August 14, 2019 • 41 mins
Can you take a less than average product and make it into an iconic brand? Sure. It's happened more than once. But can you do it with the same product twice? You can if your products initials are PBR! From a questionable blue ribbon in the early days to the embrace of hipsters in the early 2000s, this episode of Bizography tells the story of Pabst Blue Ribbon from the early days through today. Cheers!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Relying on everything from bombastic claims of greatness to masking
bad business as anti establishment coolness. One brand has survived
for almost two hundred years with a product that can
best be described as why don't you have Bab's blue ribbon?
Why don't you have a blue ribbon? When the wakes
glided up to your place with a pretty smile upon
(00:23):
her face, here's the way to really romance or give
her that PAP's blue ribbon answer? What do you have?
Perhaps blue ribbon? What do you have perhaps blue ribbon?
What they have perhaps blue ribbon? That's blue ribbon. The
question is how long can a brand thrive on hype alone.
(01:00):
This is Bisiography, the show where we dive into the
strange but true stories of iconic companies. Whether they're a
current shining star, in the midst of a massive dumpster fire,
or settling into the dust heap of history, they all
have a past worth knowing. I'm Dana Barrett. I'm a
former tech executive and entrepreneur and a TV and radio host,
(01:20):
and over the course of my career, I've interviewed thousands
of business leaders and reported on the bright beginnings and
massive flame outs of the brands we know and love.
Some of their stories are inspiring, some get my blood boiling,
and some show just how weird American consumers truly are.
(01:40):
And speaking of weird with me today, as always is
my producer and millennial friend new guy Nick. I'm going
to take that as an endearing weird but thank you.
It is an endearing weird. I like weird. I'm a
self described weirdo. It's okay. Look, today, I want to
treat our episode like one of those movies that like
starts almost at the end of the story, then does
(02:01):
the flashback thing and then works its way back up
to the present. Are you good with that? Yeah? I
think so. I like those storylines. Those are always fun.
It's like my favorite kind of movie. Actually, yeah, you
get like the chapter before the end. Yeah, and then
you still have the big conclusion exactly. We might need
some symbols at the end of the episode just to
make sure we end it with a bang, as it were.
Okay to do that for PBR, we need to start
(02:22):
with the mid two thousands when hipsters made Paps Blue
Ribbon their beer of choice. Oh the hipsters, All right, Nick,
I think you might think you might be a hipster?
Are you a hipster? No? Okay, let's let's let's see
if we can figure this out. Because you have a
beard that's a little hipstery. I think it's probably, and
(02:45):
because you know me, it's it's less because of the
fact that I'm going for the hipster look and before
more because I don't want to look like I'm twelve.
But you're right, yeah, I think that might be part
of the hipster thing. You want to look older than
you are. Yeah. In fairness, though, I think one of
the at least more recent hipster fashion trends is the
cuffed blue jeans. And I've never seen you do a
cuffed blue jeans that so much so. I also don't
(03:07):
have a crazy collection of hats. Seems to also be
another kind of hipster icon. Plaid plaid shirts also kind
of hipstory. I'll admit I've been getting a little into
those more. Maybe I'm turning into one. In any case,
it's funny because hipsters are, like, you know, a lot
of they don't. It's like, you don't really admit you're
a hipster if you're a hipster, because a lot of
(03:28):
people use it like a dirty word, don't They hipsters,
right right, all right, Well, in any case, whether they
claim it or not, in the early two thousands, perhaps
Blue Ribbon was an outdated, uncool, old brand that was
basically going the way of Oldsmobile, a brand that died
(03:48):
in two thousand four. Even though they tried using some
celebrities to regain popularity, that really screened. Yeah that happened, Yeah,
(04:17):
that was so. Maybe I guess if Oldsmobile was kind of,
you know, the old on cool brand that tried to
be hip in a hipster way. Maybe I am a hipster.
My first car was an Oldsmobile. Okay, I think we're
getting somewhere nowt all right, Well, hipster or not, an Oldsmobile,
are not? PBR in the early two thousand's was doing
a whole lot of nothing nationwide. In two thousand one,
(04:42):
they were in a twenty year sales decline, only selling
one million barrels of beer in a year. Just to
give you an idea of volume, over two hundred million barrels.
Two hundred million barrels were sold by US beer makers.
And remember in two thousand one they were making one
million barrels, very very insignificant. Yeah, like a teeny tiny
(05:05):
percentage of the I can't do math or I would
do it, but a teeny tiny percentage of the production.
They were doing nothing in sales, except weirdly enough, in Portland, Oregon.
Volume in two thousand one and two thousand two in Portland,
Oregon was supposedly doubling every month. There very interesting in
Portland is kind of the hipster capital. Didn't the Pacific
(05:28):
Northwest in general. Now you're seeing what was happening. Portland
was flourishing at the time. In the nineteen nineties, the
tech industry began to emerge in Portland. They had the
establishment of some big companies like Intel, which brought more
than ten billion dollars in investments to that city in alone.
(05:49):
Then after the year two thousand, Portland experienced a ton
of growth. They had a population rise of over ninety
thousand between two thousand and four. The cities increased presence
within a cultural lexicon, has established it as a mecca
for young people. And in fact, it was second only,
believe it or not, to Louisville. I didn't even know
(06:11):
Louisville was that cool. It's very interesting to Portland and Louisville,
very very different places in the country, and yet so
between two thousand and one and two thousand twelve, as
Portland's is growing, their g d P is growing up.
The young people are moving in. It's also filling up
with hipster subcultures like bike messengers and fans of rockabilly
(06:33):
and indie rock. And they were doing things like having
vespus scooter rallies that screams hipster and trying too hard
and trying too hard Vespus scooter rally. So I would
really like to see how tall are you six to? Okay,
I would like to see your six too bearded giant
(06:55):
teddy bear self on a vespa. I'm just sorry. Would
I would like to to? I like to find the
vest but that can actually move me at more than
three or four miles impressed? Yeah, I went to I
think we need to make that happen. Uh. In any case,
PBR started noticing this trend. They're seeing that their sales
are kind of suctastic all around the country and kind
of great in Portland, Oregon. So they send some of
(07:18):
their marketers out to Portland to figure out what's going on.
And they found that these hipsters in Portlands liked PBR
because it was retro because it was cheap, and because
it was sort of anti commercial at the time. Is
because it wasn't good and it wasn't cool. It was
just like not flashy. In other words, these people didn't
(07:39):
want to be marketed to. They wanted to find something
on their own, and they, for all intents and purposes,
considered themselves anti corporate. Do you think of yourself as
anti corporate? Uh? Slightly? As we as we get further
in this episode, I think I'm more and more turning
into accepting the fact that maybe I am a hipster. Okay,
(07:59):
I'm a little prized by your as much of it.
I was sort of teasing because I didn't think you
were really a hipster. But okay, Um, what's nuts about
this whole anti corporate thing is that by two thousand
and one, PBR was kind of as corporate as it gets.
They weren't even a real brewery anymore. They didn't even
actually have a PBR brewery anywhere. Their sales had dropped,
(08:22):
as we said, way down. They were at this point
below their peak, which was back in and they closed
the last actual brewer they had, which was in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania.
They started outsourcing their production, so they were really just
a brand name. They were outsourcing their production to Miller,
and it wasn't Miller Cores at that point, it was
(08:43):
just Miller. And so they were basically a virtual brewer.
