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From a newspaper article, dated December 30, 1966: “Swinging a 75-year-old mallet from the Falstaff Museum of Brewing, President Joseph Griesedieck seals the 7,000,000 barrel of beer produced by the company in 1966. (Since the standard of measure in the brewing industry is a 31-gallon barrel, it takes two like the half-barrel pictured to equal a barrel.) Observing the event is Charles Mitchell of the brewing department at Plant Ten, one of Falstaff’s two breweries in St. Louis. The shipment of the 7,000,000th barrel on Dec. 29 (which includes sales of the firm’s Narraganesett subsidiary) marked a new high in annual barrelage sales for Falstaff, which operates nine breweries and a malting plant, and sells its products in 40 states and numerous overseas markets.” Courtesy of the Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri–St. Louis
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Old Forest Park Brewery, Falstaff Plant No. 1, now Six Row Brewery. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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Old Forest Park Brewery, Falstaff Plant No. 1, now Six Row Brewery. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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Old Forest Park Brewery, Falstaff Plant No. 1. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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Old Forest Park Brewery, Falstaff Plant No. 1. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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Old Forest Park Brewery, Falstaff Plant No. 1, surviving stained glass window above office door. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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Former Union Brewery, Falstaff Plant No. 2, Former power plant. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
As the 1960s dawned in America, Falstaff stood at the height of its success. It was the third largest brewery in America after only Anheuser-Busch and Schlitz. Meanwhile, the decline of regional breweries around the United States provided Falstaff with a steady supply of old production facilities to pick up at a seeming bargain. Its two larger competitors kept up their own strategy of building brand-new breweries from the ground up. Increasingly, the largest breweries in America relied on aggressive advertising to national audiences on the now-popular medium of television and radio. Falstaff’s commercials became familiar to even non-beer drinkers.
The final years of the 1950s had solidified Falstaff’s stature in the national beer market. The purchase of several more breweries around the nation brought the company’s constellation of plants to a dozen. In St. Louis, the company added the last of its hometown breweries, buying out their cousins at Griesedieck Brothers at Shenandoah and Gravois in 1957, christening the newly acquired property Plant No. 10. By then, Plants No. 1 and 2 had been closed, too small to warrant further investment. No. 1, partially demolished, would go on to become Six Row Brewery, while No. 2 was largely demolished. Its once soaring 285-foot smokestack came down, its power plant converted to a cat sanctuary; its office building across the street still shows the monogram of its former life as Otto Stifel’s Union Brewery. The Griesediecks then proceeded to build a dashing Modernist office building on Oakland across from Forest Park to house the burgeoning corporate offices that had since outgrown the Continental Building in the then-declining Grand Center.
But a Falstaff company document found in the archives of the Missouri History Museum portended serious problems in the future as early as 1962-63. On a hand-annotated spreadsheet, the realities of the inefficiency of many of Falstaff’s breweries become clear. Plant No. 5, the former Alpenbrau/Columbia Brewery, had production costs of $1.13 per barrel in 1963. Conversely, Galveston, the most efficient brewery in the Falstaff world, produced at $.038 per barrel—a shocking difference of $0.75. Not surprisingly, the aging Plant No. 5 was ranked last in efficiency, but perhaps even most perplexing was that the recently purchased Plant No. 10, the old Griesedieck Brothers Brewery, was in third to last place in efficiency, despite being one of the largest breweries in the company.
In 1961, Alvin’s oldest son, Joseph Sr. (older brother of Monsignor Griesedieck and father of Joe Jr.), had taken over reins at the brewery office at 5050 Oakland Avenue. His arrival as president came at a time when the frailties of the company’s aging brewing facilities had become acute. Back in the 1950s, Falstaff had begun negotiations with the Miller Brewing Company for a possible merger that would have bought time and capital for both breweries. Unfortunately, negotiations came to an end when President Frederick C. Miller Sr. died in a plane crash. To this day, both Monsignor Griesedieck and Joe Jr. wonder aloud at what could have been possible if a merger between those two companies would have occurred. Would Falstaff have survived? Would Miller have defeated Anheuser-Busch? In a letter to company employees dated December 30, 1963, Joe Sr. further warned that rising labor costs and price cuts were threatening the success of the company.
Falstaff was facing other challenges as well. As Joe Jr. explained, the company suffered severe losses due to labor negotiations in California. Unlike most states, where each company independently negotiated with unions, in California unions collectively bargained with all breweries. So when one company had union troubles, all other breweries in the state had to “take it on the chin” for their competitor and face strikes at their plants. Likewise, Falstaff began its attempt to expand into the Northeast United States, purchasing Ballantine in New York and the Narragansett Brewery in Rhode Island. Disappointing sales of Ballantine and an expensive, if ultimately successfully defended, anti-trust lawsuit in Rhode Island further sapped Falstaff’s finances. Monsignor Griesedieck also recalled that Falstaff was perhaps not ready to face the strong, no-nonsense unions of New York City. He also believes that drinking problems among some Falstaff executives clouded their judgment at a critical moment in the company’s history.
Perhaps most infamously, though, were the kegs. The Falstaff Tapper keg came with its own plastic tapper, but the promotion proved to be a financial disaster. Perhaps not grasping how much of a throw-away society America had become, Falstaff executives were soon horrified to discover that huge numbers of customers were not returning the kegs to receive their $1 deposit. The problem? The kegs cost $48. Estimates at company losses due to unreturned kegs topped $12 million. In fact, unreturned kegs are still being found in the basements of old bars throughout St. Louis. Griesedieck family members interviewed for this series confirm the kegs really were as financially disastrous as legend claims.
Unfortunately, the continued financial losses at the beginning of the 1970s saw Joe Sr. forced from his position as president of Falstaff in 1972. To his daughter Judy, who contacted this author after the first installment of this series ran, her father was much more than the president of Falstaff during some of its darkest times. Judy recalls that Joe Sr. was “an incredibly sweet, unassuming, humble man, not the typical corporate president, working around the yard, puttering on projects in his basement workshop, and also a very loving father, very patient with his four rambunctious daughters.” In fact, throughout the research for this series, nary a bad word for a single member of the Griesedieck family could be found. Company employees remember a close-knit, family-like environment where loyal and hard workers rose up through the ranks over the years. Perhaps in this cynical age such talk sounds naïve, but at one time in America, working for a corporation in St. Louis perhaps really could be that enjoyable. Reading old memos in the archives reveal an almost surreal level of politeness as Falstaff executives communicated with each other.
Regardless, Falstaff needed capital badly, and in 1975 it turned to Paul Kalmanovitz, whom the company knew from operating in California. The infusion of cash that gave Kalmanovitz controlling interest in Falstaff was greeted with polite optimism in a corporate memo from 1975, quoting the Polish-American executive:
“I am 69 years old. I don’t gamble with $20 million, and I’ve invested in a company and in an industry in which I have great faith!”
To read part two of this series, which ran last week, click here. Next week: The Griesedieck family and Falstaff discover the price of Kalmanovitz’s faith in their company.
Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via e-mail at naffziger@gmail.com.
