Budweiser

Budweiser was born in St. Louis, Missouri, at a struggling brewery, the Bavarian Brewery, bought by the wealthy soap maker Eberhard Anheuser. In 1861 his daughter Lilly married Adolphus Busch, a German immigrant who had arrived in the city in 1857 and who, in 1865, invested in the business and began running it with his father-in-law. Busch modernized the brewery: by 1873 it was pasteurizing its bottled beer, and refrigerated railroad cars carried the beer long distances without spoiling.

Budweiser was created in 1876, designed to appeal to many palates and to be sold across the whole country. The name comes from Budweis, the German name of České Budějovice, a town in today's Czech Republic where beer has been brewed since the 13th century — and the origin of a dispute over the name with the Czech brewery Budvar. In 1879 the company became the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association and, by the late 1890s, it was the best-selling brewery in the United States. In 2008 InBev combined with Anheuser-Busch to form AB InBev, which owns the brand. In Brazil, Ambev launched Budweiser in August 2011, brewed in Jacareí (São Paulo state); by November 2012, according to Nielsen, it led the premium beer segment.