{"id":1367,"date":"2013-12-03T07:50:14","date_gmt":"2013-12-03T12:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=1367"},"modified":"2013-12-02T11:27:34","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T16:27:34","slug":"success-is-a-journey-not-a-destination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=1367","title":{"rendered":"Success is a journey, not a destination……."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"brewery\"<\/a>On a recent consulting engagement the following question was posed to me: “How many breweries have I visited in my career?”\u00a0 I never actually counted the number of breweries I have seen, the question caused me to stop and think.<\/p>\n

The very first brewery I visited was the Jos. Schlitz Brewery in Milwaukee.\u00a0 I was there for a job interview.\u00a0 My schedule was tight so I did not get much of a tour, but I did eat in the employee cafeteria.\u00a0 While there, I drove by Pabst Brewing Co.\u00a0 Both of these breweries were at, or near, the height of their business.\u00a0 In fact, Schlitz was a strong number two in the US, and Pabst was not far behind.<\/p>\n

A little over 10 years later, I visited Schlitz again.\u00a0 This time the brewery was being shut down by Stroh Brewing Co. who had recently purchased Schlitz.\u00a0 The brewery was a ghost town, empty desks, trash still in trash cans, and executive offices left in a mess.\u00a0 It was a sad sight.\u00a0 The brewery has since been converted into retail, offices and apartments.\u00a0 The Pabst Brewery was closed in 1997 and now the facility has been converted into a hotel and retail shops.<\/p>\n

My next brewery visit was Lone Star in San Antonio.\u00a0 The brewery was\u00a0not as modern as\u00a0Schlitz, and Buckhorn Hall of Horns Bar, a tourist attraction, was on the property.\u00a0 The brewery grounds were one big picnic area with a huge pool which was packed with people during the summer months.\u00a0 What a great promotional tool!\u00a0 The office of the chairman\/founder, Harry Jersig, was immense, and to this day, the largest office I have ever seen.\u00a0 His square footage was bigger than my house!\u00a0 The brewery today is empty and gutted.<\/p>\n

Pearl Brewing Co., close to Lone Star and the home of the Jersey Lily Bar, is now retail shops and apartments too.<\/p>\n

Coors in the 70s had a great program.\u00a0 All wholesaler sales people had the opportunity to visit the brewery after working at the company for one year.\u00a0 Coors treated its\u00a0visitors like kings as everyone got a personal tour through the brewery.\u00a0 The highlight was drinking beer out of a small facet\u00a0while the beer was\u00a0on the way to packaging.\u00a0 It was as fresh as beer could get.\u00a0 Everyone stayed at the Pig and Whistle motel, a small establishment built in the 30s.\u00a0 We were served the largest T-bone steaks with cold Coors drafts.\u00a0 All the employees came back fired up to sell more Coors.<\/p>\n

By 1980, there were less than 50 operating breweries in the US.\u00a0Throughout the years, I have visited: Shiner, Modelo, Pacifico, Femsa, Sierra Nevada, Anchor, Mendincino, Stone, Rogue, Portland, Bridgeport, Olympia, Rainer, St. Arnolds, Texas Brewing, Stroh, Great Grains, Stevens Point, Pittsburgh, New Belgium, Flying Dog, Warsteiner, Krombacher, Veltins, Bitburger, Peticolas, Rahr, Sleeman, Molson, Backus and Johnson, and many more.\u00a0 \u00a0Now with crafts on fire, there are close to 3,000 breweries with more coming.<\/p>\n

Just recently a new website www.BrewTrail.com<\/a>\u00a0 was established and it lists every brewery (2,538) in the US including detailed\u00a0information on\u00a0each.\u00a0 One can even create and follow their own \u201cbrewery trail\u201d\u00a0highlighting tasting rooms and hours.\u00a0 A great idea!<\/p>\n

Take time to visit these breweries, but remember for them, success is a journey, not a destination!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a recent consulting engagement the following question was posed to me: “How many breweries have I visited in my career?”\u00a0 I never actually counted the number of breweries I have seen, the question caused me to stop and think. The very first brewery I visited was the Jos. Schlitz Brewery in Milwaukee.\u00a0 I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2xRTi-m3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1367"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}