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The Cold Spring brewery survived the 20's and early 30's by producing
mineral water, soft drinks and "near" beer for the Midwest market. In
addition, the owners expanded their interests beyond the brewery,
forming the Cold Spring Stock Farm. Here, on brewery land in the heart
of Cold Spring, they bought, pastured and sold cattle.
Although
Oster, Peters and Hermanutz planned well to weather the brewery turmoil
of prohibition, unfortunately two of them would never live long enough
to see its end on February 20th, 1933.
Both Eugene Hermanutz and John
Oster died before the brewery was back in production of their famous
beer. Ferdinand Peters became company president and he teamed up with
Daniel Oster, the oldest son of John Oster who became
secretary-treasurer of the company.
When Peters died in 1938 the
brewery faces another challenge. Much of the property and the many
assets the company owned had no formal written agreements between the
corporate partners. There was no plan by which to settle estates and to
protect the on-going needs of the company. The controls and rationing
brought on by our country's entry into WWII further challenged the
day-to-day operation of the brewery.
After a number of years of
difficulty and internal struggles, a young man schooled in finance and
management was persuaded to join the company. Myron Johnson, who's
resume included College of St. Thomas, University of MN, and Coca-Cola
joined the company in 1942. He decided to become financially involved
with Cold Spring Brewing Company ownership in 1944.
Under
Johnson's ownership and leadership, brewery operations improved and the
company continued to grow and thrive through the 50's, 60's and 70's.
Efforts were made to expand its distribution where ninety percent of
its product was sold in Minnesota and the rest was scattered throughout
the Midwest.
A major modernization program was launched in
1969 in both the brewing and packaging operations at the plant. The
company took advantage of a national trend of brewery companies going
out of business and purchased both new and used equipment from over
twenty different breweries throughout the country.
Some of the
products the Cold Spring brewery introduced over the years included
Kegle Brau, Arrowhead and Minnesota 13, a name first given to a
prohibition spirits made in Stearns County using a University of MN
highbred corn called Minnesota 13. The brewery also began supplementing
its income by becoming a Schlitz beer distributor.
One product
that gained nation-wide recognition overnight involved a deal the
brewery made with the Falls Brewing Company of Louisville, Kentucky.
Jimmy Carter had become our 39th President of the United States and the
President had a unique brother whose name was Billy. Yes, it was the
Cold Spring brewery in November of 1977 who produced the orange, white
and blue cans of the beer carrying the label, "BILLY BEER." In a short
6 months the product went from skyrocketing sales nationwide to... not
being able to give it away even locally. 
The
"Billy Beer" disaster was followed by two more new products introduced
to the market, a European-style beer named Cold Spring Export and a new
sparkling mineral water. Their marketing strategy was to capture
market-share by being the lowest price product available. One area the
brewery was able to experience growth and success was in bottled water
sales. Between 1968 and 1977, the brewery quadrupled their sales of
this product line.
The 80's and 90's brought about a long
downhill slide for the brewery. Although bottled water sales continued
to grow, beer dropped to less than 10% of the brewery's production.
Killebrew Rootbeer, named after the Minnesota Twins Baseball Hall Of
Famer Harmon Killebrew was brought to market in the early 1990's. It
flopped miserably.
The brewery's owner Myron Johnson struggled
to grow the company through greater product distribution. He signed a
deal with G. Heileman Brewing of La Crosse, Wisconsin to bottle and
market Cold Spring water. Eventually, Johnson sold the "Cold Spring
Mineral Water" name to Heileman with the agreement the product would be
produced in Cold Spring. The final nail in the coffin was when Heileman
decided to be the sole producer of the product out of the La Crosse
plant squeezing the Cold Spring brewery out of the deal totally.
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