As one executive put it, So they were I don't know,
as fake as the hipsters themselves in some ways. Absolutely
they had this front of the old school and in reality, nope,
we're the We're part of the machine. Yeah. So I mean,
wouldn't it have made more sense? I mean, you can
(09:04):
now speak for all hipsters. I think we've decided or
maybe not, but you will for the sake of this episode.
So wouldn't it have made more sense for them to
align with like a local brewery in Portland? You would,
You would think they would. But I think the problem
is that even some of the local breweries that you know,
there's a small business they're trying to advertise, they're trying
to get out there and and grow, and you know,
(09:26):
the hipster movement is nationwide even back then. So if
you've got online with a local brewery in in Oregon,
that might not be available to your hipster buddies on
the East Coast. I know, but I feel like, you know,
one of and I'm I'm I'm making this up because
I'm not a hipster. But I feel like the whole
idea was to like rip the you know, the logos
off your stuff, right, Like you don't want to be
walking around in a Michael Cores something. You rip the
(09:47):
Michael Corps logo off because you're anti corporate, right, And
so then here you pick this like corporate virtual beer.
But I think we've learned too that just in general,
American consumers don't pay a whole lot of attention to
the rands that they buy and consume. And PBR just
looked old school, forgotten about and they jumped on board. Yeah.
(10:07):
I mean, the cheap part definitely was a big part
of it. But I was trying to figure out what
exactly these hipsters were liking, and so, in an article
dating back from eleven, the Chicago Tribune said that perhaps
Blue Ribbon or PBR this is a quote has a
cult following of young, hip urban nights in Chicago and
elsewhere who say they enjoy the beer because it's unsexy,
(10:30):
unpretentious and blue collar Midwest. Here's another one. I like PBR.
This is a quote because it doesn't taste like beer.
This is from a twenty six year old named Brenna,
who has a blog called Stuff Hipsters Hate. In a
book by that same name, she says, quote, it tastes
like water, dirty water, and it is very interesting that
that's an appealing aspect. I'm going to vote no on
(10:55):
dirty water. Um. PBR even started appearing in some fancy restaurants. Uh.
Momofuku superstar chef David Chang put PBR in his Toronto
noodle bar, saying, quote that was like the cheapest beer
we could put on. I really like shitty beer. I
don't really love PAPS, but I just want cheap beer,
(11:17):
and it's the cheapest beer we have. PBR is fine,
I'm quoting here, but it has this awful hipster connotation,
and beer is fucking expensive. He's not wrong. Beer is expensive.
So he's already though, which is kind of hilarious, toying
with this problem that he wants cheap beer. He doesn't
like PAPS, but it's cheap, but it has this quote
(11:38):
awful hipster connotation. And yet everybody who comes to my
restaurants probably an awful hipster. So fine, here's your PBR, Right,
you gotta give the people what they want, even when
it's gross. So when the marketers from PAPST go out
there and start looking around, they got smart and they
decided to employ like I'm gonna go with NTI Marketing.
(12:01):
They saw this hipster boost in Portland, and they decided
they could turn this into a trend. They knew somehow,
they understood. I mean, they were close enough I think
in age to the hipsters themselves, the guys that they
sent out there, and so they knew that they couldn't
advertise in a traditional way like hey, hipsters, here's your
beer of choice. Like that wasn't gonna work. So they
(12:22):
embraced sort of these niche groups and they went to
grassroots events in cities that they deemed as Portland like.
So as PBR sort of grew on its own in Portland,
they you know, they shored that up by maybe throwing
some money at a bike messenger event or a vesper
rally or a rockabilly concert. Right, But then they started
(12:45):
doing the same things in San Francisco and Denver and Seattle,
and they did it like subtly, like give a little
bit of money, they'd have PBR there, but they wouldn't
put billboards up or you know, flashing neon signs or
you know, have the was like it was it monster
that you used to drive around with the trucks that
had that looked like a can big candle in the back. Right,
(13:07):
I knew it was one of those other hipster drinks.
But yeah, So they did this like in Portland and
San Francisco and Denver and Seattle, and they started working
their way into these small subcultures in the hipper cooler
cities around the country. Did you know that bike messengers
had rodeos a bike messenger road? Yeah, I'm not sure
(13:30):
what that would be. Maybe you not knowing that means
you're not fully a hipster, right, I'm only partially, and
you can still be saved. There's hope for you yet.
So getting back to sort of the money behind all
of this, after that sort of dismal two thousand and
one with their sales of under one million barrels at PBR,
(13:50):
things start to get better and the hipster embrace of
PBR starts to really make a difference nationwide, and two
thousand two sales go up five point three percent. In
two thousand three, sales go up fifteen percent, and for
two thousand three to two thousand eight they keep going
at that pace. Then in two thousand nine, sales go
(14:10):
up again, this time twenty five percent, which is unheard of.
In two thousand ten, still really good increase, two thousand eleven,
still pretty good. Back to that fourteen percent increase, And
in PBR is selling nine two million gallons. Remember in
(14:31):
two thousand one one million? Yeah, but can it last?
Before we get to that, let's go back to the beginning.
Maybe we'll find some of our answers right there. This
is a brand that had some interesting marketing techniques and
(14:53):
a company mission that may have been more about ego
and money than making a quality product. And when I'm
talking about their interesting marketing techniques, I don't mean in
the hipster era. I mean way back in the beginning.
This new guy Nick is the flashback portion of the
movie Ready for It, Right, So this is the moment
where they kind of look off in the distance, fades
(15:15):
out right, the hipsters fade out, and the beards from
the eighteen forty four fade in from one beard to another.
That's where we're going there. If it were a soap
opera in eighteen forty four. It all began when a
German immigrant by the name of Jacob Best Senior created
the brewery Best and Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He did
(15:37):
this with his four sons, Jacob Jr. Charles, Philip, and Lorenz.
I like Lorenz, that's very fancy, very peculiar names. Production
in those days consisted of about three hundred barrels a year,
so vastly different from where we are now. Then in
eighteen fifty three, Jacob Best retired and his son Philip
ultimately became the sole proprietor. Now Philip Best changes the
(16:01):
company's name in eighteen fifty nine to Philip Best Brewing Company. Uh,
you can't see me, but my eyebrow just went up
like it was already called Best. He had to put
his name in there. Though it's quite the ego move there, sir.
This is sort of like, yeah, he wasn't good enough
(16:22):
because maybe his brothers could still take credit for it
if he didn't put his name on it. So you
can see what I mean when I say maybe this
was about ego. And the story just continues in that vein.
So Philip gets married, he has a kid, and her
name is Maria. Maria marries a man named, wait for it,
Frederick Perhapst. Perhapst is a steamboat captain and an acquaintance
(16:46):
of her dad's, and he was about twenty five when
they got married. He has a backstory himself, that is,
you know, not story of riches. He struggled, his father
died when he was young, and he came this steamboat captain.
Ultimately he marries Maria, and in eighteen sixty three, about
a year and a half after the wedding, while he's
(17:07):
trying to bring his boat into Milwaukee Harbor, he runs
the ship aground. Now in these days, we'd have an
investigation and probably he'd be charged with d uy maybe
a few too many best beers just saying, But at
the time it just caused him to shift careers. In
a short while later, Frederick Paps buys half of his
father in law's brewing company. Then just two years after that,
(17:29):
in eighteen sixty five, he brings in his brother in
law and the two of them buy out Philip Best.
From eighteen seventy four to eighteen nine three, under perhaps leadership,
the company became the largest national brewery that happened in
eighteen seventy four, and of course, once again we have
(17:51):
an ego based name change. He changed the name of
the company to the Papst Brewing Company in eighteen eighty nine,
So like barely forty years in some out of existence,
and this is now the third name for this company, right,
And I'm just gonna say this best was a pretty
good name, pretty straightforward. Your beer is the best beer.
