Anheuser-Busch brewing man's garage beer

Ray Hill cashed in his retirement savings to follow dream of becoming a microbrewer.

Lauren Chapin
The Kansas City Star

Kansas City — Ray Hill had always been strictly a Budweiser/Miller/Coors man. At least until he tasted a Fat Tire Amber Ale. Hill was so smitten with the flavor, body and nuance of the Colorado regional craft brew that he soon began tinkering with recipes and fermenting the brews in his garage. In 2002, the former government employee in St. Louis cashed in his retirement fund and set out to become a microbrewer.

"We looked at him in amazement: Are you sure? And his siblings thought he was crazy," recalls Hill's mother, Marsha Hill of St. Louis. "But he wanted to do this. He seemed to know what he was doing, and he went for it." That dream may have paid off big.

Last spring Hill struck a historic deal with St. Louis-based beermaking behemoth Anheuser-Busch. For the first time in its history, the company agreed to produce and distribute someone else's beer. Ray Hill's American Pilsner, a copper-colored beer with a rich, creamy head, is available in three markets — Kansas City, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.

His namesake microbrew is handsomely packaged in warm browns and oranges — sans references to Anheuser-Busch — and sealed with a traditional lift-off cap. It retails for $7.80 per six-pack. Served chilled and poured so that an inch or so of creamy head is formed, the pilsner has a clean, woodsy nose, a masculine but not bitter or overwhelming flavor and a moderate finish.

"It's always amazing to go into places I've never been to and see it on the shelves," Hill says. "I think about all the years it took to get to this place, all the struggles."

But the struggle isn't over yet: Now Hill must compete for brand loyalty with all the other bottles of beer in the liquor stores.

Sales of craft beers grew 11.7 percent in 2006, according to Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to home brewers, professional brewers and beer enthusiasts based in Boulder, Colo.

The numbers look just as good for 2007 with 10 percent to 11 percent growth in the first six months. As craft and microbrew beer sales grow, large American breweries offering domestic lagers have been losing sales to local and regional brewers.

"Our partnership allows Anheuser-Busch to participate in the growing craft beer segment and invest in a minority-owned business that has lots of potential," Johnny Furr Jr., vice president of urban marketing and community affairs said in a written statement. "Ray Hill's American Pilsner is a unique brand in the marketplace because it combines the niche urban market with the growing popularity of craft beers. To my knowledge, no other beer in the craft category is purposefully seeking exposure in the urban market."

To build the brand, Hillhired Mario Wayne, formerly a community relations director with the St. Louis Rams, and together they developed the catchphrase: "Give Yourself a Ray's."

"There were no craft beers out there targeting urban professionals who are starting to buy different craft beers," Hill says. "We are not defining 'urban professional' by race or ethnicity; rather it is about lifestyle and proximity to the city."

Hill's very first batch of home-brewed beer was barely drinkable. But he studied Charlie Papazian's "The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing" (Harperresource Book). He passed out samples to friends and consulted with his new pals at the local home-brewing shop.

In nine months, Hill had perfected his recipe. When friends began asking for entire 10-gallon batches, he decided it was time to work full time on his dream. But a year after leaving his government job, Hill had already run through his savings.

He took a graveyard-shift job working in information technology at Reuters America, a financial news and reporting service, and worked on brewing company business until midafternoon, sleeping only a few hours each day. For four years, Hill kept up the grueling routine.

One of the most time-consuming and difficult parts of getting his product off the ground was to find a brewer to craft his beer for him. He spent several years working with one regional brewer after the other, only to see deals fall apart. Then it occurred to Hill: Why not strike a deal with Anheuser-Busch, his hometown brewery?

"That's what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, and I have the mind-set of an entrepreneur," Hill says with the passion of a motivational speaker during breakfast on a recent trip to Kansas City. "Every day I saw small milestones, and I knew I'd be foolish to give this up. Every milestone was a step closer. Obstacles were speed bumps, not stop signs."

In March 2006, Hill decided to call Doug Muhleman, group vice president of brewing, and Mike Harding, then vice president of U.S. brewery operations, now president and CEO of Anheuser-Busch Packaging Group.

Three months after that first contact, Muhleman's secretary asked Hill to drop off some samples of his beer. He got a call that same afternoon asking him to come by the offices two days later to give a presentation.

"The first 10 minutes were celebratory," Hill says of the phone call that got him in the door, "but then I knew I had to get the presentation ready. It's one thing to have a meeting and another thing to get past the meeting."

As Hill and Wayne delivered their presentation, Hill watched a roomful of brewers taste the beer.

"I was watching their faces. They seemed surprised at the flavor."

Hill and Wayne had nearly 20 meetings/presentations with Anheuser-Busch officials before they signed the deal: The company would brew Hill's beer but agreed not to disclose his recipe or brewing process. It also cannot take the recipe for its own use.

The deal also means Hill can have his beer transported to anyplace Busch products are distributed — thousands of outlets nationwide. Currently his beer is in more than 75 outlets in the Kansas City metro area and more than 200 places in St. Louis.

John McDonald, president of Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City, says Hill saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by not having to build his own brewery. In the late 1980s, McDonald spent $750,000 and a lot of sweat equity to get his own Southwest Boulevard brewery up and running.

The only downside to the partnership?

Craft beer aficionados may pass Hill's beer off as an Anheuser-Busch product instead of a microbrewed beer created by a guy in his garage.

Quoted from http://news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070902/NEWS01/709020352/1007:

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