Georgius (George) Henricus Busch was born in Kastel, Hessen, Germany to Udalrico Busch and Barbara Pfeiffer. Their family was very large. By 1830 he was one of 13 siblings under the age of 23. Georgius escaped the crowded family home, lured by the wide open plains of America.

He first settled in Belleville, Illinois where he in 1834 established what would become the Belleville brewery. After selling out in 1848 he crossed the Mississippi River to became a hop merchant/brewer in St. Louis, Missouri, operating as the Buena Vista Brewery. By 1854 the hop business had taken a back seat and Busch was once again concentrating on brewing.

He built a huge underground aging cellar and a state-of-the-art brewery on top of it. His brewery was now the sixth largest in St. Louis. In 1856 he took on Charles Fritz as a partner. Busch was now approaching fifty years of age, and this situation must have appeared like a tremendous opportunity to Samuel Wainwright, the ambitious 35 year old owner of the third largest brewery in town. Wainwright bought Busch's stake in the Buena Vista, then one year later he bought out Fritz too. Busch continued run his Hop business and kept his home across the street from the brewery.  The old-timer surely stopped in from time to time to see how things were going at his old place.

George Henricus Busch died in 1895 in Warren Michigan at age 87. His brewery thrived until prohibition, succeeding even in the shadow of his younger brother Adolphus's firm, the Anheuser Busch Brewing Association.

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