HOME BREW

When the Arizona Brewing Co. began bottling beer in 1933, it seemed unlikely that a local shop could outsell the big boys such as Budweiser, Pabst and Schlitz. But with the introduction of A-1, its flagship brand, that's exactly what happened - A-1 dominated the market until the 1950s. Although the brewery eventually dried up, the brand is being resurrected in Tucson, and the A-1 faithful couldn't be happier.

In the 1940s and '50s, Bud-weiser aspired to become the king of beers in Arizona, but A-1 was No. 1.

Dubbed “Arizona Bud,” A-l's advertising touted the beer as “The Western Way to Say Welcome” and incorporated some of artist Lon Megargee's most iconic artwork. A-1 signs proliferated along bar fronts throughout the state. There were A-l teams. A-1 jingles flooded the airwaves.

A-1 hasn't been brewed in decades and memory of the brand has faded, but among the faithful, its spirit never died. An A-1 sign still hangs in front of The Palace Bar in Prescott. And A-1 memorabilia has become highly collectable, with 80 members com-prising one of the most vibrant chapters of the Brewery Collectibles Club of America.

Now, A-1 beer is back. And in an era when even a brand as American as Budweiser is owned by a foreign company, A-l is still Arizona through and through, thanks to a Southern Arizona businessman and Tucson's Nimbus Brewing Co.

Ambition. Located at 12th Street and Madison in Phoenix, the young brewery struggled at first, changing ownership three times in less than 10 years.

It wasn't until Joseph F. Lanser bought the brewery out of bankruptcy in 1942 that the company's fortunes changed. A big part of the brewery's success was the introduction of a new flagship brand: A-1.

Riding a wave of growth following the end of World War II, Arizona Brewing Co. beer sales grew faster than any brewery in the country, thanks largely to A-1, which domi-nated sales in Arizona into the 1950s.

Jobs at the company were hard to get, says Ed Sipos, who researched the brewery as part of an upcoming book on the history of brewing in Arizona. Employees didn't want to leave. They called themselves the A-1 fam-ily and held annual picnics until just a few years ago.

But the brewery began to struggle during a wave of consolidation in the 1950s that created brewing behemoths like Anheuser-Busch, Pabst and Schlitz.

A-1 struggled, in particular, against aggressive pricing by Coors. Then, in 1957, Anheuser-Busch filed a lawsuit alleging the eagle on the A-1 logo was too similar to its own.

“They were just trying to put A-1 out of business,” says Nimbus owner Jim Counts. “That lawsuit nearly took them down.” Arizona Brewing Co. changed the beer's name to Lancer's, created a new logo and tinkered with the recipe. And that began a long slide.

Quality slipped following Lanser's death in 1963. Cost-cutting and a series of corporate buyouts finished off the brand for good.

The G. Heileman Brewing Co. of Lacrosse, Wisconsin, which bought the brewery in 1979, closed it in 1985. The building was torn down in 1993.

There were a couple of attempts to revive A-1. Carling Brewing Co., which bought the brewery from the Lanser family, tried in the 1970s. But the quality wasn't the same.

In the 1990s, Eli Drakulich approached Heileman about producing A-1 for Beverage House, his Southern Arizona liquor store chain. “I thought, this is a piece of Arizona history and I want to save it,” Drakulich says.

Heileman produced one batch of A-1 for Beverage House. Drakulich was in the process of trying to buy the rights to the A-l brand when Stroh Brewery Co. bought Hei-leman. Stroh eventually did sell the rights to Drakulich and business partner Kirby Davis.

“That started a long road of disappointment,” Drakulich says. “Because I was in