This article appeared in the Syracuse New Times in June of 1975.

Miller High Life was the first beer I ever had. It was about 1949, I think. Being three years old, I could just reach the arm of my father’s chair, and he had this bottle that fascinated me. There was a girl on it, sitting in the moon. She was a kind of Halloween-Mexican-Gypsy, big dress draped over the crescent with a tall pointy hat, looking into the stars. The moon and the stars.

How did she get that high? The answer was in that bottle. I had to find out. The sip nearly killed me. Wasn’t as powerful as the Vernors ginger ale my grandmother had given me once (the bubbles stung my nose), but it still sent me away gasping.

I have an easier time with beer now, and Miller drinkers will be having an easier time still when the new Miller brewery is constructed in Volney, N.Y., just outside Fulton and 25 miles northeast of Syracuse. Groundbreaking ceremonies were held May 6 and the brewery is expected to begin turning out two million barrels a year by early 1976. The plant will be set on 415 acres, cost $70 million and employ 750 workers. Eventually, a glass bottle plant and an aluminum can manufacturing plant will be added to the brewery.

The Miller Brewing Company is up there with the big boys – Anheuser-Busch, Schlitz, Pabst and Coors. They want to stay there, and the way business is going right now there’s only one way to do that: get bigger. Thus, the Volney plant is designed to grow to an ultimate capacity of six million barrels per annum. The Milwaukee and Fort Worth breweries have already been expanded. Miller also brews at Azuza, California, and is assuming the importation rights of Löwenbräu beer.

Of course, Miller isn’t the only brewery expanding to stay alive. In that league, they all are. These cats are scared, because if they all brew to their Xanadu capacity, there’s going to be (gasp) too much beer. I hear cries of “Impossible!”, but it’s true. Somebody is going to get stuck with a bundle of unsold beer and a dead business. And nobody’s safe. Thus, for Miller and every other major brewer, it’s full speed ahead. There’s no other way to go.

Miller entered the race as the Menomonee Valley Brewery in 1848. Also known as The Plank Road Brewery, it was established by Charles Best (brother of Philip Best who began the Pabst dynasty) and bought by Frederick Miller, an “eager young brewer from Germany,” in 1855. One of Fred’s first moves as owner was to enlarge the system of caves beneath the brewery to provide a cool, undisturbed space for the beer to “lager” after brewing. The caves held 12,000 barrels and were used until 1906, when advances in refrigeration rendered them obsolete; they now house a museum. To keep the caves cool in the summer months, ice was cut from Pewaukee Lake during the winter. (It is this natural resource just 20 miles from Milwaukee that helped to make the city a brewing center.)

In 1903, Miller began using the lady perched on the crescent moon in their labels and posters, a trademark that disappeared only recently. Slogans have included “Miller, the Best Milwaukee Beer” and “The Champagne of Bottled Beers.”

In 1961, Miller acquired the Gettleman Brewing Company, whose brand name they still use today on a “budget” beer, much like Anheuser-Busch Bavarian and Pabst’s Red, White and Blue. Their other current brands are Miller High Life (sold in all 50 states and 56 countries), Miller Malt Liquor and Miller Ale. They also produce Meister Brau and Lite, brands they bought from the Meister Brau Brewing Company, which folded in Chicago a short while ago.

All of Miller’s beers are lightweights, like those of their direct competitors. The only real travesty is Miller Ale, a pallid brew with more than a hint of aftershave in the flavor. But the can is really beautiful, one of the nicest in America – mostly green with a flash of red and a super portrait of Fred Miller at eye-level. Hopefully, they’ll work out the contents.

All things considered, the people over at Utica Club are probably tearing their hair out. First, Schlitz in Lysander and now Miller in Volney.

I hope there’s a tour.