Postscript: Carlos Alvarez Has Died at 73 (or 74)

Carlos Alvarez, founder of the Gambrinus Company, has died at—depending on which news source you consult—73 or 74. His father was a beer distributor in Mexico, where he learned the business. Then:

“In 1986, he and his wife and daughters emigrated to Texas, where he was instrumental in introducing Corona Extra beer into the United States. He established his own company, The Gambrinus Company, and became the official importer for Corona. Eleven years later, it was the No. 1 imported beer in the nation—widely regarded as the most spectacular brand success story in contemporary brewing history. He also bought the struggling Spoetzl brewery in Shiner, Texas, that produced Shiner beer.”

The Shiner experiment led Gambrinus to dabble in other breweries, starting with Pete’s Wicked and moving onto Portland’s BridgePort and Berkeley’s Trumer. Most of the obituaries coming out of Texas celebrate his legacy of philanthropy—and rightly so. He was enormously generous, giving generously to universities in Texas—as well as Oregon State. Texas Monthly recounts his generosity.

As his fortune grew, Carlos, with his wife, Malú, donated tens of millions of dollars to expanding educational opportunities in his beloved San Antonio. Recipients included the Alamo Colleges District, St. Mary’s University, the University of the Incarnate Word, and the University of Texas at San Antonio, to which Carlos and Malú gave $20 million in 2021—the institution’s largest gift from a living donor. The Carlos Alvarez College of Business is now one of the largest business schools in the U.S.

I am of slightly mixed feelings about Alvarez’s legacy, though. He never understood craft beer, and his efforts to enter that space mostly ended badly. Perhaps Pete’s was a goner by the time Gambrinus acquired it, but his subsequent record suggests he was never the one to rehabilitate it. He grossly misunderstood the Portland market, and made a bunch of decisions that would ultimately doom BridgePort. One of those blunders was trademarking the word “Beervana,” but the worst part was trying to turn BridgePort into a place that he’d like to visit in a Texas suburb.

Of course, he was hardly the only man to misunderstand the world of craft brewing. He built a successful company, and used a lot of his money for good. (As much as craft breweries like to tout their great values, we don’t actually see a lot of that.) He had a few misses along the way, but that comes with the territory.

RIP.