Adolphus Busch had established the St. Louis…

Adolphus Busch had established the St. Louis Refrigerator Car Company in 1878 to streamline the  refrigerator car operations of the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association.

Charged with building, selling, and leasing refrigerator cars; the company owns two hundred cars by 1883, and will own eight hundred and fifty by 1888.

In 1852, St. Louis brewer and saloon operator George Schneider had opened the Bavarian Brewery on Carondelet Avenue (later known as South Broadway) between Dorcas and Lynch streets in south St. Louis.Schneider's brewery had expanded in 1856 to a new brewhouse near Eighth and Crittenden streets; however, the following year financial problems had forced the sale of the brewery to various owners during the late 1850s.

In 1860, the brewery had been purchased on the brink of bankruptcy by William D'Oench, a local pharmacist, and Eberhard Anheuser, a prosperous German-born soap manufacturer.

D'Oench was the silent partner in the business until 1869, when he sold his half-interest in the company.

From 1860 to 1875, the brewery had been known as E. Anheuser & Co., and from 1875 to 1879 as the E. Anheuser Company's Brewing Association.

Adolphus Busch, a wholesaler who had immigrated to St. Louis from Germany in 1857, had married Eberhard Anheuser's daughter in 1861; following his service in the American Civil War, Busch had begun working as a salesman for the Anheuser brewery.

After purchasing D'Oench's share of the company in 1869, he had assumed the role of company secretary from that time until the death of his father-in-law.

Adolphus Busch is the first American brewer to use pasteurization to keep beer fresh, the first to use mechanical refrigeration and refrigerated railroad cars and the first to bottle beer extensively.

By 1876, the company owned a fleet of forty refrigerated railroad cars to transport beer.

During the 1870s, Adolphus Busch had toured Europe and studied the changes in brewing methods which were taking place at the time, particularly the success of pilsner beer, which included a locally popular example brewed in Budweis.

In 1876, Busch had introduced Budweiser, with the ambition of transcending regional tastes.

The ability to transport bottles made Budweiser America's first national beer brand, and it is marketed as a "premium" beer.

Expanding the company's distribution range has led to increased demand for Anheuser products, and the company substantially had expanded its facilities in St. Louis during the 1870s.

The expansions had led production to grow from 31,500 barrels in 1875 to more than 200,000 in 1881.

The company had been renamed Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association in 1879, and in 1880, Adolphus Busch had become company president upon Anheuser's death.