which came from aging the beer adequately, unlike many of its post-Prohibition competitors of the time. Moreover, the production was set up in a way that no hands touched the beer or its container until the final step (bottling). In that sense, General Brewing Company posted a bond of $1,000 as a guarantee that the age-date of the beer was authentic. After WWII, General Brewing began rapid expansion to meet increasing demand. This included expanding into Azusa, California in 1949, Vancouver, Washington, Washington in 1950, and Salt Lake City, Utah in 1960. At the same time, the Maier Brewery was producing Brew 102, a favorite beer in post-war Southern California. 1950s – 1960s heydays The following decade, from 1950 to 1960 saw Lucky Lager grow to be the sales leader in the entire Western region. This was coupled with continued distribution expansion in an effort to saturate the western market. By 1962, Lucky Lager was producing and selling over two million barrels of beer per year. In 1958, Coast Breweries was purchased by Canadian Labatt Brewery, which continued to brew Lucky Lager. Lucky Lager Brewing Company changed its name back to General Brewing between 1963 and 1969 and then changed its name to Lucky Breweries, Inc. in 1969. As the national brands moved into California in the early 1960s, Lucky Lager's sales began to falter. In an effort to increase sales with younger drinkers, this led to the ill-fated introduction of King Snedley's Beer, an alternate brand in addition to Lucky. According to some accounts, King Snedley's was just Lucky Lager repackaged with a different brand and marketed toward counterculture consumers. The new brand flopped and was withdrawn from the market, though it would reappear briefly in 1975. As sales continued to decline, the Salt Lake City brewery was closed in 1967. 1970s and beyond In 1971, millionaire beer baron Paul Kalmanovitz bought Lucky Lager Brewing and merged it with Maier Brewing Company to form the General Brewing Company with S&P Corporation as its parent. The Azusa, California brewery was closed immediately. The San Francisco brewery was closed in 1978. This left Vancouver, Washington and Cranston, Rhode Island as the only locations where Lucky Lager was brewed. In the late 1970s, General Brewing took advantage of the "generic brand" marketing craze in the US by producing beer with plain white labels emblazoned with the word BEER. Rumors surfaced that BEER