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For the Adolph Coors Co. of Golden, Colo., everything seemed to be going right in the early 1970s. Though it was a regional beer produced in a single brewery, Coors won a kind of trendy following among everyone from college kids to Henry Kissinger and was carted in suitcases and backpacks across the U.S. Annual sales gains averaging 10% carried Coors to fourth place among brewers nationwide, but in 1977 disaster struck. The brewery was hit by a long and costly strike. The firm's poor labor-management relations brought on both bad publicity and a union boycott of Coors products. Today the company has slipped to a distant sixth place in beer sales.
Belatedly, Coors has geared up to establish national distribution by building a second brewery near Elkton, Va., but slow sales have forced the plans to be shelved for the time being. More immediately, the brewer has begun advertising heavily, and is in the process of adding a new superpremium brand, Herman Joseph's 1868. Insists Company President Joseph Coors: "We will fight tooth and nail to improve our market, and we're going to survive."
Among the handful of regional brewers actually to have prospered in recent years is G. Heileman Brewing Co. of La Crosse, Wis. The company jumped from 15th to fourth in the industry during the past decade by buying up old regional brands like Grain Belt, Rainier and Black Label, and running them more efficiently than had their previous owners. So far, the brewer's attempt to expand nationally by taking over Pabst has been stymied by the Milwaukee firm's defensive maneuvers to fend off acquisition. Moreover, the Justice Department has threatened antitrust action against the takeover because both Heileman and Pabst already have sizable shares of the Midwest beer market.
While regional beermakers struggle for national status, they have created an opening for tiny so-called boutique breweries. Last year seven of the nation's ten smallest boosted their sales. Too insignificant to get pushed around much by bigger brands, they concentrate on developing products with a unique taste and appeal. Among the best: Stevens Point Brewery of Stevens Point, Wis., which makes what a tasting panel assembled by Chicago Newspaper Columnist Mike Royko called the finest beer brewed in America; Leinenkugel of Chippewa Falls, Wis., which has been operated by the Leinenkugel family for 115 years; and Geyer Bros, of Frankenmuth, Mich., which last year turned a profit by brewing and selling a mere 4,500 bbl. of beer.
Perhaps the most glamorous small brewer is Anchor Brewing Co. of San Francisco, which was saved from bankruptcy in 1965 by Frederick Maytag, the great-grandson of the washing machine company founder. Maytag has developed a national following for his Anchor Steam Beer even though only 25,000 bbl. of the brew were produced last year. The beer, now available in 19 states, including Massachusetts and Georgia, is much praised by savants for its distinctively European taste, which imparts a somewhat heavier bouquet than is common among American brands.