Miller

And the man behind the brand is...
Frederick Miller

Frederick Miller arrived in the United States as an experienced brewer of modest means. He toured America in search of the ideal site to establish a new brewery, eventually choosing Milwaukee for its abundant supply of water, fine grain and skilled craftsmen. He bought a tiny, wooden brewery in the Menomonee River Valley in 1855 and it became Fred Miller’s Plank Road Brewery.

Miller set to work applying the methods he had learned as a brewmaster in Riedlingen, Germany. His first year the Plank Road Brewery produced 300 barrels of beer. Miller’s beer was popular enough to stand out among the many other Wisconsin breweries.

With every opportunity Miller modernized his operations. He established one of the first bottling lines. By 1883 the now named Menomonee Valley Brewery was selling 80,000 barrels a year and unable to keep up with demand. Five thousand of those barrels were going into bottles. Miller’s bottling operation was bigger than many breweries.

In 1888 Frederick Miller died. He was 63 years old. His sons and a son-in-law took control of the brewery. Their first act was to change the name of the brewery to the Frederick Miller Brewing Company in honor of the efforts of the founder.