06/19/2023

Busch chronicles the ups and downs of his life as an heir of the Anheuser-Busch brewing company, and the circumstances that eventually led his family to lose control of the business, in this juicy debut memoir. He describes a seemingly idyllic childhood roaming his bucolic family estate outside St. Louis—complete with an amusement park and a pet elephant—and contrasts it with sketches of his emotionally absent parents (“I often sought solace from the people who worked for us, never once thinking to go to my parents for such things as affection and comfort”) and real-life family rivalries that could compete with Succession. Supplemented by eclectic photographs depicting the Busch family’s lavish lifestyle, the narrative details how their company overcame obstacles including Prohibition, only to be acquired by Belgian giant InBev in 2008 after the family’s ownership stake of the public company had dwindled over several decades. Busch’s efforts to “be present” and break the generational patterns of dysfunction with his wife and seven children add emotional depth, but his workmanlike prose sometimes falls flat (he sees “the varnish fade from the Busch Family Fairy Tale” several times). Still, as a bittersweet examination of an American business empire in decline, this succeeds. Photos. Agent: Mel Berger, WME. (Aug.)

In Family Reins, Billy Busch, the founder of Busch Family Brewing & Distilling Company and heir to the multibillion-dollar Anheuser-Busch fortune, goes well beyond the Busch Family Brewed reality show to share over a hundred and fifty years of family and business drama. Through wars, political upheaval, social unrest, and scores of family dramas, the Busch dynasty has remained an icon of not just American business, but American culture. Here, Billy Busch gives us unfettered access behind the curtain where we see the intimate details of a family dynasty—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and learn more than we could imagine about the incredible rise, and untimely fall, of an American Icon. Well written, well-paced, and deeply personal, this book reads like a bestselling novel, but all the more compelling because it is true. Not to be missed!”

You are about to enjoy a fascinating, deeply personal, and revealing recounting of the family and the brand we all thought we knew. It’s not just behind the scenes and tell-all, but a journal.”

In Family Reins, Billy Busch peels back the glitz and glamour of the Anheuser-Busch dynasty and gives readers an unflinching look into the soul of the American dream. From the breathtaking highs to the soul-crushing lows, Busch shatters our preconceived notions of wealth and privilege while drilling deep into the true meaning of family.”

Busch draws on his twenty-twenty hindsight, working to avoid the pitfalls of the past in both business and home life, focusing on the sphere he can control. Launching his own brewery to honor the original family brewers, Billy engages readers with the effort put toward shaping his children’s understanding of family obligation and nurturing those relationships. This absorbing book is a good fit for public library collections.”

An heir to the Anheuser-Busch brewing fortune, Billy Busch is remarkably candid about both his life and the family succession issues that ultimately led to the purchase of the well-known corporation by InBev, a Belgian conglomerate. Busch's memoir seems backbiting, petty, and self-aggrandizing. Busch, who also narrates, frequently pauses inexplicably mid-sentence, especially during early chapters. Overall, his performance is sincere, workmanlike, and without noticeable emotional or tonal variation. While lacking in even the most basic rules of English grammar and usage, the brief history, especially Anheuser-Busch's adaptations during two World Wars and Prohibition, evokes significant interest. Perhaps selecting a more professional narrator might well have improved the effort. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

2023-07-13
In which a family that drinks together sinks together.

For generations, the Busch family was synonymous with mass-produced beer, courtesy of an empire that began with a St. Louis brewery that churned out a popular lager. “We’re the poster children of the American dream,” writes the descendant author, “that not-so-outdated belief that hard work, entrepreneurship, grit, and a positive can-do attitude can make anything possible.” Corporate intrigue and familial back-stabbing helped, too, as Busch reveals when writing of how an older sibling deposed his father in an untidy coup occasioned by the father’s grief over the death of a daughter in a terrible accident. Busch sheds some useful insight into how a mass-produced brand out of the Midwest became a national standard, a process that began with the brewery empire’s throwing itself into the industrial effort in World War II, building parts for airplanes as well as supplying yeast tablets as energy supplements, so that “drinking Budweiser made you a patriot, a true American, someone who was helping the boys at home and abroad.” His narrative also supports the old saw that the first generation or two of entrepreneurs build an empire, the next one or two generations live lavishly off their labors, and the following generation or two drive the empire into the ground. The pattern holds, and the Busch descendants sold out to a giant conglomerate in 2008 after having turned the reins over to a scion with “a drug problem [who] was probably not fit for leadership.” Once that deal was done, the family went to war with each other and especially with the author, richly revealing themselves to be a group of supremely dysfunctional people that “just weren’t the type of family to get along.”

Of modest interest in the train-wreck department but without many takeaway lessons apart from sticking to craft beer.