(18:14):
That's a marketing campaign in and of itself. But instead
they go with the Pabst Brewing Company in perhaps becomes
the largest brewery in the world, the first ever to
produce over a million barrels of beer in a single year.
From eight see, the company opened forty offices around the country,
(18:35):
twelve were in Wisconsin alone. There weren't craft beers then,
but there was a crafty brewery owner and a marketing
genius before there were cmos and marketing best practices. I
think this is sort of the fascinating backstory of PAPS, right,
because this was a time when you made a product
and you sold it and it was plain and simple.
(18:57):
And yeah, there might have been some commeditors here there,
but things were based mostly on geography. You bought what
was closest to you and easiest to get, and maybe
you compared prices. I'm sure maybe you liked one label
over another. But literally, the word marketing wasn't even used then.
I don't think the word marketing actually came into fashion.
I did a little research on this. Until like the
(19:20):
nineteen fifties. There was advertising, but there wasn't marketing. That
makes sense, you know that the railroads and everything in
the fifties. By then we started to become a pretty
interconnected world, so you could get stuff from across the country.
There you go, But all the way back in eight three,
Frederick Paaps was kind of a crafty, sneaky marketer. So
(19:41):
perhaps Best Select that was the name of the beer
at the time, not perhaps Blue Ribbon. Perhaps Best Select
allegedly one the top beer award at the eighteen ninety
three World's Colombian Exposition, also known or better known shall
we say as the Chicago World's Fair. Or did they win?
(20:04):
That is the big question. I have to go off
on a little bit of a bunny trail here a
new guy, Nick, You know how I love a good
bunny trail. The Chicago World's Fair was a major moment
for products and design and invention in the United States.
And it's also the subject of one of my favorite
books of all time, which is called The Devil in
the White City by Eric Larson. If you've never read it,
(20:26):
you really need to um. It talks about the whole
putting together of the Chicago World's Fair, and it also
talks about a serial murder that was happening around the
same time. It's fascinating. But in any case, there were
products introduced that we've all heard of to this day
at the Chicago World's Fair. Juicy fruit gum came from
their cracker Jack shredded wheat. The first ever ferris wheel
(20:50):
came from the Chicago World's Fair. Yeah, and interestingly enough,
the ferris wheel was sort of an attempt to compete
with the Eiffel Tower, which was also introduce us at
an earlier World's Fair. Yeah uh. This was the first
time the fair grounds had ever been electrified with alternating
current uh. Nicola Tesla was there shooting lightning from his hands.
(21:12):
Thomas Edison was there presenting the kinetoscopes moving pictures the
earliest movies. So it was quite the quite the event
in Chicago and did you know that World's Fairs still
go on and basically no one cares anymore interesting. I
think the new inventions stuff that because the Internet, the
Internet killed the World's Fair anywhere, the US doesn't really
(21:33):
participate anymore. We kind of opted out. It's kind of
sad because those seemed like that have been really cool.
Absolutely was go get all the fancy. It's kind of
like the ce s of the time. There you go.
You're right, Well, let's bring it back. So back to PBR.
According to some sources, at the Chicago World's Fair perhaps
never actually won a blue ribbon. During some festivals like
(21:57):
the World's Fair, perhaps was placing blue ribbon around their
best beer so it would stand out among the other beers.
That's one version of the story. Cheater Cheater, cheater, cheetah.
This would have a modern day pants on fire rating.
Another version of the story is that the beer judges
at the World's Fair came up with sort of their
(22:19):
own scoring system and let the brewers sort of figure
out who one based on who got the highest score.
And it looked like at the time that Anheuser Busch
and Paps were sort of neck and neck and at
the end. Maybe maybe Paps ended up ahead of bush
Beer at the time by a tiny little bit. But
Frederick Paps, being that crafty genius marketer that he was,
(22:42):
quickly before anyone else had a chance, announced himself as
the grand prize winner, even though his metal and certificate
was exactly the same as everyone else's. They were all
special snowflakes, even back that participation trophies years ago. Basically,
that's exactly what it was, either way right or not,
(23:04):
fair or not. The entire brewery, the Paps Brewery in Milwaukee,
was draped with a giant blue ribbon and the workers
were given a day off. The attention that they got
from that and the sales that followed inspired them to
change the name and also probably to get his father
in law's name out of there from best select to
perhaps blue ribbon. That is crazy. That's something like that.
(23:25):
That's true, the kind of fan fair. You have a
whole massive brewery taking the day off. Why are you
awful because we won an award. There you go, free
word of mouth marketing and advertising right there. Absolutely, hold on,
I need to drink some dirty water. That wasn't the
only bit of marketing genius, as if that wasn't enough
because the blue ribbon, perhaps blue ribbon is what everyone
thinks of it as now PBR, that's what that is.
(23:47):
But that was not the only kind of ahead of
its time marketing genius that Frederick Paps brought to the table.
There was I love this name, the Papst Whitefish Bay
Resort that opened in eighteen eighty nine. It was like
kind of the Disney of its day. It had rentable rowboats,
they had outdoor movies, of course, obviously, they served ton
(24:11):
of beer PBR. And they even had their own ferris wheel. Eventually,
the place had a twenty five year run. It closed
in nineteen fourteen, but that's because perhaps by that point
Frederick passed had been gone for ten years and he
was the energy behind it. So it was like the
original bush Gardens in a way, the first alcohol themed
(24:34):
that's crazy. I think we need more of those now,
get drunk and ride the rides. I'm down. Perhaps might
also sound like another businessman we talked about a lot
these days. Because there was a fourteen story papsed building
in downtown Milwaukee. There was a Papst theater that one's
still in operation today. And this was all part and
(24:54):
parcel for him becoming a household name. He understood that
marketing idea that it again came along much later of
those seven touches. You've got to have your name in
front of people. They got to see it seven times
to even know who you are. And he knew it
and he worked it. And that's incredible because the best
part about this is that up to this point, how
much work has really gone into that beer. Oh no,
(25:16):
it's dirty water. The product itself. He didn't care. He
was not passionate about beer. He was passionate about making
money and having his name in lights. Clearly listen. He
was also a survivor and this might have come from
his childhood and he passed that on to his own
kids because fred Papsed, the son of Frederick, took the
business over from his dad, and in through ninety three,
(25:40):
when times were tough a k. A. Prohibition, PBR survived
by switching from making beer to making cheese. That is
an odd transition. Well, they had to do something non alcoholic,
that's what they did. So they aged the cheese and
the brewery's ice cellars, and from the looks of it,
the cheese was kind of a Thelvita sort of thing.
(26:01):
It was called wait for this, perhaps debt, perhaps debt,
which is impossible to say. So clearly bad branding. He
was not, Listen, he was a marketing genius. He was
not a branding genius. The blue ribbon was genius. Papstat
not so much. Ultimately, pap Step believe it or not,
was sold to Craft in three, probably so that it
(26:22):
could not compete with Elvita anymore. I assumed Velvito was
already in full force at the time. Um, but maybe
there's an episode of phisiography there. Who knows, we could
have some nachos in here. Anyway. After prohibition in it's
back to beer and things start to go well for
the company again. In perhaps introduces packaged beer in cans.
(26:44):
So I don't think they were the first one to
put beer in a can, but they are believed to
be the first brewer to put beer in six packs.
