on its real estate ventures. History of ownership In 1965, the company was acquired by Heublein. In 1973, Hamm's was sold to a group of Hamm's distributors which in turn sold it to Olympia Brewing Company in 1975. In 1983, Pabst purchased Olympia—along with Hamm's. It was at this time that the Saint Paul flagship brewery was traded to the Stroh Brewing Company; Stroh's continued to operate the brewery until 1997. When it closed, the operation ended a 137-year brewing tradition on the site. Its buildings were shuttered, and subsequently vandalized, demolished, or left to decay. Miller Brewing acquired the brand from Pabst in 1999. Miller was later purchased by South African Breweries and the name was changed to SABMiller. Subsequently, SABMiller formed a joint venture combining their US and Puerto Rican assets with those of Molson Coors to form MillerCoors. In 2016, SABMiller sold its interests in MillerCoors to Molson Coors, who had been its partner in the joint venture, for around US$12 billion. Molson Coors gained full ownership of the Miller brand portfolio outside of the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and retained the rights to all of the brands that were in the MillerCoors portfolio for the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Molson Coors now produces Hamm's beers: Premium, Golden Draft, and Special Light. Breweries Saint Paul The flagship brewery of the former Hamm's empire was in Saint Paul. Brewing began on the site in 1860, when Andrew F. Keller established the Pittsburgh Excelsior Brewery. Keller, a friend of Theodore Hamm, planned for the two of them to travel to California for the "second gold rush." Louise Hamm forbade her husband to leave her alone with three children in the wild frontier town of Saint Paul. Unbeknown to his wife, Hamm had staked all of his savings and mortgaged his beer garden to support Keller's trip and property acquisition in California. As collateral, Keller gave the deed to his small brewery and flour mill, located on the east side of Saint Paul, to Hamm. Upon Keller's death in 1865, all of Hamm's savings, homestead and stake were lost. Having lost his beer garden, Hamm moved his family into the brewery. Through constant expansion and improvements, the brewery soon became the largest in the state. The most notable expansion was the state-of-the-art brew house, which was built in 1893. In 1897, the wash house and part of the bottling plant