MILLER LITE

Miller Lite, Calorie-reduced light beer was first introduced to the market by New York's Rheingold Brewery as "Gablinger's Diet Beer", brewed using a process developed in 1964 by chemist Hersch Gablinger of Basel, Switzerland. The version that evolved into Miller Lite had its origins in a recipe developed in 1967 by Joseph L. Owades, PhD, a biochemist working for Rheingold. Next, the recipe was offered by Owades to Chicago's Peter Hand Brewing. That year, Peter Hand Brewing was purchased by a group of investors, renamed Meister Brau Brewing, and Lite was soon introduced as Meister Brau Lite, a companion to their flagship Meister Brau. Under the new management, Meister Brau Brewing encountered significant financial problems, and in 1972, sold several of its existing labels to Miller. The recipe was relaunched simply as "Lite" on packaging and in advertising (with "Lite Beer from Miller" being its "official" name until the late '90s) in the test markets of Springfield, Illinois; Providence, Rhode Island; Knoxville, Tennessee; and San Diego, California, in 1973, and heavily marketed using masculine pro sports players and other "macho" figures of the day in an effort to sell to the key beer-drinking male demographic. Miller Lite was introduced nationally in 1975 and became the first successful mainstream light beer in the United States.