Guess why do you know this, Um, they probably put
in a six pack because I'm just gonna go with
here that that was the average amount of beers that
someone would drink. Right, No, okay, Can I just for
(27:04):
the record state that if I drank six beers, you
would have to take me to the hospital like a
beer and a half, and I'd be dancing on the bar.
That's just me. But that would be you're wrong, now,
that would be incorrect. There's a couple of reasons that
have been tossed out for this, and we don't really know,
(27:27):
but one of them is the suggestion that six beers
was the ideal wait for the average housewife to carry
home from the store. What's for her man, I don't
know about that. That seems a little to study intensive
for that. An alternative explanation, I think this one might
be it is the six pack fits snugly in the
bottom of the standard paper grocery bag. It very much does.
(27:50):
That's a good point. I think that might actually be
the reason, because also if the housewife she has to
carry to really otherwise, she'll get more muscles in one
arm right off balance you move off the side. This
is a concern I always have when I'm carrying my
groceries in any case. In nineteen fifties, production and sales sore.
But after the younger paps retirement Fred that is, sales
(28:13):
start to slip, maybe because the stuff tasted like dirty
water and there's no genius marketer in place anymore. Also,
I assume in fairness there is more competition by then.
Right at that point, you know, Annaheuser Busch is kind
of a big deal. Miller's growing cores growing. Yeah, they've
got real beer in the market to fight them, right,
And marketing is now becoming a real word in the
(28:34):
vocabulary and a real job for people. So PBR at
that time becomes known as the premium beer at a
popular price. So what's the danger of making low price
the strategy? What do you think? Probably the danger is
the fact that people didn't look at you as the
cheap beer. You know, it's like the oh you got
that you I see this as a problem a lot
(28:57):
of companies have. It's this idea of a race to
the bottom. If you're always trying to undercut on price,
how far down can you go? You get to zero,
you've got no profit left a margin, right, And I
think there's a lot of companies that make the mistake
of only being price focused. And if you don't have
a great product, ultimately you don't survive unless your PBR,
(29:21):
which continues to exist even though Hello dirty Water in
ninety eight and through nineteen seventy seven, sales grow from
three point nine million barrels in nineteen fifty eight to
ten point five million by nineteen seventies. So you know,
it's not excessive growth, it's not massive growth, but it's
it's it's solid. They're doing okay, they're moving in the
(29:43):
right direction, they're making a profit, and they end that
era at a high of eighteen million barrels in nineteen
seventy seven. And even then they start becoming part of
popular culture. Here, Raymond, you get enough beer for ben too?
What kind of bird do you like? Pinniken funk that ship?
(30:05):
Perhaps food ribbons. In nine PBR even made a commercial
with a young Patrick Swayzy no no no no, no,
no, no no no no no no no no no, no, no,
no no, and the sun and rolls around. That's the time,
(30:42):
oh the days of disco. That was done in the
style of Saturday Night Fever. And it's amazing to think
that Patrick Swayze, who really was just getting started then,
was kind of playing a poor man's John Travolta in
that commercial. It's a very valid point. Was brushing his hair,
he's got the suit and he's doing the disco moves.
It is a fantastic commercial. Google it in. As the
(31:06):
beer is sort of muddling its way through the seventies
and eighties, real estate tycoon Paul Kala Monowitz buys PEPs
Brewing for sixty three million in an aggressive takeover. Now
this is the eighties, this is the time when companies
are being bought up to be torn apart allah the
you know, Wall Street movie, and he plans to tear
(31:28):
this brewery down and make money on a new condo development. Obviously,
that didn't sit too well with people in Milwaukee. PBR
goes through the rest of the eighties and nineties, closing breweries,
eliminating jobs, and starting to basically fall apart. By this point,
I'm assuming people want taste, they found new trends, and
the beer is kind of on the struggle bus to
(31:51):
non relevance town. They're just there. And that essentially brings
us up to where we started today's show, the hip
stir era. While perhapst is flailing and doing nothing, the
hipsters find it and you get newfound glory for the brand.
So you can kind of see the irony that PBR
was not a company that should have really been embraced
(32:13):
by hipsters. At the time they got involved, it was
owned by corporate raiders essentially, and the idea that hipsters
were somehow sticking it to the man by buying this
stuff is just misguided. Yeah. I really think that that's
something you know, we talked about before that American consumers
don't do a whole lot of research and they just
knew that this was a beer that probably their grandpad
(32:33):
drank way back in the day, and no one knows
it anymore, and it's cheap, so we're going to pick
it up. It's ours now. Yeah, So what's the lesson
here for consumers? Just because like somebody else does it
doesn't mean you do it without doing your homework. I
feel like this is a lesson for all of us
on a lot of subjects. But the love of PBR
is almost like, you know, if I say jump, you
(32:54):
don't say how high you go? Why why should I jump? Right? Absolutely,
And I think it's almost the opposite in the sense
of everyone else isn't doing it. Do your research and
find out there's probably a good reason why they're probably
not doing it. Yeah. And it's interesting too, because socially
conscious consumers is something that you know has really bubbled
up now. It certainly maybe started back in Portland in
(33:15):
those days. But there are a lot of consumers now
who are socially conscious and they say that and then
they do something like drink PBR. It doesn't make sense.
There's some logic missing there. I think it's more maybe
just the image, though it's not so much necessarily the
product itself. It was the image that PBR put across
right of this, you know, every man's beer in a way,
(33:36):
and that got picked up by them and loved. Yeah,
when you break it down and really think about it,
it's weird. Although I have said this before, if you
were to do all of your homework on all of
the companies that are out there, you would never buy
another product ever again, Like I would basically have to
just go home, curl up in a ball and not
interact with human beings. That's true. You know, most of
the corporations do have some spots in their history that
(33:58):
are less than desirable. Pressure and I think the world
of the Internet has made it so easy for us
to find out that we almost choose and I really
believe this is what the hipsters did. We just choose
to put our heads in the sand. Yeah. Absolutely, And
it's a little bit too that they embraced it and
kind of because it wasn't popular, because it was barely
selling and not everyone nationwide had it in the local
(34:20):
grocery store. That kind of picked it up and and
almost without PBR's approval, change the image of it themselves.
They made PBR their beer, and they made it feel
the way they wanted it. Look, it's a good thing
that the company isn't some horrible, racist, you know, evil
company behind the scenes, because they could have been. For
(34:41):
the consumers, they had no idea. All they knew was
that it was cheap and it was vintage, and they
didn't do any homework to figure out who was behind it,
who owned it, where they made the beer. Nothing is
just vintage and cheap, and that I think is the
danger for consumers and embracing something that you don't actually
know anything about, right, and then what's the less for marketers? Well,
(35:01):
I hate to say it, but people are kind of stupid.
So if you tell you them blue ribbon around the
neck of the beer and call it award winning and
they're gonna buy it, Well, isn't that also why for
the longest time. A lot of companies either started with
an ARA one. You're at the top of the phone book,
must mean you're one of the best ones. I see
you at the front. So the question is where is
(35:23):
PBR now? We'll talk about it right after this. In
Americans drank more than ninety million gallons of PBR. It's
nearly two more than they drank in two thousand four.
(35:43):
But in order to be selling that much, PBR has
to branch out beyond the hipsters. And as we know
in American culture, you have to keep growing to succeed stockholders.
Shareholders they want more. They're not okay with big numbers
and big profits unless it's more order over quarter. So
PBR starts to get bigger and more mainstream. In fact,
(36:07):
they showed up on south Park in two thousand eleven.
