. Operates resort, residential and commercial properties.
[edit] Anheuser-Busch and the St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals baseball team was owned by Anheuser-Busch from the mid 1950s until it was sold to a group of private investors in March 1996. Busch Memorial Stadium, paid for and built by the brewery in the early 1960s, was recently demolished and replaced by a new ballpark. Anheuser-Busch signed an agreement for the new ballpark to retain the "Busch Stadium" name on the new building through 2025.
[edit] Corporate leadership
Patrick Stokes is the current Chairman. August Busch IV is the President and CEO. Both men assumed their titles on December 1, 2006.
The Chronology of past corporate leaders (President and CEO) is as follows
- 1860-1880 Eberhard Anheuser (1805 - 1880) (predecessor company E. Anheuser & Co.)
- 1880-1913 Adolphus Busch (1839 – 1913)
- 1913-1934 August A. Busch, Sr. (1865-1934)
- 1934-1946 Adolphus Busch III (1891-1946)
- 1946-1974 August A. "Gussie" Busch, Jr. (1899 - 1989)
- 1974-2002 August A. Busch III (1937-)
- 2002-2006 Patrick Stokes
- 2006- August A. Busch IV
[edit] External links
[edit] Notes
Categories: NPOV disputes | Wikipedia articles needing style editing | Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange | Articles with unsourced statements since March 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | Anheuser-Busch | Beer and breweries in multi regions | Companies based in Missouri | Companies based in St. Louis | Missouri breweries | Rail transport in the United States | St. Louis, Missouri | St. Louis Cardinals | Busch family | Companies established in 1852 | Registered Historic Places in Missouri | National Historic Landmarks of the United States | Amusement park companies
