It’s the beer that made Milwaukee famous. Now Schlitz is making the city nostalgic.
That beer with the old-time mystique is back on shelves in bottles of its original formula in the city where it was first brewed more than a century and a half ago.
Schlitz was the top-selling beer for much of the first half of the 20th century. But recipe changes and a series of snafus made the beer undrinkable, in many a drinker’s opinion, turning what was once the world’s most popular brew into little more than a joke.
But after decades of dormancy, the beer is back.
Schlitz’ owner, Pabst Brewing Co., is recreating the old formula, using notes and interviews with old brew masters. The maker of another nostalgic favourite, Pabst Blue Ribbon, it hopes baby boomers will reach for the drink of their youth.
“We believe that Schlitz is…one of most iconic brands of the 20th century,’’ said Kevin Kotecki, president of Pabst Brewing Co., which bought the brand from Stroh’s in 1999.
“And there’s still a lot of people who have very positive, residual memories about their experience. For many of them it was the first beer they drank and we wanted to give it back to those consumers.”
In Milwaukee, the comeback is creating a buzz. Stores are depleted of their stock within days, they’re taking names for waiting lists and limiting customers to just a few six- or 12-packs each.
Nostalgia could prove a driving factor in sales, Kotecki said. Pabst is certainly using it in its marketing, reusing its ’60s-era advertisements urging drinkers to “Go For the Gusto” and simple maroon and gold packaging, marked with fanciful script.
Schlitz became a top-seller after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 wiped out its competitors, according to Leonard Jurgensen, considered by Pabst to be the foremost “Schlitzstorian.” It was the world’s best-selling beer from 1903 until prohibition in 1920, and regained the crown in 1934 until the mid-1950s. That’s when a strike by Milwaukee brewery workers interrupted production and made way for others, like St. Louis’ Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., to eat into Schlitz’ market share. It holds the top spot to this day.
Before it vanished, the beer changed—for the worse, according to Jurgensen. First, brewery control shifted from immediate family members to more distant relatives, who wanted to expand the business. With demand high, the new owners wanted to make more, so they shortened the fermenting process. And they let customers know it through heavy marketing.
There were also quality control issues for barley, so the beer went flat quickly. To fix the flat problem, the brewers added a seaweed extract to give the beer some foam and fizz. But after sitting on the shelf for three or four months, the extract turned into a solid, meaning drinkers got chunky mouthfuls.
And then, the biggest of errors. “They decided not to pull their product off the shelf,” Jurgensen said. “They decided to weather the storm and sell that product. That’s the worst possible mistake they could have made.”
By 1981 the Schlitz brewery closed. The owners sold the brand to the Stroh Brewery Co. in Detroit in 1982, which eventually sold some of its lines to Pabst.