They're noisy, set bitch, they're nasty, still that on that
Tenny S flight dress. And when you give them a
little paths Blue Ribbon they south Park PAPS was sold
(36:29):
to Blue Ribbon Intermediate Holdings l l C. It's a
partnership between Cashper and San Francisco private equity firm t
s G Consumer Partners. The cell was for a reported
seven hundred million dollars. At this point, they have their
headquarters in Los Angeles, having left Milwaukee way behind. In
(36:52):
with just five point five million gallons of production and
two point two percent market share, they're not doing nearly
as well as they had been. In seventeen. Barrel shipped
are two point five million, that's a change from sixteen.
They're down point six percent, market share one point two percent,
So the numbers aren't looking good as we move into
(37:14):
the present. Well, what happened the hipster thing was great?
Everything was going well. Production was up. Think about it,
nineties something million at the top of the hipster era,
down to five point five million in fifteen in terms
of gallons are barrels rather and two point five million?
Yeahen the loss of the market share has the company
announcing in January that it is eliminated seventy jobs. And
(37:38):
think about it, that's a lot. At the peak in
sen PAPS had four hundred and forty people, So getting
rid of seventy cuts out about a quarter of the workforce.
I really do suck at math. Okay, here's the big
problem now for PAPST, and this has been the truth
all along. They don't produce their own beer. So remember
back in two thousand when I said that they had
(37:59):
outsored their beer to Miller. We now Miller is Miller Cores,
and they had made a twenty year contract with that
company to produce their beer. So the contract is coming
up and Miller Cores is having struggles of its own
and they don't want to extend the contract past. So
off to court they go. Perhaps brewing company and Miller
(38:22):
Cores face off in court. Miller Cores has brewed several
of PAPS brands, including PBR, since, but again that agreement
set to expire, and now there's this disagreement in court.
Miller Cores is saying, look, we are our own problems.
We have to close production facilities and we just don't
have the capacity to brew PBR anymore. Now PBR says
(38:44):
this is all about them wanting to kill the competition,
and so they go to court, and as we know,
court always takes a long time. These cases always take
a long time. But it went almost the full and
on November the company's reached a settlement. Now we don't
know the details because the settlement wasn't disclosed, but in
a statement Following the lawsuit, PEPs says it will quote
continue to offer PBR and the rest of their authentic,
(39:07):
great tasting and affordable bruise to all Americans for many,
many years to come. Unquote. I'm not sure which good
tasting bruise they're talking about. Yeah, I don't know if
any brand that peels the majority of Americans, but okay, yeah,
So it looks like PBR will live on, though without
the hipsters because they got too big for their own good.
(39:29):
The numbers will most likely continue to decline, but you
never know. Maybe PBR will be found by some new
niche group that really loves beer drank beer. He had
one beer at the party and had beers with and
having some beers with friends, or just to meet up
and have some beers drinking beer, which I gladly do.
(39:52):
That niche could be in Washington, d C. I mean,
Brett Kavanaughs there a good bit of the time now
and he clearly likes beer. Before we go, HAPs Blue
Ribbon has managed to hang in there through prohibition, corporate takeovers, lawsuits,
and consumer disdain, and good news for those who love
bad beer. In the midst of all the PBR ups
and downs the company. Perhaps Brewing Company has essentially bought
(40:14):
up a bunch of other beer brands like Lone Star, Schlitz,
and Schaefer that were once cool and have lost their way.
So maybe the gen Z version of the hipsters will
embrace Schaefer and the Paps Company will continue. It's a
roller coaster ride through history. That's our show for today,
(40:36):
See you next time. Physiography is produced by the iHeart
Podcast Network. I'm your host Dana Barrett. My co host
and producer is Nick Bean. Our executive producer is Christopher Hassiotis,
and Josh Than provides audio production. Have questions I want
(40:58):
to give us feedback or have a company of like
us to cover, Email us at info at photography dot Show,
or contact us on social. I'm at the Danta Barrett
on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or just search for me
on LinkedIn. Thanks for your support
Relying on everything from bombastic claims of greatness to masking
bad business as anti establishment coolness. One brand has survived
for almost two hundred years with a product that can
best be described as why don't you have Bab's blue ribbon?
Why don't you have a blue ribbon? When the wakes
glided up to your place with a pretty smile upon
(00:23):
her face, here's the way to really romance or give
her that PAP's blue ribbon answer? What do you have?
Perhaps blue ribbon? What do you have perhaps blue ribbon?
What they have perhaps blue ribbon? That's blue ribbon. The
question is how long can a brand thrive on hype alone.
(01:00):
This is Bisiography, the show where we dive into the
strange but true stories of iconic companies. Whether they're a
current shining star, in the midst of a massive dumpster fire,
or settling into the dust heap of history, they all
have a past worth knowing. I'm Dana Barrett. I'm a
former tech executive and entrepreneur and a TV and radio host,
(01:20):
and over the course of my career, I've interviewed thousands
of business leaders and reported on the bright beginnings and
massive flame outs of the brands we know and love.
Some of their stories are inspiring, some get my blood boiling,
and some show just how weird American consumers truly are.
(01:40):
And speaking of weird with me today, as always is
my producer and millennial friend new guy Nick. I'm going
to take that as an endearing weird but thank you.
It is an endearing weird. I like weird. I'm a
self described weirdo. It's okay. Look, today, I want to
treat our episode like one of those movies that like
starts almost at the end of the story, then does
(02:01):
the flashback thing and then works its way back up
to the present. Are you good with that? Yeah? I
think so. I like those storylines. Those are always fun.
It's like my favorite kind of movie. Actually, yeah, you
get like the chapter before the end. Yeah, and then
you still have the big conclusion exactly. We might need
some symbols at the end of the episode just to
make sure we end it with a bang, as it were.
Okay to do that for PBR, we need to start
(02:22):
with the mid two thousands when hipsters made Paps Blue
Ribbon their beer of choice. Oh the hipsters, All right, Nick,
I think you might think you might be a hipster?
Are you a hipster? No? Okay, let's let's let's see
if we can figure this out. Because you have a
beard that's a little hipstery. I think it's probably, and
(02:45):
because you know me, it's it's less because of the
fact that I'm going for the hipster look and before
more because I don't want to look like I'm twelve.
But you're right, yeah, I think that might be part
of the hipster thing. You want to look older than
you are. Yeah. In fairness, though, I think one of
the at least more recent hipster fashion trends is the
cuffed blue jeans. And I've never seen you do a
cuffed blue jeans that so much so. I also don't
(03:07):
have a crazy collection of hats. Seems to also be
another kind of hipster icon. Plaid plaid shirts also kind
of hipstory. I'll admit I've been getting a little into
those more. Maybe I'm turning into one. In any case,
it's funny because hipsters are, like, you know, a lot
of they don't. It's like, you don't really admit you're
a hipster if you're a hipster, because a lot of
(03:28):
people use it like a dirty word, don't They hipsters,
right right, all right, Well, in any case, whether they
claim it or not, in the early two thousands, perhaps
Blue Ribbon was an outdated, uncool, old brand that was
basically going the way of Oldsmobile, a brand that died
(03:48):
in two thousand four. Even though they tried using some
celebrities to regain popularity, that really screened. Yeah that happened, Yeah,
(04:17):
that was so. Maybe I guess if Oldsmobile was kind of,
you know, the old on cool brand that tried to
be hip in a hipster way. Maybe I am a hipster.
