K
Joined: Mar 27, 2002
Posts: 1506
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K
Primo used to be brewed somewhere in downtown Honolulu. They had a restaurant/bar called Primo Gardens and my friend's mother had a hula show that performed there, so we got to go along, which was very cool. (I mean the girls, not the bar even though we snuck some beers).
Anyway, even at that time the beer was acquiring a bad reputation and after awhile it couldn't compete with the imports. (Anyone remember the radio commercials for San Miguel Beer... "There we were, surfing the Banzai Pipeline on the north shore of Oahu. Afterwards we had a San Miguel. It tasted Good!. San Miguel. Internationally famous. Of course." The of course part was done by a girl with an incredibly sexy voice.)
Regardless, here is the deal on Primo's demise.... And oh yeah, everyone used to leave cases of the stuff on the curb at Christmas time for the rubbish men.
Andrew Gomes PBN Staff Reporter, 1998
The world's largest contract brewer, Detroit, Mich.-based Stroh Brewery
Co., has been unable to find a way to viably keep making Hawaii's oldest beer, Primo.
Unhappy anniversary
Just short of 100 years in production, a run
originated by Honolulu Brewing & Malting Co.
Ltd. in 1898, Primo was brewed for the last time in November and should
completely disappear from
Hawaii shelves by May.
Stroh, which had been
making the once-popular
beer in Long-view, Texas, for years, was unable to stop sliding demand for the product, which in turn made production unfeasible.
Volume in Hawaii had fallen from a peak of around 12,000 cases a month to 1,200 cases a month, according to Dave Dolim, supervisor at Primo's local distributor Paradise Beverages, which has represented Primo for well over a decade. He said Stroh worked different angles trying to increase volume,
including making the beer available in parts of California and on Cape Cod,Mass., as far back as 1986. Primo was even sold in Japan for awhile. Other attempts were made in Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado. "It just wasn't working," Dolim said.
Hawaii has always been the largest market
for Primo. And in 1996 when Stroh, the
nation's fourth-largest brewing company,
acquired the nation's fifth-largest brewing
company, G. Heileman Brewing Co. Inc., there were plans to move production of
Primo to a G. Heileman plant in either Portland or Seattle to reduce shipping
costs.
But anemic volume and a lack of room at the West Coast breweries ruled out the change that may have sustained Primo.
"The brewery did do their best trying to get the volume up," Dolim said.
One factor in the ailing demand for Primo seems to have been bottle color.
Brown = bad, green = good
Over its history, Primo has changed a few times between brown and green glass. Dolim said when Stroh changed from brown to green bottles in 1985 and a new long-neck shape in 1986, sales rocketed up to 12,000 cases a month in Hawaii. Volume tapered off sharply when the company switched back to brown bottles in 1990-91 for beer stability reasons. (Sunlight, which is better blocked by brown glass, can disturb beer freshness.)
The theory is local beer drinkers were those without much money to spend, those who saw Heineken and Steinlager in green bottles wanted premium-like beer for an economical price. "They figure green is green," Dolim said.
Primo retails for somewhere in the $4-something to $5-something price range for a six pack with occasional specials as low as $3-something. Dolim said there was a move to change back to green bottles in the plan to brew Primo on the West Coast. Alas, the suds never got a chance.
Walter Wong Yuen, whose brother runs the Wong Yuen Store in Waiohinu, near the southern tip of the Big Island, is said to have one of the greatest Primo beer bottle collections around.
Wong Yuen said he has a bottle with the first label used as well as ones with numerous different labels as changes were made over the last 99 years.
"I better get the last one," he said.
Aloha oe "It's sad of course," said Hoku Swartman, secretary of the local microbrewery Alii Brewing Co. "But they lost their tie to Hawaii, and that's what made themgreat."
Swartman said islander loyalty was something that diminished gradually after brewing was moved to the Mainland decades ago.
"They lost that Hawaiian connection," he said.
Mattson Davis, general manager of Kona Brewing Co., said the overall beer market has shrunk over the last 10 years. Fewer consumers and more micro breweries were a couple factors leading brewing giants like Stroh to pick winners and losers among their labels.
Dolim said Stroh held negotiations with all four Hawaii micro breweries in an attempt to continue the brewing of Primo and return it to its Hawaii-made status. But Hawaii's fledgling micro breweries are trying to focus on viability and growth of their own operations.
"It doesn't really fit with the portfolio of hand-crafted beer," Davis said. "[Stroh] certainly made a go of trying to get it back to being brewed in Hawaii," Dolim said, adding the company was willing to offer a subsidy and lend the label to a Hawaii brewer while retaining brewing control and product rights. He also said Stroh was not necessarily concerned with making money.
Primo was a drop in a bucket for Stroh. Forbes Inc. ranked the brewery, factoring in the G. Heileman operation, No. 113 in its top 500 private companies with estimated 1996 revenue of $1.35 billion and operating profits of $35 million.
Founded in 1850 by Bernard Stroh, the company remains family-owned and distributes beers including Stroh's, Old Milwaukee, Schlitz, Schaefer, Special
Export, Old Style, Rainier, Henry Weinhard, Schmidt's, Lone Star,Champale, Colt 45 and Mickey's to more than 70 countries.
Stroh acquired Primo in 1982 in the purchase of the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co.
Reformulating the recipe, featuring a replica of a 1904 label and launching a
new promotional campaign, the company had hoped to restore the beer to its former stature. Right now there are no plans to do anything with rights to the beer, although
theoretically Primo could be revived at a later time, which is something at least
Dolim would like to see.
Copyright 1998 American City Business Journals Inc. it.
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