 | |
| Type | American-style lager |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Pabst Brewing Company |
| Origin | Milwaukee,Wisconsin, United States |
| Introduced | 1844; 182 years ago (1844) |
| Alcohol by volume | 4.7% |
| Website | pabstblueribbon |
Pabst Blue Ribbon, commonly abbreviatedPBR, is an Americanlager beer sold byPabst Brewing Company, established inMilwaukee,Wisconsin, in 1844 and currently based inSan Antonio,Texas. Originally calledBest Select, and thenPabst Select, the current name comes from the blue ribbons tied around the bottle's neck between 1882 and 1916.
Gottlieb and Frederika Pabst and their twelve-year-old sonFrederick arrived in the United States in 1848 and settled inChicago where Frederick eventually found work on the ships ofLake Michigan.[1] In 1862, Frederick married Maria Best, daughter of Philip Best, whose fatherJacob Best founded the Best Brewing Company, and in 1863 Frederick became a brewer at his father-in-law's brewery.[2]
When Philip Best retired to Germany in 1867, Pabst and Emil Schandein – his sister-in-law's husband and the vice-president of Best Brewery – worked to transform the company into one of the nation's largest brewers, capitalizing on, among other things, theGreat Chicago Fire of 1871 that destroyed nineteen Chicago breweries and helped positionMilwaukee as the leading beer-producing city in the United States.[3] In 1889, Schandein died, leaving Pabst as president and Schandein's widow,Lisette Schandein, as vice-president.[4][5] In 1890, Pabst changed the "Best" letterhead to "Pabst" and the Pabst Brewing Company officially began.
This is the original Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. Nature's choicest products provide its prized flavor. Only the finest of hops and grains are used. Selected as America's Best in 1893.
— Quote from Pabst Blue Ribbon label, referring to the award it received at the 1893World's Columbian Exposition.[6]
The company has historically claimed that its flagship beer was renamed Pabst Blue Ribbon following its win as "America's Best" at theWorld's Columbian Exposition inChicago in 1893. Whether the brand actually won an award in 1893 is unclear. Some contemporaneous accounts indicate that many vendors were frustrated by the fair's refusal to award such prizes. One account says that the only prizes awarded by the executive committee were bronze medals, in recognition of "some independent and essential excellence in the article displayed", rather than "merely to indicate the relative merits of competing exhibits". However, the beer had won many other awards at many other fairs – so many, in fact, that Captain Pabst had already started tying silk ribbons around every bottle. It was a time when beer bottles were more likely to be embossed than labeled. The ribbons were likely added at great cost to Pabst, but Pabst's display of pride was also a display of marketing savvy. Patrons started asking their bartenders for "the blue-ribbon beer."[7][8]
Sales of Pabst peaked at 18 million US bbl (2,100 million L) in 1977.[9] In 1980 it was still third in sales in the U.S. Between 1980 and 1981 the company had four different CEOs, and by 1982 it slipped to fifth.[10]
In 1996, Pabst headquarters left Milwaukee,[11] and the company ended beer production at its main complex there.[12] By 2001, the brand's sales were below a million US bbl (120 million L). That year, the company got a new CEO, Brian Kovalchuk, formerly the CFO ofBenetton, and major changes at the company's marketing department were made.[13]
In 2010, food industry executiveC. Dean Metropoulos bought the company for a reported $250 million.[14] In 2011, theU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission forced two advertising executives to cease efforts to raise $300 million to buy the Pabst Brewing Company. The two had raised over $200 million bycrowdsourcing, collecting pledges via their website, Facebook, and Twitter.[15] In November 2014,Eugene Kashper, an American beer entrepreneur, andTSG Consumer Partners acquired Pabst Brewing Company.[16][17][18] In 2015, Pabst won the "best large brewing company of the year" award at theGreat American Beer Festival.[19]
Pabst Blue Ribbon is now available in several international markets, including Australia (where it is brewed locally),[20] Canada,[21] Ukraine, Russia,[22] Dominican Republic,[23] Brazil[24] and China.[25]
On October 8, 2020, the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation announced that Pabst was moving its headquarters from Los Angeles toSan Antonio,Texas.[26]
After a brief return, in 2020, Pabst announced it was again leaving Milwaukee, the city where it was founded, with the closing of the Captain Pabst Pilot House, a taproom and microbrewery which the company had opened in 2017 as part of a redevelopment of its historic brewery in the city.[27] The city's name continues to be a prominent part of its branding, despite it having no direct presence in or current impact on the area.[28][29]
In the mid-1940s, the brand was the titular sponsor of the radio comedy showBlue Ribbon Town, starringGroucho Marx. Between 1946 and 1949, Pabst sponsoredThe Eddie Cantor Pabst Blue Ribbon Show. It later was a sponsor of the radio mystery showNight Beat in the early 1950s.
