Mane event: Budweiser Clydesdales to visit Tuscaloosa next week

Despite the instant iconic visual association between Budweiser and Clydesdales, "draft" horse has nothing directly to do with beer. That draft's an Americanization of the English draught or dray, derived from old English dragan, meaning to draw or haul.

A team of the massive, striking animals will be hauling hindquarters and a turn-of-the-century restored and repaired wagon through town next week, from Dec. 7 to Dec. 10, stopping for a number of public appearances, concluding with a downtown Tuscaloosa parade 2-4 p.m. that Saturday.

"Ideally, we wanted them to come in for the West Alabama Christmas Parade," said Maddie Hyatt, marketing director/craft beer development for Adams Beverage. They'll actually be arriving the day of that annual event, Monday, but the horses have to rest and prep for two days, following a journey here in three 50-foot tractor trailers, hauling also the red, white and gold beer wagon, along with a team of handlers, groomers and hitch drivers.

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So Adams Beverage has arranged the Clydesdales' own downtown parade, which will begin at the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse on Greensboro Avenue, and make short stops at various lounges that Saturday afternoon. Though crowds will have to stay on sidewalks during the procession, for everyone's safety, photo opportunities will be available when the team winds down near the Tinsel Trail and the outdoor ice-skating rink at Government Plaza.

The Clydesdales visited Tuscaloosa a decade ago, in 2012, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Greene Beverage. Tuscaloosa-born Greene was acquired in 2016 by Adams Beverage, founded in Dothan, now with seven operations in Alabama and North Carolina. Both Greene and Adams started in 1937, the year statewide alcohol sales resumed, following the repeal of national Prohibition in 1933.

More recently, the Clydesdales strode through the Druid City in 2019, when Hyatt​ was just starting with Adams, as a brand ambassador.

"It was my very first event, and I was completely overwhelmed" by their presence, Hyatt said. "They are absolutely stunning.

"I am just a huge animal person; if I see a dog anywhere, literally anywhere, I have to stop. It's in my blood. So I've seen regular horses before, but they were nothing like these. They're just amazing."

Farmers have long bred horses for the long haul, selecting for strength, patience and docility. There's a long-held myth that draft horses descend from Destriers, ridden by medieval armored knights, but those warhorses tended to be smaller and quicker, with more excitable temperaments.

The taller, muscular draft horses typically aren't ridden, but hitched to wagons, carts or plows. Clydesdales descend from the Great Flemish Horse, bred in the 19th century along the banks of the River Clyde in Lanarkshire, Scotland. Those could pull one-ton loads at five miles per hour.

Scottish imigrants brought the first Clydesdales to north America, originally for work on farms, and hauling freight and passengers from disembarking trains. The strength of draft horses was so famed it became the source of the slang "horsepower," coined by Scottish engineer James Watt to gauge the relative capacity of steam engines.

They linked up with beer when August A. Busch Jr. and Adolphus Busch III presented their father, August Anheuser Busch Sr., with a six-Clydesdale hitch in April 1933, to celebrate the end of Prohibition. Busch Sr. had taken over as CEO and president of Anheuser-Busch on the death of his father, Adolphus Busch, who had expanded a St. Louis-based brewery via refrigerated cars, making them the first U.S. company to sell bottled beer nationwide.

The company sent another six-horse hitch to New York, parading those Clydesdales in front of thousands on the way to the Empire State Building, where a case of Budweiser was presented to former New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith, who'd fought against Prohibition. The tour then went on through New England and the mid-Atlantic, stopping in Washington, D.C., to reenact delivery of a case to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Shortly after, the teams increased to eight, and have for all these decades been an ongoing marketing symbol.

To qualify for a Budweiser team, a Clydesdale must be a gelding, standing 6 feet at the shoulder by age four, and weighing between 1,800 and 2,300 pounds. The company selects only bay — dark reddish-brown — colored horses with white stocking feet — the draft horse's typical feathering along lower legs — a blaze of white on the face, and a black mane and tail. A typical Clydesale horseshoe measures about 20 inches long, and weighs 5 pounds, more than twice the size and five times the weight of a riding horse's shoe.

The team coming to Tuscaloosa will include 10 horses, so the animals can be switched out, in rotation. On a warm day, each will take in 20 to 25 quarts of whole grains, vitamins and minerals, 50 to 60 pounds of hay, and 30 gallons of water. The combined hitch — horses, wagon and driver — weighs about 12 tons. Handcrafted brass and leather harnesses and collars, each fitted to the individual horse, weigh about 130 pounds each.

The driver handles 40 pounds of reins, a number which increases under tension, and utilizes two forms of braking: a hydraulic pedal that slows for turns and downhill descents, and a handbrake that locks rear wheels when the wagon halts.

The Clydesdales' Tuscaloosa appearances will include:

• Winn Dixie, 10 McFarland Blvd., 3-5 p.m. Dec. 7.

• Piggly Wiggly, 641 Bear Creek Road, 4-6 Dec. 8.

• First responders luncheon at Druid City Social, 301 Greensboro Ave., 1-3 p.m. Dec. 9 (Private event for first-responders and their families).

• Downtown Tuscaloosa Holiday Parade, 2-4 p.m. Dec. 10.

The grocery stores and parade stops will have marked containers for donations of canned goods, which will be distributed by the Salvation Army.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Budweiser Clydesdales to visit Tuscaloosa next week