Stroh Ends 135 Years of Beer-Making in Detroit

Employees went to work for the last time Friday at the Stroh Brewery Co. plant here as the company prepared to end 135 years of beer-making in Detroit.

The Detroit-based brewery, the nation’s third largest, announced Feb. 8 that it would close the plant, saying it was the company’s oldest and least efficient.

The final shift was to end at 4 p.m., company officials said.

“I feel the worst for the ones who work the last day,” said Larry Shaw, who was laid off but has found another job. “They’re the ones with 20 years or more in the place.

“But I think this should enlighten a lot of people in their 30s and 40s that it could happen in a lot of companies.”

About 750 of 1,200 employees will remain in Detroit, where the company will retain its world headquarters and an ice cream plant.

The company said production at the Detroit plant will be transferred to one or more of its breweries in Allentown, Pa.; Winston-Salem, N.C.; Memphis, Tenn.; Longview, Texas; St. Paul, Minn.; and Van Nuys, Calif.

The company’s flagship brand, Stroh’s, had been brewed only in Detroit. Stroh also made Stroh Light, Signature, Goebel and Goebel Light beers in Detroit.

Chairman Peter W. Stroh, sixth generation of his family to lead the company, said in announcing the closing that it was “the most difficult thing imaginable.”

The company set up two centers to help workers “make a smooth change . . . to other employment or perhaps another life-style,” said a company brochure.

Stroh spokesman John Bailey said the company had not decided what to do with the 1 million-square-foot brewery.