Budweiser - King of Marketing
In the 1860s August Busch traveled extensively in Europe to observe and study the latest brewing techniques. He found a brewer in Budweis, Czechoslovakia dating back to the 13th century in the Kingdom of Bohemia and marketing a beer called Budweiser Budvar since 1785. They call their beer "The Beer of KIngs" (sound familiar?).
Busch copied their brewing style and became the first American brewer to use pasteurization for greater shelf-life and distribution then introduced a lager called Budewiser in 1876. In the mid-1800s, most Americans preferred robust, dark ales. Busch dared consumers to drink Budweiser for five days, and if on the sixth day, they still preferred the taste of other beers, they could go back.
August A. Busch Jr. became president of Anheuser-Busch in 1946 and began the creation of a national network of breweries. A new brewery was opened in Newark, New Jersey in 1951, and was the first of nine to open over the next 25 years. Genius advertising and marketing advanced Budweiser to the number one seller in America.
In 2008 the growth of craft beer in the United States was noticed by the Anheuser-Busch company as the future of beer and the brand was sold to InBev, a Belgium company that is the largest brewer in the world.
To save money the new company, called AB InBev, changed the recipe. Whole rice grains have now been replaced by broken ones, and the high quality Hallertauer Mittelfrüh hop has been phased out. A former top AB InBev executive says the company saved about $55 million a year substituting cheaper hops in Budweiser and other U.S. beers.
On October 13, 2015, Anheuser-Busch InBev made a bid of $106 billion for Miller beer who was sold to South African Breweries in 2002 for $5.6 billion. In 2013, it had a net profit of US$14.4 billion on sales of US$43.2 billion. The newly formed brewer will own over 200 beer brand names:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AB_InBev_brands
Pabst is still an American owned brewery but is virtual. All of their brewing is contracted out to ABMiller. They own Schlitz, Stroh, Ballentine, Falstaff and many more American brands all brewed by ABMiller.