In the Shadow of Giants (Pt. 2): Big Beer vs. Big Beers

When it comes to Budweiser plants being the only game in town, the cities of Fairfield, CA (as detailed in my last post on Heretic Brewing) and Columbus share that distinction. Established in 1968, the Columbus-located production brewery predates its west coast counterpart by about 8 years.

Unlike its California brethren, however, Columbus' Budweiser plant opened up with some brewing competition in the area, mainly in the form of August Wagner. At that time, Wagner, which launched in 1905 as Gambrinus Brewing and Bottling, held the unique distinction as the only brewery in the city established prior to Prohibition to actually survive and function as a brewery after the law's repeal.

The Brewery District-located King Gambrinus statue, said to be modeled on
longtime Columbus brewer August Wagner, is the most prominent reminder
of Wagner's pre-Prohibition-era brewery remaining in the city

Six years later, Anheuser Busch emerged as the lone area brewing presence. Beset with aging equipment and financial problems, August Wagner Brewing was forced to shut operations early in 1974. Since then, Budweiser reigned as the only commercial brewer in the area until the second iteration of Columbus Brewing, started up by current Temperance Row Brewing brewer Scott Francis, set up shop in 1988.

Nowadays, Columbus' craft brewery roll call numbers closer to forty, but even combined they almost certainly don't compare volume-wise to the local Budweiser plant's roughly 10 million barrels of production in 2015, according to this Dayton Daily News article.  Perhaps it's only appropriate that the Columbus craft brewery within closest stone's throw of the city's "Big Beer" representative comes at the term from a completely different direction.