My first car was an Oldsmobile. Okay, I think we're
getting somewhere nowt all right, Well, hipster or not, an Oldsmobile,
are not? PBR in the early two thousand's was doing
a whole lot of nothing nationwide. In two thousand one,
(04:42):
they were in a twenty year sales decline, only selling
one million barrels of beer in a year. Just to
give you an idea of volume, over two hundred million barrels.
Two hundred million barrels were sold by US beer makers.
And remember in two thousand one they were making one
million barrels, very very insignificant. Yeah, like a teeny tiny
(05:05):
percentage of the I can't do math or I would
do it, but a teeny tiny percentage of the production.
They were doing nothing in sales, except weirdly enough, in Portland, Oregon.
Volume in two thousand one and two thousand two in Portland,
Oregon was supposedly doubling every month. There very interesting in
Portland is kind of the hipster capital. Didn't the Pacific
(05:28):
Northwest in general. Now you're seeing what was happening. Portland
was flourishing at the time. In the nineteen nineties, the
tech industry began to emerge in Portland. They had the
establishment of some big companies like Intel, which brought more
than ten billion dollars in investments to that city in alone.
(05:49):
Then after the year two thousand, Portland experienced a ton
of growth. They had a population rise of over ninety
thousand between two thousand and four. The cities increased presence
within a cultural lexicon, has established it as a mecca
for young people. And in fact, it was second only,
believe it or not, to Louisville. I didn't even know
(06:11):
Louisville was that cool. It's very interesting to Portland and Louisville,
very very different places in the country, and yet so
between two thousand and one and two thousand twelve, as
Portland's is growing, their g d P is growing up.
The young people are moving in. It's also filling up
with hipster subcultures like bike messengers and fans of rockabilly
(06:33):
and indie rock. And they were doing things like having
vespus scooter rallies that screams hipster and trying too hard
and trying too hard Vespus scooter rally. So I would
really like to see how tall are you six to? Okay,
I would like to see your six too bearded giant
(06:55):
teddy bear self on a vespa. I'm just sorry. Would
I would like to to? I like to find the
vest but that can actually move me at more than
three or four miles impressed? Yeah, I went to I
think we need to make that happen. Uh. In any case,
PBR started noticing this trend. They're seeing that their sales
are kind of suctastic all around the country and kind
of great in Portland, Oregon. So they send some of
(07:18):
their marketers out to Portland to figure out what's going on.
And they found that these hipsters in Portlands liked PBR
because it was retro because it was cheap, and because
it was sort of anti commercial at the time. Is
because it wasn't good and it wasn't cool. It was
just like not flashy. In other words, these people didn't
(07:39):
want to be marketed to. They wanted to find something
on their own, and they, for all intents and purposes,
considered themselves anti corporate. Do you think of yourself as
anti corporate? Uh? Slightly? As we as we get further
in this episode, I think I'm more and more turning
into accepting the fact that maybe I am a hipster. Okay,
(07:59):
I'm a little prized by your as much of it.
I was sort of teasing because I didn't think you
were really a hipster. But okay, Um, what's nuts about
this whole anti corporate thing is that by two thousand
and one, PBR was kind of as corporate as it gets.
They weren't even a real brewery anymore. They didn't even
actually have a PBR brewery anywhere. Their sales had dropped,
(08:22):
as we said, way down. They were at this point
below their peak, which was back in and they closed
the last actual brewer they had, which was in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania.
They started outsourcing their production, so they were really just
a brand name. They were outsourcing their production to Miller,
and it wasn't Miller Cores at that point, it was
(08:43):
just Miller. And so they were basically a virtual brewer.
As one executive put it, So they were I don't know,
as fake as the hipsters themselves in some ways. Absolutely
they had this front of the old school and in reality, nope,
we're the We're part of the machine. Yeah. So I mean,
wouldn't it have made more sense? I mean, you can
(09:04):
now speak for all hipsters. I think we've decided or
maybe not, but you will for the sake of this episode.
So wouldn't it have made more sense for them to
align with like a local brewery in Portland? You would,
You would think they would. But I think the problem
is that even some of the local breweries that you know,
there's a small business they're trying to advertise, they're trying
to get out there and and grow, and you know,
(09:26):
the hipster movement is nationwide even back then. So if
you've got online with a local brewery in in Oregon,
that might not be available to your hipster buddies on
the East Coast. I know, but I feel like, you know,
one of and I'm I'm I'm making this up because
I'm not a hipster. But I feel like the whole
idea was to like rip the you know, the logos
off your stuff, right, Like you don't want to be
walking around in a Michael Cores something. You rip the
(09:47):
Michael Corps logo off because you're anti corporate, right, And
so then here you pick this like corporate virtual beer.
But I think we've learned too that just in general,
American consumers don't pay a whole lot of attention to
the rands that they buy and consume. And PBR just
looked old school, forgotten about and they jumped on board. Yeah.
(10:07):
I mean, the cheap part definitely was a big part
of it. But I was trying to figure out what
exactly these hipsters were liking, and so, in an article
dating back from eleven, the Chicago Tribune said that perhaps
Blue Ribbon or PBR this is a quote has a
cult following of young, hip urban nights in Chicago and
elsewhere who say they enjoy the beer because it's unsexy,
(10:30):
unpretentious and blue collar Midwest. Here's another one. I like PBR.
This is a quote because it doesn't taste like beer.
This is from a twenty six year old named Brenna,
who has a blog called Stuff Hipsters Hate. In a
book by that same name, she says, quote, it tastes
like water, dirty water, and it is very interesting that
that's an appealing aspect. I'm going to vote no on
(10:55):
dirty water. Um. PBR even started appearing in some fancy restaurants. Uh.
Momofuku superstar chef David Chang put PBR in his Toronto
noodle bar, saying, quote that was like the cheapest beer
we could put on. I really like shitty beer. I
don't really love PAPS, but I just want cheap beer,
(11:17):
and it's the cheapest beer we have. PBR is fine,
I'm quoting here, but it has this awful hipster connotation,
and beer is fucking expensive. He's not wrong. Beer is expensive.
So he's already though, which is kind of hilarious, toying
with this problem that he wants cheap beer. He doesn't
like PAPS, but it's cheap, but it has this quote
(11:38):
awful hipster connotation. And yet everybody who comes to my
restaurants probably an awful hipster. So fine, here's your PBR, Right,
you gotta give the people what they want, even when
it's gross. So when the marketers from PAPST go out
there and start looking around, they got smart and they
decided to employ like I'm gonna go with NTI Marketing.
(12:01):
They saw this hipster boost in Portland, and they decided
they could turn this into a trend. They knew somehow,
they understood. I mean, they were close enough I think
in age to the hipsters themselves, the guys that they
sent out there, and so they knew that they couldn't
advertise in a traditional way like hey, hipsters, here's your
beer of choice. Like that wasn't gonna work. So they
(12:22):
embraced sort of these niche groups and they went to
grassroots events in cities that they deemed as Portland like.
So as PBR sort of grew on its own in Portland,
they you know, they shored that up by maybe throwing
some money at a bike messenger event or a vesper
rally or a rockabilly concert. Right, But then they started
(12:45):
doing the same things in San Francisco and Denver and Seattle,
and they did it like subtly, like give a little
bit of money, they'd have PBR there, but they wouldn't
put billboards up or you know, flashing neon signs or
you know, have the was like it was it monster
that you used to drive around with the trucks that
had that looked like a can big candle in the back. Right,
(13:07):
I knew it was one of those other hipster drinks.
