Meister Brau

Peter Hand, a German immigrant, founded the Hand Brewing Company (later Meister Brau Brewing Co.) in Chicago in 1891. His Meister Brau brand of beer was a local favorite, and the brewery was able to emerge from the woeful Prohibition era with relative strength. As this company continued on into the 1970s, however, the brutal competition of the beer wars began to take its toll, and by 1972 the business was weakened enough that it allowed itself to be acquired by Miller Brewing Company (Philip-Morris). However, before this buy-out, Meister Brau introduced a product that revolutionized brewing and reverberates to this day.

Meister Brau/Hand Brewing had a portfolio of beer styles, but the roll-out in 1967 of its diet beer, Meister-Brau Lite, soon changed everything. Miller Brewing, apparently sensing a gold mine with Lite, much like their sniffing out the wildly successful trade for the Stroh/Pabst malt liquor (and Hamm's line) brands in 1999 (Mickey's and Old English 800), which was parleyed into a very strong niche segment, snatched up the entire company in 1972, and the last brewery in Chicago was shut down. 

Miller rebranded Meister Brau Lite as Lite Beer by Miller (changed to Miller Lite in the mid-1980s), then in 1973, began to test-market the beer. This being a success, Lite was introduced nationally in 1975 with blanket marketing. This beer was such a phenomenal coup, that Schlitz, Anheuser-Busch, Coors, and the others quickly introduced their own light beers, with varying success (Budweiser Light is today the world-s number one selling beer; Schlitz Light was discontinued in 2010). 

In 1983 Miller reformulated and rebranded Meister Brau and began a strong marketing campaign for it, positioning the beer from the premium segment to the budget level. This proved to be a great success, yet the introduction of Milwaukee's Best, just one year later, would eventually spell the doom of Meister Brau and Meister Brau Light. As Miller increased advertising attention for their Milwaukee's Best line (another acquisition, by the way, from a smaller brewing firm), the marketing of Meister Brau slowly withered away. 

When I toured the Miller brewery in 2002, Meister Brau was still prominently displayed as a key company brand, but soon after, I noticed a fairly general nonexistence of the beer. When I contacted Miller in 2005, they told me that due to a lack of sales, the Meister Brau line had been discontinued that same year. Miller bought the Meister Brau brewery and its heritage, struck gold with Lite, and eventually discarded the rest. However, that's business. 

I was able to try Meister Brau only once, having bought a six-pack of 12 oz. cans in Connecticut in 1996. Even with the low price (about $2.00 for the six-pack), I found Meister Brau to be a solid and delicious beer. On the other hand, this was somewhat of a throwback beer, with it's formidable bite, roasty taste profile, and hoppy finish. At the time, with bland being the style of the day, and with Meister Brau not fitting the craft beer niche, it was destined, like Falstaff, to die on the vine. One wonders what could have happened to it (and Falstaff, for that matter), if the brand could have held on just a few more years until the hugely successful retro/hipster beer movement swept the nation. Had that occurred, Meister Brau (and Falstaff as well) may have been brought back to a prominent position. But, it's gone (and probably for ever).