1872–1920 The G. Heileman Brewery came to exist after the dissolution of the Gund/Heileman partnership in 1872. Still under Heileman's direction, the company remained a local brewery, producing only 3,000 barrels of beer a year for La Crosse and the surrounding community. Following the death of Henry Heileman, the heir to the company, in 1895, Mueller became vice president of the company, behind only Johanna, one of the first female CEOs in the history of the United States. It was also around the time of Henry's death that Heileman began developing their historic Old Style Brand. By 1902, the company was producing around 160,000 barrels of Old Style Lager. It was also that year that the company voted in a union, the last brewer in La Crosse to do so, allowing the company to expand even further. By 1915, Heileman had expanded to serving over 30 states. Johanna died in 1917, shortly after reaching 34 distribution states and only three years before Prohibition began in 1920.
1920–1933 Prohibition was signed into law officially on January 17, 1920, making it illegal to produce any beverage with more than half a percent of alcohol. Heileman quickly reorganized, dropping their Old Style Lager in favor of a new product, New Style Lager, which contained less than ½ a percent of alcohol. Heileman also began producing soda beverages and "malt tonics" with very little success – the company only sold 20,000 barrels in 1926. The company finally hit success with their production of
barley malt syrup, legally sold as a sweetener but which they made with the intention of consumers using it in private beer-making. The company continued to squeak by until President
Franklin D. Roosevelt's Congress modified the meaning of the
18th Amendment by removing beer and light wines from the Federal Government's definition of "alcoholic beverages", after which Heileman resumed all beer-making operations.
1933–1971 Following the end of Prohibition, the Heileman family members sold their shares of the company to Paul Davis Company of Chicago in 1933, who formalized the company as The G. Heileman Brewing Company Incorporated; the new company president signed the first stock certificates of Heileman that same year. Throughout the 1930s, the company continued to expand their facilities to accommodate increased production needs. There was a major upgrade in the mid 1930s following the creation of Special Export, Heileman's second house brew. Whereas Old Style Lager was only around 4% alcohol, Special Export was over 6%. There was a brief slowing in production during
World War II, when the company was impacted by the rationing going on in the country. It was also during WWII that the company took a different approach to brewing and marketing. Heileman began producing several new labels, none of which were as well done as their previous two labels, Old Style Lager and Special Export. Previously, marketing campaigns stressed the quality of their products, but with the influx of labels, Heileman began focusing on the prices and consumer appeal. The focus away from quality led to a sharp decrease in sales by the end of WWII. Not only did marketing change, but a
strike at the La Crosse Brewery in 1948 shut down operations for three months. Roy E. Kumm took over as president in 1957. A long-time employee at Heileman, Kumm remembered Heileman's prior to World War II and wanted to return the company to that position. He developed the strategy that Heileman would follow for the next three decades: • Expand to new markets • Increase capacity • Offer vastly different brands to appeal to a wide range of people. , left, and Roy Kumm, right While a fire in 1959 caused over $100,000 in damages, and almost derailed Kumm's efforts, the company stayed on track. They continued to expand under Kumm by purchasing new breweries and labels. Kumm also introduced a German-style beer festival modeled on the
Oktoberfest in
Munich, and beer by that name to the La Crosse region to increase the sales of Heileman beers. The
La Crosse, Wisconsin, Oktoberfest USA celebration was trademarked with the federal government that same year. Between the end of WWII and 1971, Heileman had jumped from 39th in the brewing industry to 15th. Following Kumm's death from stomach cancer in 1971, Cleary took over as president. Building on a strategy begun by his predecessors, Cleary accelerated an acquisition and consolidation effort in the 1970s and early 1980s. Through his efforts, Cleary was able to get Heileman stock traded at the
New York Stock Exchange on May 23, 1973. During this period, the company owned several breweries in other states. Historic U.S. brewing names that were consolidated into G. Heileman during its final years include
Black Label,
Blatz,
Blitz-Weinhard,
Drewry's,
Falls City,
Grain Belt,
Gluek Brewing,
National Bohemian,
Olympia,
Rainier,
Christian Schmidt,
Jacob Schmidt, and
Wiedemann. Several of the acquisitions were met with legal issues regarding the
Sherman Antitrust Act, limiting monopolization of markets, despite a majority of industry analysts calling that many of Heileman's proposed acquisitions would only intensify, not monopolize, the industry. With such hostility towards Heileman when they tried buying other breweries, the company began expanding into different industries such as baking, snack foods, and mineral water, including a Heileman original,
La Croix. By 1982 the brewing capacity in La Crosse had been increased to 10 million barrels per year. The total brewing capabilities of Heileman, combined with acquired facilities, peaked at fourth place in 1983, behind
Anheuser-Busch,
Miller, and
Stroh Brewery Company. After achieving the #4 market share position in 1983, Heileman's sales went unchanged throughout the middle years of the 1980s. Analysts pointed to extremely heavy and competitive marketing pressures during this period. In 1987
Australia-based
corporate raider Alan Bond began a hostile
leveraged buyout in an attempt to take over the company. Heileman's management repeatedly rebuffed his efforts, but Bond was ultimately successful when Cleary accepted the reality that even with the assistance of the courts (which had intervened to force a higher offer price) he'd only be able to negotiate the "best possible deal for employees, stockholders, and the city of La Crosse".
1987–1996 Bond, who already controlled the
Tooheys name and almost 50% of the brewing industry in Australia, hoped to build a worldwide brewing combine. Lacking cash, he had financed the acquisition of G. Heileman with
junk bonds. The collapse of Bond's
over-leveraged financial empire led indirectly to the end of Heileman's existence as an independent brewer. Cleary stayed on as director for an additional two years before finally retiring from the company in 1989. As a direct result of the Alan Bond collapse, the G. Heileman Brewing Company declared
bankruptcy in January 1991. The troubled firm sought salvation with an aggressive push into the
malt liquor market. In a controversial move, company leadership developed a new brand of
malt liquor to be named "Power Master". It was brewed with an
ABV of 7.4%, significantly higher than existing malt liquor brands. Protestors cited Heileman's distribution and advertising strategies as evidence that the company was targeting the high-alcohol beverage toward urban
African Americans, especially in
Chicago, one of Heileman's core markets. Catholic priest Father
Michael Pfleger took a leading role in opposing Power Master, helping to organize a threatened boycott of one of Heileman's well established malt liquor brands,
Colt 45, which, at the time, had an alcohol percentage of 5.6%. The Colt 45 boycott was called off in July 1991 when the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives succeeded in persuading Heileman to pull the "Power Master" brand from the market. Heileman continued to decline. After originally agreeing to a purchase price of $390 million in late 1993, the private equity firm
Hicks, Muse bought the company in 1994 for $300 million. Two years later it sold Heileman to Detroit-based competitor
Stroh Brewery Company, which assumed its outstanding debt. Overwhelmed by this and additional debt piled up absorbing other breweries, Stroh's failed. It was sold off in 1999, divvied up between
Pabst and
Miller, and the brand dissolved in 2000. The G. Heileman's brewery names, brands, and intellectual properties, ended up with Pabst, which oversaw the brewing of several well-known Heileman brands, including Old Style and Special Export, under the G. Heileman name. ==Breweries==