Former Williamsburg Brewery employee Savannah Avery-Smith and her husband, Ian Smith, drove from Washington, D.C., to attend the celebration. They got their photo taken with one of the Anheuser-Busch Budweiser Clydesdale horses. Dick Rosen (right), part of the Clydesdale team, holds the reigns. Wilford Kale/freelance

The 50th anniversary of Anheuser-Busch’s Williamsburg brewery was celebrated with gusto Saturday as more than 1,000 people attended specially arranged festivities.

Under tents on the brewery lawn, the guests — primarily brewery workers and their families — had an opportunity to have a photo made with one of the Budweiser Clydesdale horses, sample some of 40 beer brands brewed at the plant and go on a tour of the facility.

Local officials also were on hand with state Sen. Monty Mason, D-Williamsburg, and Del. Mike Mullin, D-Newport News, presenting a resolution adopted by the Virginia General Assembly earlier this year citing the anniversary and the economic impact of the brewery on Virginia.

The brewery is “an excellent corporate citizen of this community,” Mason said Saturday.

Visitors to the brewery's anniversary celebration on Oct. 1, 2022. Courtesy of Anheuser-Busch

Del. Amanda E. Batten, R-York, also presented a proclamation by Gov. Glenn Youngkin recognizing the anniversary and the brewery’s good works.

Williamsburg senior general manager Sarah Schilling took the time to recognize and thank the wholesale distributors in attendance. If it were not for them, she said, the beer couldn’t get to the brewery’s customers.

A number of the older brewery workers reminisced about the long-ago connection between the brewery, which opened in 1972, and the adjacent Anheuser-Busch owned-and-operated Busch Gardens, “The Old Country,” which opened in 1975. A monorail ran between the two operations.

Busch Gardens visitors could ride to see the brewery and get a free taste of beer at the hospitality house and then return to the theme park. The monorail and free beer at the brewery ended in November 1998. Busch Gardens Williamsburg is now owned by SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment.

At times during Saturday’s nearly three-hour event, the line was long for guests to have opportunity to touch and get a photograph with a Clydesdale, a Scottish breed of draught horse named for the area of origin —the valley of the River Clyde, near Glasgow. The Clydesdales began promoting Anheuser-Busch and Budweiser in 1933 to celebrate the end of Prohibition.

During a brewery tour Tom Evanowski, the operations manager, explained that between 300,000 and 350,000 cases of beer are produced daily in the Williamsburg facility.

A special Budweiser label was created for a batch of the beer produced for the 50th anniversary commemoration. Wilford Kale/freelance

When brands are changed during the bottling process, the time between various light beers could be as little as eight minutes. However, routinely when brands are changed it takes about 30 minutes, he said, because water is needed to flush out the system to make sure each brand is pure.

Normally, about 2,000 cans and 1,200 bottles are produced every minute on the lines, Evanowski added.

The tour also enabled visitors to see the quality assurance laboratory where the beers are constantly monitored to maintain quality.

Later on the tour, Joel Pipman, senior brewmaster, pointed out a room full of massive stainless steel tanks used to brew beer. There are many such rooms in twin four-story buildings that are needed for the 24-hour, 7-days-a-week operation because brewing takes 21 days.

For the famous Budweiser beer, beechwood aging is vital to the taste of the product, Pipman said. Routinely, there is a four-step process: brewing of the mash, fermentation, the beechwood aging and finally filtering.

Pipman’s role is to ensure that every aspect of the brewing process functions properly down to the taste-testing of the batches.

Wilford Kale, kalehouse@aol.com