End of an Era: Jax's Anheuser-Busch's Brewery Tour
Since its opening, Anheuser-Busch has offered free guided tours to anyone willing to drop by to explore their Jacksonville brewery. However, these days are coming to an end. On December 23, the brewery will end tours of the facility and close its associated gift shop permanently. With that in mind, here's a photographic behind-the-scenes tour of the Jacksonville brewery permanently being archived for Jaxsons to have free access too.
Photos: Anheuser-Busch’s local economic impact
Anchor Glass Container Corporation
With as much as 624,000 square feet, the Anchor Glass Container Company is the only glass bottle plant in the State of Florida. Paying between $400,000 to $900,000 a month on energy costs, it’s also one of the Jacksonville Electric Authority’s (JEA) major accounts. Glass making on the site actually dates as far back as the 1926 when Antonio Scalise founded the Tropical Glass and Box Company. Scalise’s clients included Pepsi-Cola of Florida, Dixie Lily Company, and Frostie Root Beer. Daily tours of the plant were also allowed between 10:30am and 4:30pm. By the 1960s, Tropical Glass and Box had been acquired by the Anchor Hocking Glass Corporation. In 1983, Anchor Glass Container was carved out of Anchor Hocking by Wesray Capital Corporation, a private equity pioneer co-founded by William Simon, U.S. Treasury secretary in the Nixon and Ford administrations. Over the last twenty years, employment at Florida’s only glass manufacturing plant has hovered between 235 and 400. Today, it makes 2.7 million beer bottles a day for its only client, Jacksonville’s Anheuser-Busch brewery.
Metal Container Corporation
Anheuser-Busch subsidiary Metal Container Corporation opened its Ellis Road plant in 1973 to supply the Jacksonville brewery with cans. This operation makes 3 billion cans annually for the brewery and other companies like Pepsi and Coca-Cola. The plant was recently expanded to manufacture aluminum bottles for the Jacksonville brewery.
# WestRock
Courtesy of Nassau County
Richmond, VA-based WestRock is the second largest packaging company in the country. WestRock operates a large mill, employing 440, just north of Fernandina Beach’s historic district. The Fernandina Beach facility produces both linerboard and corrugating medium. The linerboard and corrugating medium are used together to make new containerboard for packaging and other uses for many area customers including Anheuser-Busch’s Jacksonville brewery.
North Florida Sales
North Florida Sales (NFS) is a locally owned Anheuser-Busch wholesaler with operations in Jacksonville and Lake City. Employing 250 in Jacksonville, NFS has about 60 percent of the local beer market and distributes AB products to supermarkets, convenience stores, bars, lounges and any customer licensed to sell beer in 11 Northeast Florida counties.
FEC Intermodal
Jacksonville’s Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) provides door-to-door intermodal service from Anheuser-Busch Jacksonville brewery to several South Florida wholesalers. In 2011, FEC completed nearly 8,000 ships of beer and return loads, leading Anheuser-Busch to name the 351-mile regional railroad its intermodal carrier of the year.
Article by Ennis Davis, AICP. Davis is a certified senior planner and graduate of Florida A&M University. He is the author of the award winning books “Reclaiming Jacksonville,” “Cohen Brothers: The Big Store” and “Images of Modern America: Jacksonville.” Davis has served with various organizations committed to improving urban communities, including the American Planning Association and the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation. A 2013 Next City Vanguard, Davis is the co-founder of Metro Jacksonville.com and ModernCities.com — two websites dedicated to promoting fiscally sustainable communities — and Transform Jax, a tactical urbanist group. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com