Company deserves thanks for courage

Family puts its money where its heart is

D.G. Yuengling must be looking down and smiling, said his great-great grandson.

He certainly must have.

Richard L. Yuengling Jr. simply Dick Yuengling to most everyone in these parts was surrounded by press people from across eastern Pennsylvania in the museum at the Mahantongo Street brewery.

He was flanked by his two older daughters, Jennifer and Debbie. Behind him was Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor, Mark S. Schweiker, and all the heavy hitters of Schuylkill County government and politics.

He was about to become the first Yuengling in 169 years to announce he will build a brewery from scratch. The only other was D.G. himself, who built two the Eagle Brewery, on today's site of City Hall, in 1829; and today's brewery, in 1831, after the first one burned. It was an emotional moment some eyes were misting up and a proud one, and a courageous one, too.

Perhaps that wasn't a bit of a shiver that passed through the three Yuenglings as the announcement was made: The family will invest in a new $50 million brewery about a mile from the current one, across Mill Creek Avenue from the Saint Clair Industrial Park.

Why did the word ``courageous'' come to mind?

Because the Yuenglings were required to do nothing.

Riding the nation's specialty brew wave, Dick Yuengling had seen sales skyrocket from 127,000 barrels when he took over in 1985 to a half-million barrels this year.

The original investment in the brewery at Mahantongo and Fifth had been paid off generations ago, even the improvements, and the 1993 addition, the largest investment in the company's future until that time, was no doubt well in hand.

Dick Yuengling and his advisers looked at the options, which ranged from doing nothing to selling out to one of the Big Four brewers. (Miller had come calling a few years back.)

Instead, he and his four daughters Wendy and Sheryl are the younger ones put the family fortunes on the line to the tune of a $50 million debt and invested that debt in the Yuengling's home town.

That takes guts. As fans of the family's selection of fine and ever-improving beers, all of us those over the legal age of 21, anyhow can speak with assurance that the investment will no doubt be returned handsomely in time.

It's easy for us to say so. Talk is cheap.

So we should also say thanks. Thanks for creating and maintaining products that make ``quality` and ``Schuylkill County'' synonymous far beyond the county line. Thanks for the 100 new jobs and added tax revenues. Thanks for bringing 60,000 tourists a year into the local economic mix. Thanks for the vote of confidence in your own neighborhood.

If that was a bit of shiver, we understand and say thanks. Thanks for the courage not to do nothing. Thanks for the courage to act on your hopes.