With a German heritage, Tony Hulman was familiar with beer. Following World War II, Hulman explored purchasing a brewery. It became a reality in 1949 when he purchased fifty-two percent of F. W. Cook Brewing Company in Evansville, Indiana.
F. W. Cook Brewing had a long history dating back to the early days when Evansville was a frontier town. It was established in 1853 by Louis Reis and Frederick W. Cook in a cornfield and was initially called the Cook & Reis City Brewery. In 1857, the company produced the first lager beer in Indiana. Frederick Cook became the sole proprietor in May 1872. The business was producing 17,000 barrels of beer annually. By 1870, Evansville had fifteen breweries, but most were short-lived. By 1880, there were two only breweries in Evansville.
In 1885, the company changed its ownership structure from sole proprietorship to a company and changed the name to F. W. Cook Brewing Company. The primary beer produced was a pilsner with the primary market being Evansville and the southern states. By 1889 the company produced and estimated 75,000 barrels of beer annually. It was the largest brewery in Evansville outpacing Fulton Avenue Brewery with 50,000 barrels and Hartzmetz Brewery with 25,000 barrels.
An economic downturn in England in the 1880s resulted in British financiers looking for investment opportunities abroad. In 1888, a British consortium bought four breweries in New York. The ownership and management of F. W. Cook Brewing was getting old and wanted to sell their interest. On January 1, 1892, F. W. Cook Brewing Company, Ltd. was established to take over the business.
One of the strategies pursued by the British owners was severe price cutting to drive their competition out of business. F. W. Cook Brewing implemented this strategy resulting in the Evansville breweries (Hartzmetz, Fulton Avenue, and Evansville Brewing) combining together to form the Evansville Brewing Association. In later years, it would become Sterling Brewers, F. W. Cook’s primary competition in Evansville.
By 1917, F. W. Cook was producing 500,000 barrels of beer annually and had developed a national reputation for its “Goldblume” beer. It also established a German room where people could go and drink not only “Goldblume” but the other beers it produced. Despite the acceptance of its beer, not all was well with the industry. The Anti-Saloon League was busy with marches and trying to outlaw the sale of liquor. While a December 1914 vote in the U. S. Congress supported outlawing the sale of liquor, it did not have the required 2/3rd majority to make it an amendment to the constitution.
When the United States entered World War I, Congress passed the Lever Act in August 1917, prohibiting the use of “food, fruits, food materials, or feeds” in the production of distilled beverages. It also prohibited the importation of distilled beverages. A crop failure the next year led to the closing of many breweries. In September 1918, Congress passed a national Prohibition amendment which became effective in November. To survive, many breweries produced “near beer.” F. W. Cook survived by producing ice. The Great Depression contributed to the passing of the Volstead Act in 1933 which permitted 3.2 percent beer in those states without dry laws.
It was an expensive proposition for F. W. Cook to reestablish their brewing business. The soft drink industry had changed during the Great Depression from primarily being consumed at soda fountains to home consumption in bottles. Likewise, people had lost the habit of going to a tavern to drink beer. With the end of prohibition and the acceptance of bottled beer, many consumers chose to drink beer at home. When they did go to a tavern, they frequently opted for bottled beer instead of draft beer, which was dominant before the Great Depression. The bottling machinery was obsolete and had to be replaced. Additionally, the brewery needed to purchase a fleet of trucks.
F. W. Cook reentered the brewing industry in 1934. World War II presented challenges to the breweries in terms of labor and a shortage of materials. Initially the shortage was of crowns for the bottles. The production of cans of beer was prohibited except for those sent to the military. Despite these challenges, the consumption of bottled beer grew from 53 million barrels in 1942 to 80 million barrels in 1945. When World War II ended, F. W. Cook announced a $2 million expansion program which would double capacity. The company decided to package beer in cans. This followed a national trend when in 1935, the American Can Company and Krueger Brewery of Newark, NJ, introduced can beers. Acceptance by the public was quick as it was lighter to carry, they didn’t have to return the bottles to the store, and it was more sanitary.
By 1949, Cook’s foreign investors were looking for a buyer. Management had been centered around Charles Schwab. Over the next several months, local management was strengthened including the sales manager, the controller, and the general manager. They also changed the Articles of Incorporation to allow for 100,000 shares of no par value from 4,000 shares of $25,000 par value. The company had a brewing capacity of 400,000 barrels of beer, putting it among the fifty-two largest breweries in the nation.
In January 1950, Hulman purchased controlling interest in the brewery and promised its modernization program would continue. At the time of the purchase, about seventy percent of its product was sold in the southeastern United States. Hulman purchased the brewery as a turnaround project. He believed the underlying issue was sales driven and the solution was to reorient the sales and marketing efforts. They were initially successful in increasing the sale of the beer but about six months after the purchase of the brewery, they began receiving complaints of the beer foaming. So, the underlying problem was not with sales but rather with foaming. It took three brewmasters and several years to correct the problem.
After finally solving the foaming issue, the next problem appeared. The union contract was ending, and the union was looking for an increase in wages. At the time, there were two breweries in Evansville—F. W. Cook and Sterling and the contracts were negotiated simultaneously. Hulman, who had lost all his investment with the foaming issue, needed to make a decision about if he wanted to continue to pour money into the brewery with the hope it could become profitable.
Sterling, which had deeper pockets, agreed to the union’s demands. F. W. Cook, which had offered a smaller wage increase, couldn’t match. The union called for a strike beginning in June 1955 with about 180 members of the union walking out. Hulman made the decision to close the brewery in September 1955. The firm’s signature product, Goldblume, continued to be made by other breweries including Sterling until 1972.