MANSFIELD — In a 12-hour day, Mansfield’s Bill Burge drives from Norwalk to Amherst and Oberlin, making beer deliveries to local bars and grocery stores. Bar owners welcome him with the name “Bill the Bud Man.”
Each day’s drive includes different stops, but Burge said he usually visits 10-20 locations on his delivery routes and carries the beer cases himself.
“It’s hard work, but I don’t mind it,” Burge said. “Your day goes pretty quick and it’s worked out for me.”
Burge, longtime delivery driver for sister companies Mansfield Distributing and Maple City Ice, accomplished “the highlight of (his) career” with an invitation to ride on the famed Budweiser Clydesdales wagon in Amherst on Aug. 27.
John Hipp has seen the Budweiser Clydesdales at least 10 times in his role as president of Maple City Ice Company. He said no crowd was as big as the one packed together to see “the gentle giants.”
“Without a doubt this had to be the biggest turnout ever between the Lorain County Fair and Amherst — it was unbelievable,” Hipp said. “So much enthusiasm, this was beyond our imagination.”
Hipp sent a request in January that Budweiser bring its Clydesdales on tour to northern Ohio, writing a “glowing review” of Amherst and Lorain County to convince Budweiser the Clydesdales would receive an eager audience.
Hipp worked with Maple City Ice Sales Manager Doug Beach and leadership in Amherst to coordinate how his employees Burge and Jeff Miller could ride on the Clydesdales wagon.
Beach said he could see the excitement on Burge’s face when they were discussing the possibility of riding with the Clydesdales.
“It’s Bill’s area that he delivers in,” Beach said. “We thought, ‘How cool would it be if he could be sort of paraded around and give him his day?’”
Bill Burge started work for Mansfield Distributing Company as a summer job in high school in 1979. He’s worked as a delivery driver since he was 18. His wife, Mindy Burge, said he was “the popular boy in our class” because of his job.
Bill and Mindy Burge have lived in Mansfield their whole lives and have known each other since they were in 8th grade.
Beach said Bill Burge is “that guy who has the Budweiser man cave,” including branded raincoats and display merchandise collected from his years in the business.
“Everything is Budweiser to perfection with him,” Beach said. “This is what he knows, this is what he does.”
Though Beach had been talking for months with Amherst leadership, he didn’t get the final approval for his employees to ride on the wagon until the day before the parade.
“I was on pins and needles,” Bill Burge said. “They just had a last meeting with the people on the town council in Amherst to coordinate everything in the parade route and everything else.”
Mindy Burge said she asked her husband almost every day after he got home from work if he had heard a decision about riding with the Clydesdales. When the decision was made, she said, “We’re super excited. He deserves this.”
Though he’s seen the Budweiser Clydesdales multiple times, riding on the wagon was “unbelievable.”
“I couldn’t even describe it — all the people were just so welcoming and loved seeing the horses in all their majestic beauty,” Burge said. “It was quite an experience I’m sure I’ll never get again.”
Multiple family members and friends drove from Mansfield to Amherst to see him on the Clydesdales wagon.
Mindy Burge’s phone battery was almost dead by the end of the Clydesdale parade because she had been taking photos the whole 1.5-mile route.
“They represent such a great company to my eye — the way they have treated him over the years,” she said. “It’s pure class all the way.”
Bill Burge followed in his father’s footsteps, who also worked for Mansfield Distributing for more than 30 years. Even though Burge said his dad didn’t want him working in the beer industry, his father instilled “a good work ethic” in him and he always enjoyed the work, though it has been physically demanding.
Burge wore his father’s old Budweiser belt on the Clydesdales wagon Saturday with a Budweiser red polo shirt.
Through the dense crowd, Bill Burge saw bar owners he recognized and waved to friends as he helped pass out cases of beer to local bars on the parade route.
Once the parade was done, Burge said it hadn’t set in that he really rode on the Clydesdales wagon.
“Other than marrying my wife, it was the best experience,” he said. “I’m very humbled and grateful.”
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Clydesdales are bred at Warm Springs Ranch in Boonville, Missouri.
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Budweiser only tours with male horses ages 5–15 during parades.
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Budweiser weighs and measures its horses, taking the taller Clydesdales on tour and using the smaller horses in commercials.
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When a horse retires, it lives the rest of its life at Warm Springs Ranch and sometimes helps train younger horses to prepare for tour.
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A typical Clydesdale eats 40 pounds of hay and drinks 30 gallons of water each day.
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The Budweiser Clydesdales tour with two dalmatians, originally brought on to the team to guard beer cases while drivers had to leave the wagon and horses unattended.
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Budweiser rents stables for the Clydesdales to stay at on overnight tours. The travel team drives trailers that can fit up to four horses.
