History
Miller Brewing Company was founded in 1855 by German-born Frederick Miller when he purchased the small Plank-Road Brewery. The brewery’s location in the Miller Valley provided easy access to raw materials produced on nearby farms.
On September 19, 1966, the conglomerate W.R. Grace & Co. agreed to buy 53% of Miller from Mrs. Lorraine John Mulberger (a granddaughter of Fred Miller who objected to alcohol) and her family.
On June 12, 1969 Philip Morris (now Altria) bought Miller from W.R. Grace for $130 million, outbidding PepsiCo.
On 30 May 2002, it was acquired by South African Breweries from Philip Morris for $3.6 billion worth of stock and $2 billion in debt, to form SABMiller; with Philip Morris retaining a 36% share at that time, with voting rights of 24.99%.
On August 14, 2006, Miller Brewing announced it had completed the purchase of Sparks and Steel Reserve brands from McKenzie River Corporation for $215 million cash.[2] Miller had been producing both products prior to this purchase.[3]
In 2005, the Chicago Tribune reported that Miller gave $30,000 in order to support an illegal alien amnesty march. Immediately, a boycott of Miller began and remains active as of 2007. The website, http://www.millerboycott.com/ explains that Miller originally wanted illegal aliens to remain in the United States, but Miller has since backtracked saying in a letter that Miller “will closely review all requests for support from community and charitable organizations to ensure that we are not indirectly funding or associating our name with advocacy efforts on the immigration issue.”
Miller Genuine Draft was introduced in 1986 as the original cold filtered packaged draft beer, which means that the beer is not heat pasteurized. Miller uses an exclusive cold-filtered process that prevents some of the beer’s flavor from being heated away. MGD received the gold medal in the American-style Premium Lager category at the 1999 World Beer Cup. It also received the silver medal at the 2003 American Beer Festival. The concept for Cold-filtered Miller Genuine Draft was developed by new product consultant Calle & Company. Martin Calle, a long-time neighbor of the W.R. Grace family, original owners of Miller Brewing, evolved the concept from Miller’s New Ventures effort to launch a new dry beer at a time Miller Brewing was in danger of becoming a much-cloned Lite Beer manufacturer. Originally introduced as “Miller High Life Genuine Draft”, the “High Life” part of the name was soon dropped. MGD is actually made from the same recipe as Miller High Life, with a different treatment. High Life is heat pasteurized after packaging and MGD is filtered before packaging.[citation needed] It was developed to give High Life drinkers the same taste in a can or bottle as they found in non-pasteurized kegs. It has 4.7% ABV. – Wikipedia