page_title: G. Heileman Brewing Company
section_title: 1933–1987
hierarchical_section_title: G. Heileman Brewing Company / History / 1933–1987
caption_attribution_description: English: Roy Kumm, President, and Russell Cleary, Vice President, preside over the G. Heileman Brewing Company $100 million in Sales event in 1968.
context_page_description: The G. Heileman Brewing Company of La Crosse, Wisconsin, United States, was a brewery firm that operated from 1858 to 1996. It was ultimately acquired by Stroh's, and its independent existence ceased. From 1872 until its acquisition, the brewery bore the family name of its co-founder and brewer Gottlieb Heileman.
context_section_description: Following the end of Prohibition, the Heileman family members sold their shares of the company to Paul Davis Company of Chicago in 1933, who incorporated the company as The G. Heileman Brewing Company Incorporated and the new company president signed the very first stocks of Heileman that same year. Throughout the 1930s, the company continued to expand their facilities to accommodate increased production needs. There was a major upgrade in the mid 1930s following the creation of Special Export, Heileman's second house brew. Whereas Old Style Lager was only around 4% alcohol, Special Export was over 6%.
  There was a brief slowing in production during World War II, when the company was impacted by the rationing going on in the country. It was also during WWII, the company took a different approach to brewing and marketing. Heileman began producing several new labels, none of which were as well done as their previous two labels, Old Style Lager and Special Export. Previously, marketing campaigns stressed the quality of their products, but with the influx of labels, Heileman began focusing on the prices and consumer appeal. The focus away from quality led to a sharp decrease in sales by the end of WWII. Not only did marketing change, but a strike at the La Crosse Brewery in 1948 shut operations down for three months.
  Roy E. Kumm took over as president in 1957. A long-time employee at Heileman, Kumm remembered Heileman's prior to World War II and wanted to return the company to that position. He developed the strategy that Heileman would follow for the next three decades:
  Expand to new markets
  Increase capacity
  Offer vastly different brands to appeal to a wide range of people.
  While a fire in 1959 caused over $100,000 in damages, and almost derailed Kumm's efforts, the company stayed on track. They continued to expand under Kumm by purchasing new breweries and labels. Kumm also introduced  a German-style beer festival modeled on the Oktoberfest in Munich, and beer by that name to the La Crosse region to increase the sales of Heileman beers. The   La Crosse, Wisconsin, Oktoberfest USA celebration was trademarked with the federal government that same year. Between the end of WWII and 1971, Heileman had jumped from 39th in the brewing industry to 15th.
  It was also in the 1960s that Heileman hired Russell G. Cleary, Kumm's son-in-law. Following Kumm's death from stomach cancer in 1971, Cleary took over as president. Building on a strategy begun by his predecessors, Cleary accelerated an acquisition and consolidation effort in the 1970s and early 1980s. Through his efforts, Cleary was able to get Heileman stock traded at the New York Stock Exchange on May 23, 1973. Historic U.S. brewing names that were consolidated into G. Heileman during its final years include Black Label, Blatz, Blitz-Weinhard, Drewry's, Falls City, Grain Belt, Gluek Brewing, National Bohemian, Olympia, Rainier, Christian Schmidt, Jacob Schmidt, and Wiedemann.
  Several of the acquisitions were met with legal issues regarding the Sherman Antitrust Act, limiting monopolization of markets, despite a majority of industry analysts calling that many of Heileman's proposed acquisitions would only intensify, not monopolize, the industry. With such hostility towards Heileman when they tried buying other breweries, the company began expanding into different industries such as baking, snack foods, and mineral water, including a Heileman original, La Croix. The brewing capabilities of Heileman, combined with their supplemental industries, peaked at fourth place in 1983, behind Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Stroh Brewery Company. The company at the time was making over 17 million barrels per year, with annual sales of $1.3 billion.
  Despite being in the top five in the industry, Heileman's sales went unchanged throughout the mid 1980s, and this was attributed to brutal marketing strategies within the brewing industry and the overall decrease in the sale of beer throughout the 1980s. In 1987, Alan Bond of Australia made moves to take over the company and despite Heileman's best e
caption: Russell G. Cleary, left, and Roy Kumm, right
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