Portal:Beer/Selected person/2
Adolphus Busch
B. 10 July 1839 – d. 10 October 1913
Colonel Adolphus Busch was a German-American co-founder of Anheuser-Busch, along with his father-in-law Eberhard Anheuser.
During the American Civil War he served in the United States Army for 14 months. It was at this time that he learned that his father had died and that he had inherited a portion of his father's estate. He used the money to start a wholesale brewer's supply store, and four years later he bought a share in the Bavarian brewery from Eberhard Anheuser, his father-in-law. The company was first called "Anheuser and Company", but at the death of Eberhard Anheuser in 1879, it was changed to "Anheuser Busch Company".
In 1891 Adolphus bought from Carl Conrad the trademark and name Budweiser. He envisioned a national beer with universal appeal. Toward this end, he created a network of rail-side ice-houses and launched the industry’s first fleet of refrigerated freight cars. Success came when Adolphus found a method to pasteurize the beer so it kept fresh. The beer could now be shipped all over the country. He was also an early adopter of bottled beer. In 1901 sales surpassed the one million barrels of beer benchmark.
His great-great-grandson, August Busch IV is now a board member on Anheuser-Busch InBev. (Full article...)