Stroh's Ice Cream is an American brand of

ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as str ...

, founded by the

Stroh Brewery Company The Stroh Brewery Company was a beer brewery in Detroit, Michigan. In addition to its own Stroh's brand, the company produced or bought the rights to several other brands including Goebel, Schaefer, Schlitz, Augsburger, Erlanger, Old Style, L ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

. Stroh's' products were manufactured and marketed by

Dean Foods Dean Foods was an American food and beverage company and the largest dairy company in the United States. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, the company maintained plants and distributors in the United States. Dean Foods had 66 manufacturing faciliti ...

, which had acquired the brand in 2007. Stroh's Ice Cream is a regional brand distributed mainly in the

Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

. It used to be owned by its namesake company, the Stroh Brewing Company, which had a large presence (and in some cases, like the Detroit area, still has) in this region.

History

The Stroh Brewery Company, like many other alcohol-producers in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, was left searching for ways to restructure its company at the advent of

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

in 1920. With the closing of

saloons Saloon may refer to: Buildings and businesses * One of the bars in a traditional British pub * An alternative name for a bar (establishment) * Western saloon, a historical style of American bar * The Saloon, a bar and music venue in San Francisc ...

across the nation,

ice cream parlor Ice cream parlors (American English) or ice cream parlours (British English) are places that sell ice cream, gelato, sorbet, and/or frozen yogurt to consumers. Ice cream is typically sold as regular ice cream (also called hard-packed or hard s ...

s increased in popularity as a new place for the average man to frequent. Julius Stroh, the head of Stroh's Brewery at the time, decided to convert the beer-brewing facilities of its factory in Detroit to producing non-alcoholic products such as

near beer Low-alcohol beer is beer with little or no alcohol content and aims to reproduce the taste of beer while eliminating (or at least reducing) the inebriating effects of standard alcoholic brews. Most low-alcohol beers are lagers, but there are some ...

(beer with its alcohol extracted),

birch beer Birch beer is a beverage, commonly found as a carbonated soft drink made from herbal extracts and birch bark. It was originally made from the extracts of both oak and pine barks (which are sometimes combined). There are dozens of brands of birch ...

soft drinks A soft drink (see § Terminology for other names) is a drink that usually contains water (often carbonated), a sweetener, and a natural and/or artificial flavoring. The sweetener may be a sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, fruit juice, a s ...

malt Malt is germinated cereal grain that has been dried in a process known as " malting". The grain is made to germinate by soaking in water and is then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air. Malted grain is used to make beer, wh ...

products, and ice. It also produced ice cream under the "Alaska" brand. At the end of prohibition in America in 1933, the ice cream operation proved to be popular and profitable enough to continue alongside the brewing operation. In the early 1980s, Stroh's built a new ice cream production facility on Maple Street in Detroit, right down the road from its main brewery, which was demolished in 1985. Stroh's sold the facility in 1989 as a part of corporate restructuring at Stroh's. The Stroh Brewery Company sold all of its brands to

Pabst Brewing Company The Pabst Brewing Company () is an American company that dates its origins to a brewing company founded in 1844 by Jacob Best and was, by 1889, named after Frederick Pabst. It is currently a holding company which contracts the brewing of over ...

and the

Miller Brewing Company The Miller Brewing Company is an American brewery and beer company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was founded in 1855 by Frederick Miller. Molson Coors acquired the full global brand portfolio of Miller Brewing Company in 2016, and operates the M ...

in 1999 and ended brewing operations. Stroh's Ice Cream was run by Melody Farms for several years, all the time keeping the Stroh's name, until that company was purchased by Dean Foods in 2005. In 2019 Detroit Vineyards took over Stroh's facility near Eastern Market.Detroit Vineyards takes over old Stroh's Ice Cream facility, first winery since Prohibition
at Click on Detroit, 2 Apr 2019

References

External links

Official website
(archived, 24 Jun 2015) {{Dean Foods Ice cream brands Dean Foods brands Culture of Detroit Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019

History

See also

References

External links