When Prohibition (The Volstead Act) was repealed, there had spanned 13 or so years without a legal glass of beer for the common man. As beer returned to the retail outlets, too many customers complained about the beer. The brewers quickly realized that the treatment of their beer after leaving the brewery was the problem.
The American Brewer August 1933
-How To Serve Beer-
Part of Falstaff Sales Service
Oscar B. Fischer, vice-president and city sales manager of the Falstaff Brewing Corporation, is giving close attention to the retailers of Falstaff beer and is assuring himself that they are serving it in such a manner that the quality and goodness is nor lost to the consuming public. Too often, Mr. Fischer pointed out, complaints are heard that beer is “flat” and the blame, almost always, wrongly is laid to the brew.
“The retailing public has forgotten how to serve beer,” Mr. Fischer Stated. “For many of them it is the first time that they are selling beer and errors in the proper serving of it may be expected. The Falstaff Brewery has been forced to conduct an educational campaign through salesmen and special representatives to instruct customers in the correct methods of serving beer.
“Absolute cleanliness in equipment is the prime factor in serving beer correctly,” Mr. Fischer said. “If an air pump is used in serving draught beer, care must be taken to see that the air pumped into the beer is clean and not full of cigarette smoke or dust. The coils of the cooler must be kept absolutely clean, and the glasses should not only be clean but thoroughly chilled.”
Mr. Fischer believes that by instructing the retailers in the proper methods of serving beer that knowledge will be passed on to the consuming public. He pointed out that beer should be served only in glasses or steins used for that purpose only and expressed himself as being of the belief that once this fact was imparted to the general public that there would be less complaints about beer being “flat.”
“No matter how good any foodstuff may be in quality,” he said, “that quality will be lost if the manner of serving is permitted to destroy it. The purpose of the Falstaff Brewery is to teach the public how to serve beer so that the quality is not lost.”
Falstaff salesmen have been schooled to instruct customers in the serving of beer and the company will not sell beer to firms that do not distribute it correctly. Special representatives of the brewery call on dispensers of draught beer twice a week to keep the service up to the proper standard.
Meanwhile the $1,000,000 expansion program at the Falstaff plant is going ahead full blast. The new $150,000 bottling plant is almost ready for operation and, designed as it is, for efficiency and sanitation, it will help step up production considerably.
The bottling plant is equipped with three large bottling units, one of which has already been installed. The new unit has a capacity of 240 bottles a minute and is one of the largest in use. An elaborate conveying system has been installed throughout the plant and production will never lag one moment—so farsighted have been the designers of the building.
A government cellar in the basement is equipped with fourteen storage tanks, 10 feet high and 9 feet 6 inches in diameter. The capacity of the cellar is 2,000 barrels.
The erection of the bottling plant is a part of Falstaff’s gigantic expansion program which started with the acquisition of the old Stifel Union Brewery by the company. The Stifel plant has been used almost solely for the manufacture of draught beer and is running at capacity output.
The next step in the Falstaff expansion program, as announced by Joseph Griesedieck, president of the company, is the erection of a new brew house with a capacity of 1,500 barrels a day and additional storage cellars to handle approximately 25,000 barrels of beer.
The company’s architects are drawing up plans now for the new brew house and construction is expected to start sometime in September. The company hopes to have the building completed and ready for use early next year.
Since April 7, when 3.2 percent beer became legal, the Falstaff Brewing Corporation has increased its output 300 percent and has branched out in the retail field in sixteen states. Draught beer has been confined to local shipments, as a rule.
The ultimate goal of the expansion program is to assure a yearly output of 750,000 barrels. Since the legalization of beer the payroll of the Falstaff Corporation has increased from $5,000 a month to $29,000 and the consumption of grain has spurred 900 per cent. The company is sparing neither time nor money to place its product within the public’s reach and executives are looking to the future with their progressive plans.
Crescent City Brew Talk 