Straub is still around. It's not very good though.
There's a story about how Rolling Rock became popular back in the preppy days. A young PSU grad was tasked with designing a retail window display at Macy's in NYC.
She put RR Ponies in the hands of the mannequins, and everyone loved it - the display and the beer.
I remember when Rolling Rock was sold to LaBatt - who did great with it actually. Then AB bought LaBatt and moved RR production to NJ. Then InBev bought AB.
At the time I was doing a really big turf/par 3 project for a client on Jupiter Island - next to Greg Norman's old house. John Taylor is his name and his family owned the largest beer distributors in both Boston and Kansas City. Now he owns Yuengling out of Fort Pierce. He's a smart, rich guy.
I asked him what these companies wanted with Rolling Rock and he said 2 words "market share".
AB never wanted to grow the RR brand. If they did by accident, great - but that isn't happening w/out glass lined tanks and using Newark water. What they wanted was to was actually capture fans of a brand they owned for their own brands - like Bud. RR sales go down, Bud Light's go up.
What AB paid for RR was a song and a dance. A few big advertising campaigns of $$$ for AB at the time.
I fully expect RR to return to Latrobe some day. Don't know if I'll be alive, but I think it will happen. It will be bought from InBev for a "song a dance" because its usefulness is at the end of the road for them and they won't fear the "craft brew" startup in Latrobe.
