Stroh's collection gives toast to once-mighty Detroit beer empire

Allan Ruth has a picture of his father carrying a case of Stroh's beer into their Detroit home in 1965.

"My dad was a Stroh's man," he said.

And Ruth is a Stroh's collector.

He has collected more than 800 pieces of Stroh's memorabilia since he took up the hobby in the mid-1980s. To step inside the basement of his house in Plymouth Township is to be transported back in time to a Detroit brewing company that started in 1850, stayed in the Motor City for 135 years and became the third largest beer-maker in America.

Ruth has accumulated Stroh's neon signs, playing cards, a Lionel toy train piece, beer tap handles, bar mirrors, sports calendars and cigarette lighters, including an old one made for a car.

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"That was a rare find," he said.

Ruth has collected beer mugs and steins, a Stroh's toy truck and ship, patches, badges, key chains, knives, a beer keg, pencils, a vintage wooden beer case, a Lady Stroh's Open golf club and a plastic blow-up Strohman, which resembles a snowman.

And, of course, bottles and cans of beer.

At first glance, it would appear that Ruth dug deep into his pockets for his collection of memorabilia.

Not so. He said no single item cost more than $50.

"This is a very cheap collection," he said. "I didn't spend a lot of money on it."

Even so, friends who have seen it admire it. Just ask Michael Balow, who has served with Ruth on the Lake Pointe subdivision homeowners board and who took an opportunity to see Ruth's basement.

"I didn't expect it to be quite as extensive as it is," Balow said. "It takes up his entire basement. It's impressive. I'm keenly interested in all local history, whether it's Michigan, Detroit or Plymouth. And Stroh's was such as big part of Detroit for so many years. A lot of stuff in his collection has been lost to history."

According to the Stroh's website, the Stroh family began brewing beer in 1775 in Germany. Bernard Stroh immigrated to the United States in 1849 and founded his Detroit brewery the following year, giving it a Lion's image that remains on the label.

Stroh’s won a blue ribbon at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 and later, during Prohibition, sold beer with alcohol extracted and also turned the company's attention to other products such as ice cream.

By 1978, Stroh's sold 6.4 million barrels of beer a year in 17 states.

Ruth has a set of Stroh's beer glasses made prior to Prohibition. It's the oldest part of his collection. He has made the rounds to trade shows and garage sales, usually accompanied by his wife JoAnn, to find his memorabilia. He also belongs to the Stroh's Fire-Brewed Club.

"I think it's pretty cool," his wife said of his collection. "He really enjoys it a lot."

Ruth even has Stroh's items on his basement ceiling, including beer mirrors and a Tigers baseball schedule from the team's World Series season of 1984.

Ruth, a retired maintenance worker for the Michigan Department of Corrections, has attended annual brewery advertising shows in Wyandotte and other events where he and other collectors find camaraderie.

As a company, Stroh's began making bad financial decisions, history shows, and in 1985 it closed its Detroit brewery operations after 135 years, eventually becoming part of Pabst Brewing Co., then based in Milwaukee.

An article in Forbes magazine in 2014 said the company in the 1980s had accumulated a fortune estimated at $700 million. In today's adjusted dollars, Forbes said, the family would currently be worth about $9 billion.

A fifth-generation family member, Greg Stroh, told the magazine that the company went national without the money to do it. "It was like going to a gunfight with a knife," he told the publication.

Just over 30 years after Stroh's left Detroit, it came back in 2016 to Brew Detroit in Corktown, through an agreement with Pabst.

Much like Detroit, Stroh's has been a survivor, Ruth said.

"They never really stopped making Stroh's," he said, wearing a sweater with the Stroh's logo.

In his neighborhood, Ruth is beloved, much like the Stroh's collection he cherishes.

He volunteers for Huron Valley Lutheran High School in Westland, where he drives a bus. He decorates a big pine tree in his front yard every Christmas. He places little flags near the Lake Pointe entrance on patriotic holidays.

"He's just a really nice man," Balow said. "He goes out of his way to be a good neighbor."

Despite Ruth's love for Stroh's memorabilia, he is not a big drinker, though he enjoys a cold brew from time to time, either at home or when he visits friends.

"Almost everybody who knows me will have Stroh's for me," he said with a smile.

Contact Darrell Clem at dclem@hometownlife.com. Follow him on Twitter: @CantonObserver.