Soap To Suds

In 1852 a man named Schneider founded a small brewery in St. Louis that could produce 3,000 barrels of beer a year. Three years later his firm was taken over by Urban and Hammer, a competitor. The new owners expanded the firm, largely with $90,000 borrowed from a St. Louis soap manufacturer. They also failed. The soap manufacturer took over and has been producing suds at the greatest rate in the world for years. A few years later a corporal in the Missouri State Guard married the soap maker’s daughter and became a salesman for the firm and later a partner. The soap maker was Eberhard Anheuser. The young corporal was Adolphus Busch. And their suds, of course, is beer. When Eberhard Anheuser died in 1880 at the age of seventy-five he had seen his brewery reach production of 141,000 barrels a year. By then, Adolphus Busch had taken over the management.

AOWM – December 15, 2005