Beer Flurry

While Prohibition was passing its second milestone within two weeks at Chicago, Wall Street experienced a flurry in the shares of companies most likely to be benefited by a change in the law. The group of stocks Wall Street has come to call the "Wet Shares" includes Owens-Illinois Glass Co., National Distillers Products, American Commercial Alcohol, Crown Cork & Seal, Park & Tilford. Neatly timed to coincide with the Wet flurry was a $1,000,000 offering of shares in a brewery, the first sale of a brewery stock since the War.

The offering company was Fidelio Brewery, Inc., of Manhattan. The offer was made by Bauer, Pogue & Co., and consisted of 500,000 $1 par shares at $2. Fidelio started in 1852 as H. Koehler & Co., ale-brewers. It was later bought by Samuel Goldberger, Bohemian hop tycoon. His son, Norman S. Goldberger, is president of the company now, having worked in it since he was graduated from Columbia in 1904. Many of the other employes are working in positions once held by their fathers, including a brewmaster whose father mixed Fidelio's brews from 1891 to 1924.

In normal times Fidelio Brewery, Inc. could brew 400,000 bbl. a year. Since Prohibition it has been operating at about 15% of capacity, losing money. Last year it sold 15 million bottles of near-beer. With the new funds it could easily, upon legalization of beer, build its bottling capacity up to five million 24-bottle cases per year, or 370,000 bbl.

If Fidelio Brewery stock is listed on the New York Curb as its sponsors wish, it will be the fourth brewery stock to be traded in publicly. Two of the others are on the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange. They are Independent Brewing Co., with a 1,000,000-bbl. capacity, and Pittsburgh Brewing Co. with 1,500,000-bbl. capacity and a sideline in ice-cream, dairy products and a cold storage plant. The third is Cleveland-Sandusky Co., listed on the Cleveland Stock Exchange.

Since Prohibition the mortality rate among breweries has been high. Of the 1,100 operating in 1918, only 164 are active now. Only 24 of these have a capitalization of over $1,000,000. Most of them have been losing money for a decade and would need several very profitable years before they could brew dividends for shareholders. Colossi in the ruined industry are Anheuser-Busch, Inc. and Pabst Corp. Anheuser-Busch has built up profitable sidelines in yeast, ice-cream, ginger ale, truck bodies, coal. If beer is legalized the company can in two hours start turning out about half of its pre-Prohibition yearly output of 1,600,000 bbl. The company is ready to spend some $7,000,000 for material and extensions. One of its major needs would be 3,000 new delivery trucks. Pabst Corp. in Milwaukee has branched into cheeses, root beer, canned artichokes. President Fred Pabst last week estimated that if beer is legalized his company will spend $5,000,000 the first year, including $1,000,000 for cases, $875,000 for bottles.

About a month ago Col. Jacob Ruppert, brewer, tycoon and owner of the New York "Yankees," estimated that all in all the brewing industry would spend some $200,000,000 in rehabilitation, if & when. His own company's requirements, he said, would be $5,000,000. Ready to board the beer wagon last week was Louis J. Ehret, son af the late Brewer George Ehret. He incorporated a new George Ehret Brewing Co., to be all ready.

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