G. Heileman Brewing Company
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The G. Heileman Brewing Company of La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA, was a brewery firm that operated from 1858-1996. It was acquired in the latter year by Stroh's, and its independent existence ended. From 1872 until its acquisition, the brewery bore the family name of its co-founder, brewer Gottlieb Heileman.
Other key brewery CEOs in the life of Heileman's were Heileman's son-in-law and successor, Emil T. Mueller, and Russell Cleary. Mueller introduced what was to become Heileman's leading "premium" beer label, Heileman's Old Style Beer, in 1902. Cleary headed an acquisition and consolidation effort in the 1970s and early 1980s that gathered a significant percentage of old-line brewery names and intellectual properties into the Heileman family. After doing this he lost control of the firm to Alan Bond of Australia.
Bond, who already controlled the Tooheys name and beer interests in Australia, hoped to build a worldwide brewing combine. Lacking cash, he financed the acquisition of G. Heileman with junk bonds. The collapse of Bond's financial empire led indirectly to the end of Heileman's existence as an independent brewer. After further consolidations, G. Heileman's brewery names and intellectual properties became part of the Pabst Brewing Company, the current owner (as of 2006). Pabst oversees the brewing of several well-known Heileman brands, including Old Style and Special Export, under the G. Heileman name.
Historic U.S. brewing names that were consolidated into G. Heileman during its final years include Blatz, Blitz-Weinhard, Drewry's, Grain Belt, National Bohemian, Olympia, and Rainier. At its height the Heileman's combination was the third largest brewer in the United States, behind Anheuser-Busch and Miller.
The former Heileman's flagship brewery in La Crosse is (as of 2006) owned and operated by the City Brewing Company. The new brewery chose to use the name that the former Heileman's used as its startup name in 1858-1872.
[edit] Trivia
Motorists driving past the Heileman's facility in LaCrosse were greeted by a billboard reading, "Shhh...slow down...Heileman's aging here."
[edit] Sources
- Brewed with Style: The Story of the House of Heileman, Paul Koeller and David H. Delano ,2004, published by the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Foundation and City Brewing Company.
