Family Reins

June 19, 2023
Busch chronicles the ups and downs of his life as an heir of the Anheuser-Busch brewing company, and the circumstances that eventually led his family to lose control of the business, in this juicy debut memoir. He describes a seemingly idyllic childhood roaming his bucolic family estate outside St. Louis—complete with an amusement park and a pet elephant—and contrasts it with sketches of his emotionally absent parents (“I often sought solace from the people who worked for us, never once thinking to go to my parents for such things as affection and comfort”) and real-life family rivalries that could compete with Succession. Supplemented by eclectic photographs depicting the Busch family’s lavish lifestyle, the narrative details how their company overcame obstacles including Prohibition, only to be acquired by Belgian giant InBev in 2008 after the family’s ownership stake of the public company had dwindled over several decades. Busch’s efforts to “be present” and break the generational patterns of dysfunction with his wife and seven children add emotional depth, but his workmanlike prose sometimes falls flat (he sees “the varnish fade from the Busch Family Fairy Tale” several times). Still, as a bittersweet examination of an American business empire in decline, this succeeds. Photos. Agent: Mel Berger, WME.

August 1, 2023
In which a family that drinks together sinks together. For generations, the Busch family was synonymous with mass-produced beer, courtesy of an empire that began with a St. Louis brewery that churned out a popular lager. "We're the poster children of the American dream," writes the descendant author, "that not-so-outdated belief that hard work, entrepreneurship, grit, and a positive can-do attitude can make anything possible." Corporate intrigue and familial back-stabbing helped, too, as Busch reveals when writing of how an older sibling deposed his father in an untidy coup occasioned by the father's grief over the death of a daughter in a terrible accident. Busch sheds some useful insight into how a mass-produced brand out of the Midwest became a national standard, a process that began with the brewery empire's throwing itself into the industrial effort in World War II, building parts for airplanes as well as supplying yeast tablets as energy supplements, so that "drinking Budweiser made you a patriot, a true American, someone who was helping the boys at home and abroad." His narrative also supports the old saw that the first generation or two of entrepreneurs build an empire, the next one or two generations live lavishly off their labors, and the following generation or two drive the empire into the ground. The pattern holds, and the Busch descendants sold out to a giant conglomerate in 2008 after having turned the reins over to a scion with "a drug problem [who] was probably not fit for leadership." Once that deal was done, the family went to war with each other and especially with the author, richly revealing themselves to be a group of supremely dysfunctional people that "just weren't the type of family to get along." Of modest interest in the train-wreck department but without many takeaway lessons apart from sticking to craft beer.

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July 14, 2023
As with many celebrity tell-alls, a charmed life and legacy turn sour when met with the human condition. Such is the saga of Anheuser-Busch, both family and brewery. While striving mightily to rise from the family ashes, Busch shares an intimate peek behind the scenes of power at the legendary brewery over generations of competitive, perfectionist, innovative patriarchs. A study in contrasts, the story features industry leaders, family men, formidable parents, tragedy, and the breakdown of familial relationships. Over a century, surviving the challenges of Prohibition and the anti-German sentiment of WWI, the fairyland characterized as "Camelot" transforms into the stuff of tabloid journalism. Busch draws on his 20-20 hindsight, working to avoid the pitfalls of the past in both business and home life, focusing on the sphere he can control. Launching his own brewery to honor the original family brewers, Billy engages readers with the effort put toward shaping his children's understanding of family obligation and nurturing those relationships. This absorbing book is a good fit for public library collections.

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