legitimate earnings, on borrowed money, causing us to be more and more involved in debt from year to year.” Many times Best had pointed out the “danger” of Pabst’s policies, but for the most part, Pabst merely “laughed,” pronounced Best a “black see-er,” and continued his march down the path to ruin. “Had you . . . followed my well meant and oft repeated advice,” Charles added, the company might be smaller but at least it would be debt-free and “running to its full capacity.” Instead, Best found himself nearly ill from the “continual embarrassment and worry.”
And then the harried secretary unleashed the full measure of his grievances: “We have a large overgrown establishment on our hands, the capacity of which exceeds sales by nearly 150,000 Bbls. per annum, are carrying an enormous load of debts, and our manufacturing expenses are greater than those of our competitors . . . ” Best had hoped that his employers “would entirely drop the idea of investing any more money” in the brewery, but alas, Pabst’s recent “movements and remarks” had led Charles to the sad conclusion that the brewer planned to “follow the examples” of his competitors, “a very dangerous, even suicidal policy” as long as Best Brewing Company was “so heavily indebted.” Not being in a “position to offer any objection to such a course,” Charles concluded, “I desire to sever my connection with the Brewing Company at the earliest possible moment . . . ”
Again, what happened next is long lost to us, but we can assume that Pabst wooed rather than raged, shining the full light of his charm and good humor on his fretful cousin. Charles retracted his resignation and stayed another five and a half years, finally leaving in December 1889, one year after Emil Schandein’s death and ten months after Frederick Pabst replaced the word “Best” with “Pabst” on the brewery letterhead.
One fact is undeniable: During his twelve years with the company, Charles Best had watched Pabst and Schandein engineer a series of maneuvers that transformed a small brewhouse of ten thousand barrels into a behemoth that produced more than 374,000 the year of Best’s outburst. The age demanded such devil-may-care daring, and if the Charles Bests developed headaches, the Frederick Pabsts prospered beyond imagination. By the turn of the decade, the breweries of Pabst and Schandein, the Uihleins, and Adolphus Busch dwarfed most others. In 1880, half of the nation’s 2,271 beermakers produced fewer than one thousand barrels a year, and 75 percent sold fewer than four thousand, disposing of most of it at saloons within a mile or so of their brewhouses. Best Brewing Company’s 200,000 barrels in that year, an output surpassed only by George Ehret in New York City, appeared nearly grotesque in comparison. Bergner & Engel of Philadelphia ranked third, and behind them stood the Uihleins with 195,000 barrels and Adolphus Busch with 141,000.
As Charles Best rightly observed, the foray into large-scale brewing was freighted with uncertainty: Expansion necessitated not just debt, but risk of another sort. In order to make the debt pay, the brewery had to produce at capacity. But Milwaukee and St. Louis could not begin to absorb the vast swell of lager that poured from Best Brewing or Anheuser-Busch. The men had no choice but to push their beer into distant markets, and therein lies the brilliance behind the mechanical innovations and investments of Pabst and Schandein, the Uihleins, and Busch: They grew not by trundling their brew down the street and around the corner to neighborhood taverns, as did Ehret, Bergner & Engel, and other mammoth brewing houses in New York City and Philadelphia, but by taking their beer on the road, creating vast networks of markets that ranged from their own backyards to the Deep South, from tony company-owned hotels in New York and Dallas to dozens of foreign countries, and consisted of
And then the harried secretary unleashed the full measure of his grievances: “We have a large overgrown establishment on our hands, the capacity of which exceeds sales by nearly 150,000 Bbls. per annum, are carrying an enormous load of debts, and our manufacturing expenses are greater than those of our competitors . . . ” Best had hoped that his employers “would entirely drop the idea of investing any more money” in the brewery, but alas, Pabst’s recent “movements and remarks” had led Charles to the sad conclusion that the brewer planned to “follow the examples” of his competitors, “a very dangerous, even suicidal policy” as long as Best Brewing Company was “so heavily indebted.” Not being in a “position to offer any objection to such a course,” Charles concluded, “I desire to sever my connection with the Brewing Company at the earliest possible moment . . . ”
Again, what happened next is long lost to us, but we can assume that Pabst wooed rather than raged, shining the full light of his charm and good humor on his fretful cousin. Charles retracted his resignation and stayed another five and a half years, finally leaving in December 1889, one year after Emil Schandein’s death and ten months after Frederick Pabst replaced the word “Best” with “Pabst” on the brewery letterhead.
One fact is undeniable: During his twelve years with the company, Charles Best had watched Pabst and Schandein engineer a series of maneuvers that transformed a small brewhouse of ten thousand barrels into a behemoth that produced more than 374,000 the year of Best’s outburst. The age demanded such devil-may-care daring, and if the Charles Bests developed headaches, the Frederick Pabsts prospered beyond imagination. By the turn of the decade, the breweries of Pabst and Schandein, the Uihleins, and Adolphus Busch dwarfed most others. In 1880, half of the nation’s 2,271 beermakers produced fewer than one thousand barrels a year, and 75 percent sold fewer than four thousand, disposing of most of it at saloons within a mile or so of their brewhouses. Best Brewing Company’s 200,000 barrels in that year, an output surpassed only by George Ehret in New York City, appeared nearly grotesque in comparison. Bergner & Engel of Philadelphia ranked third, and behind them stood the Uihleins with 195,000 barrels and Adolphus Busch with 141,000.
As Charles Best rightly observed, the foray into large-scale brewing was freighted with uncertainty: Expansion necessitated not just debt, but risk of another sort. In order to make the debt pay, the brewery had to produce at capacity. But Milwaukee and St. Louis could not begin to absorb the vast swell of lager that poured from Best Brewing or Anheuser-Busch. The men had no choice but to push their beer into distant markets, and therein lies the brilliance behind the mechanical innovations and investments of Pabst and Schandein, the Uihleins, and Busch: They grew not by trundling their brew down the street and around the corner to neighborhood taverns, as did Ehret, Bergner & Engel, and other mammoth brewing houses in New York City and Philadelphia, but by taking their beer on the road, creating vast networks of markets that ranged from their own backyards to the Deep South, from tony company-owned hotels in New York and Dallas to dozens of foreign countries, and consisted of
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