But yeah, So they did this like in Portland and
San Francisco and Denver and Seattle, and they started working
their way into these small subcultures in the hipper cooler
cities around the country. Did you know that bike messengers
had rodeos a bike messenger road? Yeah, I'm not sure
(13:30):
what that would be. Maybe you not knowing that means
you're not fully a hipster, right, I'm only partially, and
you can still be saved. There's hope for you yet.
So getting back to sort of the money behind all
of this, after that sort of dismal two thousand and
one with their sales of under one million barrels at PBR,
(13:50):
things start to get better and the hipster embrace of
PBR starts to really make a difference nationwide, and two
thousand two sales go up five point three percent. In
two thousand three, sales go up fifteen percent, and for
two thousand three to two thousand eight they keep going
at that pace. Then in two thousand nine, sales go
(14:10):
up again, this time twenty five percent, which is unheard of.
In two thousand ten, still really good increase, two thousand eleven,
still pretty good. Back to that fourteen percent increase, And
in PBR is selling nine two million gallons. Remember in
(14:31):
two thousand one one million? Yeah, but can it last?
Before we get to that, let's go back to the beginning.
Maybe we'll find some of our answers right there. This
is a brand that had some interesting marketing techniques and
(14:53):
a company mission that may have been more about ego
and money than making a quality product. And when I'm
talking about their interesting marketing techniques, I don't mean in
the hipster era. I mean way back in the beginning.
This new guy Nick is the flashback portion of the
movie Ready for It, Right, So this is the moment
where they kind of look off in the distance, fades
(15:15):
out right, the hipsters fade out, and the beards from
the eighteen forty four fade in from one beard to another.
That's where we're going there. If it were a soap
opera in eighteen forty four. It all began when a
German immigrant by the name of Jacob Best Senior created
the brewery Best and Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He did
(15:37):
this with his four sons, Jacob Jr. Charles, Philip, and Lorenz.
I like Lorenz, that's very fancy, very peculiar names. Production
in those days consisted of about three hundred barrels a year,
so vastly different from where we are now. Then in
eighteen fifty three, Jacob Best retired and his son Philip
ultimately became the sole proprietor. Now Philip Best changes the
(16:01):
company's name in eighteen fifty nine to Philip Best Brewing Company. Uh,
you can't see me, but my eyebrow just went up
like it was already called Best. He had to put
his name in there. Though it's quite the ego move there, sir.
This is sort of like, yeah, he wasn't good enough
(16:22):
because maybe his brothers could still take credit for it
if he didn't put his name on it. So you
can see what I mean when I say maybe this
was about ego. And the story just continues in that vein.
So Philip gets married, he has a kid, and her
name is Maria. Maria marries a man named, wait for it,
Frederick Perhapst. Perhapst is a steamboat captain and an acquaintance
(16:46):
of her dad's, and he was about twenty five when
they got married. He has a backstory himself, that is,
you know, not story of riches. He struggled, his father
died when he was young, and he came this steamboat captain.
Ultimately he marries Maria, and in eighteen sixty three, about
a year and a half after the wedding, while he's
(17:07):
trying to bring his boat into Milwaukee Harbor, he runs
the ship aground. Now in these days, we'd have an
investigation and probably he'd be charged with d uy maybe
a few too many best beers just saying, But at
the time it just caused him to shift careers. In
a short while later, Frederick Paps buys half of his
father in law's brewing company. Then just two years after that,
(17:29):
in eighteen sixty five, he brings in his brother in
law and the two of them buy out Philip Best.
From eighteen seventy four to eighteen nine three, under perhaps leadership,
the company became the largest national brewery that happened in
eighteen seventy four, and of course, once again we have
(17:51):
an ego based name change. He changed the name of
the company to the Papst Brewing Company in eighteen eighty nine,
So like barely forty years in some out of existence,
and this is now the third name for this company, right,
And I'm just gonna say this best was a pretty
good name, pretty straightforward. Your beer is the best beer.
(18:14):
That's a marketing campaign in and of itself. But instead
they go with the Pabst Brewing Company in perhaps becomes
the largest brewery in the world, the first ever to
produce over a million barrels of beer in a single year.
From eight see, the company opened forty offices around the country,
(18:35):
twelve were in Wisconsin alone. There weren't craft beers then,
but there was a crafty brewery owner and a marketing
genius before there were cmos and marketing best practices. I
think this is sort of the fascinating backstory of PAPS, right,
because this was a time when you made a product
and you sold it and it was plain and simple.
(18:57):
And yeah, there might have been some commeditors here there,
but things were based mostly on geography. You bought what
was closest to you and easiest to get, and maybe
you compared prices. I'm sure maybe you liked one label
over another. But literally, the word marketing wasn't even used then.
I don't think the word marketing actually came into fashion.
I did a little research on this. Until like the
(19:20):
nineteen fifties. There was advertising, but there wasn't marketing. That
makes sense, you know that the railroads and everything in
the fifties. By then we started to become a pretty
interconnected world, so you could get stuff from across the country.
There you go, But all the way back in eight three,
Frederick Paaps was kind of a crafty, sneaky marketer. So
(19:41):
perhaps Best Select that was the name of the beer
at the time, not perhaps Blue Ribbon. Perhaps Best Select
allegedly one the top beer award at the eighteen ninety
three World's Colombian Exposition, also known or better known shall
we say as the Chicago World's Fair. Or did they win?
(20:04):
That is the big question. I have to go off
on a little bit of a bunny trail here a
new guy, Nick, You know how I love a good
bunny trail. The Chicago World's Fair was a major moment
for products and design and invention in the United States.
And it's also the subject of one of my favorite
books of all time, which is called The Devil in
the White City by Eric Larson. If you've never read it,
(20:26):
you really need to um. It talks about the whole
putting together of the Chicago World's Fair, and it also
talks about a serial murder that was happening around the
same time. It's fascinating. But in any case, there were
products introduced that we've all heard of to this day
at the Chicago World's Fair. Juicy fruit gum came from
their cracker Jack shredded wheat. The first ever ferris wheel
(20:50):
came from the Chicago World's Fair. Yeah, and interestingly enough,
the ferris wheel was sort of an attempt to compete
with the Eiffel Tower, which was also introduce us at
an earlier World's Fair. Yeah uh. This was the first
time the fair grounds had ever been electrified with alternating
current uh. Nicola Tesla was there shooting lightning from his hands.
(21:12):
Thomas Edison was there presenting the kinetoscopes moving pictures the
earliest movies. So it was quite the quite the event
in Chicago and did you know that World's Fairs still
go on and basically no one cares anymore interesting. I
think the new inventions stuff that because the Internet, the
Internet killed the World's Fair anywhere, the US doesn't really
(21:33):
participate anymore. We kind of opted out. It's kind of
sad because those seemed like that have been really cool.
Absolutely was go get all the fancy. It's kind of
like the ce s of the time. There you go.
You're right, Well, let's bring it back. So back to PBR.
According to some sources, at the Chicago World's Fair perhaps
never actually won a blue ribbon. During some festivals like
(21:57):
the World's Fair, perhaps was placing blue ribbon around their
best beer so it would stand out among the other beers.
That's one version of the story. Cheater Cheater, cheater, cheetah.
This would have a modern day pants on fire rating.
Another version of the story is that the beer judges
at the World's Fair came up with sort of their
(22:19):
own scoring system and let the brewers sort of figure
out who one based on who got the highest score.
