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Grain Belt is a brand of beer brewed in Minnesota by the August Schell Brewing Company. The beer has been produced in two varieties: Grain Belt Golden, the original style introduced in 1893, and Grain Belt Premium, first introduced in 1947. more...

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It was originally produced by the Minneapolis Brewing Company which formed with the merger of four smaller brewers in 1891. Soon after introduction, Grain Belt became the company's flagship product. It was brewed at the original Grain Belt brewery in Minneapolis, Minnesota until 1976. A series of other owners followed, and Schell took over the product line in 2002. Today, only Grain Belt Premium and Premium Light are produced.

Name and logo

The name refers to the \"Grain Belt\" of the American Midwest where much of the world's supply of barley, corn, soybeans and grain is produced. The diamond-shaped logo was introduced early on, though it wasn't until the late 1930s that a rendering of a bottlecap was added as background. After prohibition a large billboard was erected on Nicollet Island next to the Hennepin Avenue Bridge around 1940. For years, it flashed the letters in sequence (\"G-R-A-I-N B-E-L-T BEER\"). This sign still stands today as a local landmark. Grain Belt introduced cap sealed conetop steel cans in the 1930s. At the same time, the company offered its beers in longneck bottles and on draft.

History

Early history

Grain Belt Golden, a traditional golden German-style lager, was popular, but Prohibition forced the company to stop production from 1920 until 1933. The company temporarily changed its name to Golden Grain Juice Company and, like many other brewers, turned to making near beer and soft drinks until Repeal. Grain Belt Beer returned to taverns in October 1933 with bottled beer reappearing in December.

World War II brought rationing, and the company briefly had to drop cans altogether and resort to using green glass in its bottles rather than the standard amber color, which offered better protection from light. Sale of beer in bottles and cans had become dominant over draft sales in drinking establishments, so the brewer experimented with all sorts of packaging innovations, expanding the line after the war ended. A premium beer, called Grain Belt Premium, entered production in 1947. Conetop cans sealed with caps disappeared in the 1950s in favor of flat-top steel cans.

Grain Belt Breweries

The company officially changed its name to Grain Belt Breweries in 1967 after purchasing the Storz Brewing Company of Omaha, Nebraska, which marketed Storz Beer and Storz Tap Beer in bottles, cans and draft. Grain Belt also took over the line of the New Ulm, Minnesota-based Hauenstein Brewery two years later. About that time, Grain Belt introduced a new beer called GBX Malt Liquor. For many years, the company also brewed Grain Belt Bock Beer for limited release in the spring. Grain Belt billboard signs could be seen on the scoreboard at Minnesota Vikings games and the beer was a popular choice in the stands at Minnesota Twins games too. The label featured the image of a bubbling water fountain, which had been built on the park-like grounds of the brewery to tout the pure water used in the brewing process. At the end of the 1960s, Grain Belt was the 18th-largest brewing company in the United States, and a major force in the Midwest. Primary competitors up to this point had been local rivals, Theodore Hamm and Jacob Schmidt, both in St. Paul, Gluek Brewing Company, also in Minneapolis, Cold Spring Brewing Company in Cold Spring, Minnesota and a few other regional brewers. Business began to decline quickly though as better capitalized national brewing companies such as Anheuser-Busch, Schlitz and Miller began targeting the markets of regional brewers like Grain Belt. These companies swooped into markets, often advertising heavily, dropping prices and forcing regional brands like Grain Belt into the background since the smaller regional brewers were unable to match the big brewer's advertising and promotional budgets. Stockholders decided to sell the Grain Belt company to area businessman Irwin Jacobs in 1975, but operation ceased by the end of the year.

Read more at Wikipedia.org