The beer experienced a sales revival in the early 2000s after a two-decade-long slump, largely due to its increasing popularity among urbanhipsters.[30][31] Although the Pabst website features user-submitted photography, much of which features twenty-something Pabst drinkers dressed inalternative fashions,[32] the company has opted not to fully embrace the countercultural label in its marketing, fearing that doing so could jeopardize the very "authenticity" that made the brand popular (as was the case with the poorly receivedOK Soda).[30][33][34] Pabst instead targets its desired market niche through the sponsorship ofindie music, local businesses, post-collegiate sports teams,[35]dive bars and radio programming likeNational Public Radio'sAll Things Considered.[31][36] The company encourages the online submission offan art, which is subsequently shown on the beer's officialFacebook page.[37]
Beginning in 2021, Pabst began supportingprofessional wrestling (in particular theindependent circuit) after becoming a sponsor forMatt Cardona's podcast. It eventually led to the beer's first major television commercial in decades during the August 4, 2021, broadcast ofAEW Dynamite, after it volunteered to step in to replaceDomino's Pizza as a sponsor ofAll Elite Wrestling following backlash from Domino's whenNick Gage used apizza cutter onChris Jericho in adeathmatch on the previous week'sDynamite, with said spot immediately airing before a Domino's commercial.[38]
In January 2022, the brand'sTwitter account tweeted a number of questionable messages such as "Not drinking this January? Try eating ass!", a reference toDry January.[39][40] "Nothing pairs like PBR and Amyl Nitrate, ask Frank Booth!" and "Blue Ribbon Butseks for All!" The tweets and a number of follow-up replies were eventually deleted and the company released a statement apologizing for the incident.[41] Thebrand manager who wrote the tweets was fired.[42]
Pabst Blue Ribbon Original is the brand flagship and is brewed at 4.7%alcohol by volume. There is also Pabst Blue Ribbon Extra, which is described as a 6.5% ABV full-bodied lager. Pabst Blue Ribbon Easy is the brand'slight-style lager with lower calories and an ABV of 3.8%. The company also offers Pabst Blue Ribbon Non-Alc, anon-alcoholic beer brewed at less than 0.5% ABV.
In 1973, American country music artistJohnny Russell recorded, "Rednecks, White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Beer," a song written byBob McDill andWayland Holyfield.
In 1987,the Untamed Youth, a popular garage rock band from Columbia, Missouri, recorded "Pabst Blue Ribbon", a surf instrumental written by the band's guitarist,Deke Dickerson. When this song was performed live, members of the band would spray the crowd with PBR cans.
AustralianPost-Hardcore bandThe Amity Affliction referenced Pabst Blue Ribbon in the title of their 2012 song "Pabst Blue Ribbon on Ice", from the albumChasing Ghosts.[43]
In May 2016,WWE released aJohn Cena T-shirt that bears resemblance to and inspired by the Pabst Blue Ribbon can design. The Pabst Brewing Company threatened to sue Cena and the WWE for trademark infringement which drew criticism by wrestling fans and fellow personnel as a publicity stunt.[44] While respecting intellectual property and deny any wrongdoing due to the fair use of its clothing design, WWE pulled the T-shirt from its WWE Shop website and released a modified design to the Cena “Pabst” T-shirt.[45] However, the original “Pabst” T-shirt design was back on sale on WWE Shop a month later.[46][47]