Forbes has an interesting read about the collapse of Stroh beer business and fortune. How To Blow $9 Billion: The Fallen Stroh Family
While the onus falls mainly on Peter Stroh [driving force behind our riverfront recovery] it is also a cautionary tale about a family grown decadent by inherited wealth.
Peter Stroh made several bad acquisitions [most notably Schlitz] when the market for beer was contracting and shifting.
I had a bit of a view of this disaster as a close friend's Danish father had been brought in by Peter Stroh to design a premium beer, what would become Stroh's Signature. He was ahead of his time on that front but the light beer craze had arrived in the meantime. Peter Stroh resisted developing a light beer then had an almost snobbish response when the premium beer project had to be sidelined to try to catch up with the light beer race telling his brewmaster, "to pour more water in the beer" and get it on the shelves.
I still miss the steam-clouded neon Stroh's sign at the entrance to the I-375.Peter Stroh’s grand vision of a thriving U.S.-wide brewer failed to materialize. It largely missed the boat on the biggest industry trend in a generation: light beer. And Stroh’s core product–cheap, watery, full-calorie beer–was a commodity. But saddled with debt, Stroh couldn’t afford to match the ad spending of its bigger rivals, Anheuser-Busch and Miller. Unable to spur demand through marketing, Stroh turned to price, introducing a 15-pack for the price of 12 cans and a 30-pack for the price of a case of 24. While the latter had legs, it wasn’t enough to outrun the shrinking margins.
Below: Peter Stroh [holding papers] at announcement of Flynn Pavilion restoration in 2002.
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