How Breweries Like Coors, Yuengling And Anheuser-Busch Survived Prohibition (2024)

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How Breweries Like Coors, Yuengling And Anheuser-Busch Survived Prohibition? ›

Breweries survived federal prohibition by switching to other products that shared inputs with the production of beer, like soft drinks and malt extract. Yet, some breweries were more likely to adapt and survive than others.

During the Prohibition era, Yuengling survived by producing "near beers" (beverages with a 0.5% alcohol content) called "Yuengling Special", "Yuengling Por-Tor", and "Yuengling Juvo". The company also ran a dairy which produced ice cream and opened dance halls in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York City.

The sale of malt syrup and yeast also helped brewers stay afloat. Prohibition banned the sale of beer, but not the ingredients for making it. Although malt syrup was advertised as a baking ingredient, many buyers used the extract to make beer.

Starting Jan. 1, 1916, Colorado was under Prohibition, a law that banned alcohol across the state. And Coors, overnight, became a brewer who couldn't brew beer. Instead, his company churned out tea cups and dinnerware and malted milk, finding a way to stay alive as nationwide Prohibition followed in 1920.

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During Prohibition, Anheuser-Busch built truck bodies and refrigerated cabinets; manufactured barley malt syrup and ice cream; and entered the baker's yeast business.

Anheuser-Busch is now owned by AB InBev, which is based in Belgium; Yuengling remains family-owned. "The opportunity to engage and serve a new set of fans from some of the most iconic beer-drinking states is an opportunity we take very seriously," said Pat Pikunas, general manager of The Yuengling Company.

However, Coors and his sons relied heavily on the porcelain company and a cement and real estate company to keep the Coors Brewing Company afloat. By 1933, after the end of Prohibition, the Coors brewery was one of only a handful of breweries that had survived.

Barley malt syrup

Malt syrup fit the bill. Many breweries produced malt syrup, including Anheuser-Busch, Schlitz and Miller.

According to Maureen Ogle, of the 1,300 brewers operating in 1915, no more than 100 survived Prohibition. It is worth noting, though, that in the 1870s there were 4,000 breweries.

Is Coors owned by Anheuser-Busch? ›

Budweiser is owned by Anheuser Busch a division of Inbev of Belgium. Coors is self owned by Coors/Molson who also have owned Miller since 2015.

Coors stopped pasteurizing its product 18 years ago because it decided that “heat is an enemy of beer,” according to a company spokesman. Unpasteurized beer must be kept under constant re frigeration.

Why was Coors Beer not allowed to be sold east of the Mississippi in the 1970s? - Quora. It was allowed, but Coors chose not too because the beer wasn't pasteurized and had a limited shelf life. Transportation is hard on beer. For decades, there were many, many beers that were regional.

Mafias took advantage of the conditions made by Prohibition to make exorbitant amounts of money in the illegal alcohol trade. In order to produce and transport alcohol across state and international borders, criminal gangs needed to coordinate their activities like never before.

Many of these mobsters were part of a generation born in the 1890s and early 1900s that came of age with Prohibition. The infamous Italian-American “Five Families” of New York (Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese, Bonnano and Colombo) would emerge from the wealth produced by Prohibition.

In 1920, Frank D. Yuengling, President of D.G. Yuengling & Sons Brewery, started a separate company, Yuengling's Ice Cream, to generate new revenue for the Yuengling family due to the start of Prohibition (18th Amendment). The ice cream plant is constructed at 5th and Mahantongo Street in Pottsville, PA.

Although it did not ban the consumption of alcohol itself, it did regulate who could produce it and sell it during these years. The passing of the amendment shuttered distilleries overnight, many closing their doors for good and many brands lost to Prohibition.

Advertising sought to persuade the public by touting the economic benefits of the brewing industry and the taxes thereon, lauding the health value of “liquid bread,” distinguishing beer from hard alcohol, and making philosophical appeals for liberty.

Winemakers and brewers found creative ways to stay afloat.

Yuengling and Anheuser Busch both refitted their breweries to make ice cream, while Coors doubled down on the production of pottery and ceramics. Others produced “near beer”—a legal brew that contained less than 0.5 percent alcohol.