Hohenstein's traces its roots to a grocery store located in West St. Paul.

 

In 1946 after returning from service in World War II, Karl Sr. took over the family business. He purchased a truck to make deliveries for the store, but the store did not have enough business to pay for the truck so he searched for other goods to deliver including beer. Delivering beer and groceries soon got to be too large for this truck and a bigger truck was needed. By the 1950's, two companies emerged from the grocery store, a small beer distributorship and a trucking company that at one time had 40 semi-trucks on the road. 

 

For some reason, the trucking company was sold in the early 1970's and the proceeds purchased a Schlitz distributor in the east metro. Two years later, after Pabst consented, one of the nation's 1st Schlitz/Pabst wholesaler was in business.

 

In 1996, Hohenstein's traded away its distribution rights to Leinenkugel's and Molson (Miller brands) in return for Pabst rights allowing expansion throughout St. Paul-Minneapolis. Needing additional products, we embraced the first craft boom of the 1990's.