With roots in the 1838 Lemp Brewery of St. Louis, the company was renamed after the Shakespearean character Sir John Falstaff in 1903.

Over the next 80 years, the Lemp family was devastated by personal tragedies as it built its beer empire over the caves of St. Louis.

[5] When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the first two cases of beer made by the brewery were airlifted from nearby Curtiss Stienberg Airport to the governors of Illinois and Missouri.

In the interim, Chicago White Sox announcer Harry Caray endorsed the brew in live TV commercials, many times with a glass of beer in his hand and sipping it.

[citation needed] Kalmanovitz also owned General Brewing, Pabst, Pearl, Olympia, and Stroh's.