Rainier Brewing Company

1912 Rainier ad in The Seattle Republican newspaper.

The original brewery dates all the way back to 1854 when A.B. Rabbeson opened Washington Brewery, which was Seattle’s first commercial brewing company.[2] In 1872, Rabbeson renamed his brewery Seattle Brewery. They launched Rainier beer in 1878[3] and would produce and distribute Rainier for the next decade. Concurrently, John Kopp and Andrew Hemrich founded Seattle Brewing and Malting in 1883. In 1888, Rabbeson sold his brewery, along with the Rainier brand, to Kopp and Hemrich.

Kopp and Hemrich produced Rainier beer in Washington until 1916, when the state of Washington enacted its own prohibition, 4 years before the 18th amendment enacted the nationwide prohibition.[4][5] During this time they opened a brewery in San Francisco where they brewed Rainier beer until 1920 when the 18th amendment was ratified. The company survived prohibition by producing a variety of different nonalcoholic products.[2]

Following the repeal of the Prohibition, the brewery was purchased by Lethbridge, Alberta brewers Fritz and Emil Sick, who then repurchased the Rainier brand and began brewing Rainier in 1935. The brewery went through several names, such as Sick's Seattle Brewing and Malting and Sicks Rainier Brewing Company, during the 1935–1977 period.

Sick's Seattle Brewing & Malting Co. Brewery, also known as Bayview Brewery or simply as "The Brewery", now the headquarters of Tully's Coffee.

After Rainier Brewing Company resumed producing "Rainier Beer" after the end of Prohibition and its advertisements became ubiquitous in the Seattle-Tacoma area, a rumor began circulating that the brewery's owner, Emil Sick, had bribed a Washington state committee with free beer to name the local mountain "Rainier". This, however, is an urban legend and can still be heard today among Tacoma residents who preferred the alternate name of "Mount Tacoma".[6] Sick did, however, purchase the local baseball team and named them the Seattle Rainiers for this purpose.[7]

Sick's also brewed Rainier at a branch brewery in Spokane. The Spokane brewery closed in 1962.

From 1952 to 1964, Rainier came packaged in a series of decorative beer cans known as the Rainier Jubilee Series. First in the series were a set of Christmas cans marketed in late 1952 and again in late 1953; these cans are rare and highly collectible today. The Christmas cans proved such a success that Rainier's use of decorative Jubilee Series cans continued for over a decade, with thousands of different designs. Most of these are not as rare and collectible as the Christmas cans, but the "reindeer" cans (which were sold only in Alaska), and the first pull tab Jubilee cans (made only in the last couple of years of the Jubilee Series) are also considered rare.[8]

Other brands of beer brewed by Sick's Rainier Brewing during this time included Rheinlander and Sick's Select. Later, the Rainier brewery would also take over brewing Heidelberg beer after its brewery in Tacoma, Washington, closed. Each of these brands (as well as rival Northwest brands Lucky Lager, Olympia, and Blitz-Weinhard) were once staples in the Pacific Northwest beer market, but starting in the 1960s and 1970s began losing market share to the major national brands.

1907 Rainier Beer advertisement

During the 1970s, Rainier ran a number of memorable television ads in the Pacific Northwest, largely conceived by Seattle designer Terry Heckler,[9] assisted by several of his staff, especially Ed Leimbacher, writer/producer for Rainier print, radio and TV for a dozen years. Sound man Joe Hadlock of Bear Creek Studio joined the colleagues of Heckler Bowker for 14 years of creating noise and music for these advertisements.

Some of these surrealist advertisements noted by Seattle Magazine included the Running of the MFRs (Mountain Fresh Rainiers) (a parody of Running of the Bulls featuring bottles with legs), and frogs that croaked "Rainier Beer" (a motif appropriated many years later by Budweiser). Mickey Rooney appeared in several TV ads, most notably a parody of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald's "Indian Love Call" from the 1936 MGM film Rose Marie. Mickey was dressed in a Mountie costume alongside his wife Jan as they sang. (Most airings of this commercial ended with Rooney pouring a bottle of Rainier into her proffered glass, but occasionally a version was aired in which he poured the beer into her cleavage.) A commercial ad featured a motorcycle that revved "Raiiiiiiiii-nieeeeeeeer-Beeeeeeeer" while zooming by along a mountain road was notable in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[10][11] A version of this commercial that played on radio featured the sounds of different brands of motorcycles making the "Rainier Beer" revving sound.)

Other ads featured a Lawrence Welk double (played by actor Pat Harrington, Jr.) leading his band in "The Wunnerful Rainier Waltz", complete with bubble machine and soloists blowing on beer bottles; and a performance of a parody of the song "You're the Tops" while thousands of Rainier bottle caps fell like dominoes in a giant "R" frame. (The whole commercial was reportedly shot on the first take, a great relief since it took all day to set up.) Rainier also produced humorous posters such as a "National Beergraphic" parody of a National Geographic Magazine cover depicting tourists encountering an MFR in the forest, and a Flash Gordon/Star Wars poster, "Fresh Wars", that recalled the bar scene in Star Wars: Episode 4. There were even costumed MFRs that made promotional appearances at supermarkets during this period.

Several commercials were parodies of movies, TV shows and famous spokespeople of the time. For example, a couple made references to popular Saturday Night Live skits: one with a Gilda Radner lookalike in her role as Roseanne Roseanneadanna in a Weekend Update skit for Rainier Lite commercial; another had characters called the R-Heads, which was a reference to the Coneheads, with Rainier 'R' logos on the top of their heads. Two commercials featured a Tarzan character where his yell is "Raaaiiinn-iiieeer!". A commercial featured a silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock who would morph into a beer bottle. Another commercial featured a John Houseman imitator when Houseman at the time was a spokesperson for Smith Barney. Another series of commercials featured a Lee Iacocca impersonator walking through stacks of beer cans. One final series of commercials was the Rambo like character called "R-bo", played by Dan Roland. The "R-bo" commercials were filmed in three parts; only two of those commercials aired, however. The third commercial was never seen, because Rainier Brewery was bought out by another brewing company.

In 1977 the brewery was sold to G. Heileman Brewing Company, and passed through several more hands before finally winding up owned by Pabst, which closed it in 1999. The Rainier brand was sold to General Brewing Company, which moved production to the Olympia brewery in nearby Tumwater, Washington. The Olympia Brewing Company closed in 2003. Rainier Beer is now brewed under contract in Irwindale, California.

In 1999, Sleeman Breweries of Guelph, Ontario, a division of Sapporo Breweries, acquired Stroh Canada which owned the Canadian rights to a folio of brands, including Rainier. Sleeman then became the Canadian manufacturer and distributor.[12]

In 1987, Rainier was awarded a silver medal by the Great American Beer Festival in the category of Best American Light Lager. The GABF recognized Rainier again in 1990, 1998, and 2000 with the gold medal for Best American-Style Lager as well as silver medals in the same category in 2003 and 2005. Both Rainier Light and Rainier Ice have received medals, in their respective categories, from the GABF.