IBC Root Beer is an American brand of root beer now owned by

Keurig Dr Pepper Keurig Dr Pepper Inc., formerly Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (1981–2014) and Keurig Green Mountain (2014–2018), is a publicly traded American beverage and coffeemaker conglomerate with headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts. Formed i ...

. It was originally owned by IBC until it went out of business.

Independent Breweries Company

The Independent Breweries Company is a defunct syndicate founded in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, by the combination of Griesediecks' Edited, from the ''St. Louis Globe-Democrat'', by Steve DeBellis National Brewery, Columbia (Alpen Brau), the Gast brewery in Baden, A.B.C., and Wagner Brewing Company. This combination was ill fated due to high overhead with too many executives and low profits forcing IBC into

receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver—a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights"—especially in c ...

. The IBC Root Beer was the main survivor of the syndicate.

Root beer

IBC Root Beer was founded in 1919 by the Griesedieck family as the Independent Breweries Company in St. Louis, Missouri.

Root beer Root beer is a sweet North American soft drink traditionally made using the root bark of the sassafras tree '' Sassafras albidum'' or the vine of '' Smilax ornata'' (known as sarsaparilla, also used to make a soft drink, sarsaparilla) as the ...

found a market as a legal beverage during the era 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 alcohol ...

. The Independent Breweries Company closed, but the trademark was purchased by the Kranzberg family, which operated the Northwestern Bottling Company. In the late 1930s, it was sold to the National Bottling Company, owned by the Shucart family. Popularity and distribution declined after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. In 1976, the IBC trademark was sold to Taylor Beverages, which was then sold to the Seven-Up Company in 1980. After

Dr Pepper Dr Pepper is a carbonated soft drink. It was created in the 1880s by pharmacist Charles Alderton in Waco, Texas, and first served around 1885. Dr Pepper was first nationally marketed in the United States in 1904. It is now also sold in Euro ...

and

7 Up 7 Up (stylized as 7up outside North America) is an American brand of lemon-lime-flavored non-caffeinated soft drink. The brand and formula are owned by Keurig Dr Pepper although the beverage is internationally distributed by PepsiCo. 7 Up co ...

merged in 1986, distribution of IBC spread across the United States.

Dr Pepper/Seven Up Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. (DPSU, or Dr Pepper 7UP, Inc.) was a Plano, Texas-based soft-drink manufacturing company created by the merger of Dr Pepper, Inc. and The 7 Up Company on May 19, 1986. The merger was a result of the independent bailout ...

was acquired by

Cadbury Schweppes Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company fully owned by Mondelez International (originally Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second largest confectionery brand in the world after Mars ...

in 1995. IBC was subsequently organized within the Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages unit of Cadbury Schweppes, before being spun off into

Dr Pepper Snapple Group Dr Pepper Snapple Group (also called Dr. Pepper/7up Inc.) was an American multinational soft drink company based in Plano, Texas, and as of July 2018 it is a business unit of the publicly traded conglomerate Keurig Dr Pepper. Formerly Cadbury S ...

in 2008. In July 2016, IBC reformulated its beverages, using cane sugar in place of

high-fructose corn syrup High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), also known as glucose–fructose, isoglucose and glucose–fructose syrup, is a sweetener made from corn starch. As in the production of conventional corn syrup, the starch is broken down into glucose by enzy ...

. The bottles are now distributed in four-bottle packs (instead of the original six), and no longer have the IBC logo formed into the bottle itself, but rather printed on a plain brown bottle. This change has also resulted in increase in average price per bottle.

Flavors

Current

In 2020: * IBC Root Beer * IBC Diet Root Beer * IBC Cream Soda * IBC Black Cherry * IBC Cherry Limeade * IBC coconut lime

Former

* IBC Tangerine Cream Soda * IBC Cherry Cola * IBC Strawberries and Cream * IBC Berries and Cream * IBC

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 ...

* IBC Peach Cream Soda

References

External links

*
GB Beer, Our Story
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibc Root Beer American soft drinks Cuisine of St. Louis Keurig Dr Pepper brands Products introduced in 1919 Root beer