174 Years Ago, Anheuser-Busch Was Founded — Here's How Its Budweiser Recipe Has Changed

For over a century, Budweiser has been one of the most iconic American beers. The company that makes Budweiser, Anheuser-Busch, was founded 174 years ago in 1852 in St. Louis, Missouri by George Schneider who originally struggled to succeed. It wasn't until the brewery was purchased by Eberhard Anheuser, who would eventually partner with Adolphus Busch, that the company would begin to thrive. In 1876, the brewery, which had taken the name Anheuser-Busch in honor of the partnership, introduced Budweiser, the lager that would become its signature product and remain so for over 150 years. However, the original Budweiser wouldn't have tasted the same as what you might drink today, due in part to the company's efforts to make a brew that matched contemporary consumer tastes.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Doug Muhleman, Anheuser-Busch's Vice President for Brewing and Technology, described the shift in Budweiser's flavor as "creep," based not on a drastic change in recipe, but on several subtle variations over time. These included changes in the available ingredients and generational weather patterns which impacted the crops used to make the beer as well as consumer preference shifts which favored less bitter beer. The result is a Budweiser that's lighter-tasting than it would have been decades ago.

Regardless of how you feel about "flavor creep" in Budweiser over the years, the iconic brew has had a long history that's seen it weather many changes, both from the brand itself and from external forces. For instance, while Anheuser-Busch remained in business during Prohibition, the company wasn't brewing Budweiser; instead making non-alcoholic products. When alcoholic beer became legal again in 1933, the Busch family celebrated with the debut of the Budweiser Clydesdales. A little over a decade later, following the end of the Second World War, the company would start brewing Budweiser outside of St. Louis for the first time, expanding to breweries across America.

By the 1980s, Budweiser would see another major change in the form of a second variety of beer, Bud Light, which debuted in 1982 as a less filling way to enjoy Budweiser. Coors may have been the brewery who paved the way for hard seltzers, but Anheuser-Busch found itself diving into flavored hard seltzers just like all the rest.

The company itself is now part of a much larger family of beer brands. In 2008, Anheuser-Busch merged with the Belgian company InBev, meaning that Budweiser and Bud Light are now part of the same family of brands as Stella Artois along with thousands of other craft and mass-market beers owned by the brewery giant. Popular beers from the company can be found at restaurants and shops across America.