And it looked like at the time that Anheuser Busch
and Paps were sort of neck and neck and at
the end. Maybe maybe Paps ended up ahead of bush
Beer at the time by a tiny little bit. But
Frederick Paps, being that crafty genius marketer that he was,
(22:42):
quickly before anyone else had a chance, announced himself as
the grand prize winner, even though his metal and certificate
was exactly the same as everyone else's. They were all
special snowflakes, even back that participation trophies years ago. Basically,
that's exactly what it was, either way right or not,
(23:04):
fair or not. The entire brewery, the Paps Brewery in Milwaukee,
was draped with a giant blue ribbon and the workers
were given a day off. The attention that they got
from that and the sales that followed inspired them to
change the name and also probably to get his father
in law's name out of there from best select to
perhaps blue ribbon. That is crazy. That's something like that.
(23:25):
That's true, the kind of fan fair. You have a
whole massive brewery taking the day off. Why are you
awful because we won an award. There you go, free
word of mouth marketing and advertising right there. Absolutely, hold on,
I need to drink some dirty water. That wasn't the
only bit of marketing genius, as if that wasn't enough
because the blue ribbon, perhaps blue ribbon is what everyone
thinks of it as now PBR, that's what that is.
(23:47):
But that was not the only kind of ahead of
its time marketing genius that Frederick Paps brought to the table.
There was I love this name, the Papst Whitefish Bay
Resort that opened in eighteen eighty nine. It was like
kind of the Disney of its day. It had rentable rowboats,
they had outdoor movies, of course, obviously, they served ton
(24:11):
of beer PBR. And they even had their own ferris wheel. Eventually,
the place had a twenty five year run. It closed
in nineteen fourteen, but that's because perhaps by that point
Frederick passed had been gone for ten years and he
was the energy behind it. So it was like the
original bush Gardens in a way, the first alcohol themed
(24:34):
that's crazy. I think we need more of those now,
get drunk and ride the rides. I'm down. Perhaps might
also sound like another businessman we talked about a lot
these days. Because there was a fourteen story papsed building
in downtown Milwaukee. There was a Papst theater that one's
still in operation today. And this was all part and
(24:54):
parcel for him becoming a household name. He understood that
marketing idea that it again came along much later of
those seven touches. You've got to have your name in
front of people. They got to see it seven times
to even know who you are. And he knew it
and he worked it. And that's incredible because the best
part about this is that up to this point, how
much work has really gone into that beer. Oh no,
(25:16):
it's dirty water. The product itself. He didn't care. He
was not passionate about beer. He was passionate about making
money and having his name in lights. Clearly listen. He
was also a survivor and this might have come from
his childhood and he passed that on to his own
kids because fred Papsed, the son of Frederick, took the
business over from his dad, and in through ninety three,
(25:40):
when times were tough a k. A. Prohibition, PBR survived
by switching from making beer to making cheese. That is
an odd transition. Well, they had to do something non alcoholic,
that's what they did. So they aged the cheese and
the brewery's ice cellars, and from the looks of it,
the cheese was kind of a Thelvita sort of thing.
(26:01):
It was called wait for this, perhaps debt, perhaps debt,
which is impossible to say. So clearly bad branding. He
was not, Listen, he was a marketing genius. He was
not a branding genius. The blue ribbon was genius. Papstat
not so much. Ultimately, pap Step believe it or not,
was sold to Craft in three, probably so that it
(26:22):
could not compete with Elvita anymore. I assumed Velvito was
already in full force at the time. Um, but maybe
there's an episode of phisiography there. Who knows, we could
have some nachos in here. Anyway. After prohibition in it's
back to beer and things start to go well for
the company again. In perhaps introduces packaged beer in cans.
(26:44):
So I don't think they were the first one to
put beer in a can, but they are believed to
be the first brewer to put beer in six packs.
Guess why do you know this, Um, they probably put
in a six pack because I'm just gonna go with
here that that was the average amount of beers that
someone would drink. Right, No, okay, Can I just for
(27:04):
the record state that if I drank six beers, you
would have to take me to the hospital like a
beer and a half, and I'd be dancing on the bar.
That's just me. But that would be you're wrong, now,
that would be incorrect. There's a couple of reasons that
have been tossed out for this, and we don't really know,
(27:27):
but one of them is the suggestion that six beers
was the ideal wait for the average housewife to carry
home from the store. What's for her man, I don't
know about that. That seems a little to study intensive
for that. An alternative explanation, I think this one might
be it is the six pack fits snugly in the
bottom of the standard paper grocery bag. It very much does.
(27:50):
That's a good point. I think that might actually be
the reason, because also if the housewife she has to
carry to really otherwise, she'll get more muscles in one
arm right off balance you move off the side. This
is a concern I always have when I'm carrying my
groceries in any case. In nineteen fifties, production and sales sore.
But after the younger paps retirement Fred that is, sales
(28:13):
start to slip, maybe because the stuff tasted like dirty
water and there's no genius marketer in place anymore. Also,
I assume in fairness there is more competition by then.
Right at that point, you know, Annaheuser Busch is kind
of a big deal. Miller's growing cores growing. Yeah, they've
got real beer in the market to fight them, right,
And marketing is now becoming a real word in the
(28:34):
vocabulary and a real job for people. So PBR at
that time becomes known as the premium beer at a
popular price. So what's the danger of making low price
the strategy? What do you think? Probably the danger is
the fact that people didn't look at you as the
cheap beer. You know, it's like the oh you got
that you I see this as a problem a lot
(28:57):
of companies have. It's this idea of a race to
the bottom. If you're always trying to undercut on price,
how far down can you go? You get to zero,
you've got no profit left a margin, right, And I
think there's a lot of companies that make the mistake
of only being price focused. And if you don't have
a great product, ultimately you don't survive unless your PBR,
(29:21):
which continues to exist even though Hello dirty Water in
ninety eight and through nineteen seventy seven, sales grow from
three point nine million barrels in nineteen fifty eight to
ten point five million by nineteen seventies. So you know,
it's not excessive growth, it's not massive growth, but it's
it's it's solid. They're doing okay, they're moving in the
(29:43):
right direction, they're making a profit, and they end that
era at a high of eighteen million barrels in nineteen
seventy seven. And even then they start becoming part of
popular culture. Here, Raymond, you get enough beer for ben too?
What kind of bird do you like? Pinniken funk that ship?
(30:05):
Perhaps food ribbons. In nine PBR even made a commercial
with a young Patrick Swayzy no no no no, no,
no, no no no no no no no no no, no, no,
no no, and the sun and rolls around. That's the time,
(30:42):
oh the days of disco. That was done in the
style of Saturday Night Fever. And it's amazing to think
that Patrick Swayze, who really was just getting started then,
was kind of playing a poor man's John Travolta in
that commercial. It's a very valid point. Was brushing his hair,
he's got the suit and he's doing the disco moves.
It is a fantastic commercial. Google it in. As the
(31:06):
beer is sort of muddling its way through the seventies
and eighties, real estate tycoon Paul Kala Monowitz buys PEPs
Brewing for sixty three million in an aggressive takeover. Now
this is the eighties, this is the time when companies
are being bought up to be torn apart allah the
you know, Wall Street movie, and he plans to tear
(31:28):
this brewery down and make money on a new condo development. Obviously,
that didn't sit too well with people in Milwaukee. PBR
goes through the rest of the eighties and nineties, closing breweries,
eliminating jobs, and starting to basically fall apart. By this point,
I'm assuming people want taste, they found new trends, and
the beer is kind of on the struggle bus to
(31:51):
non relevance town. They're just there. And that essentially brings
us up to where we started today's show, the hip
stir era. While perhapst is flailing and doing nothing, the
hipsters find it and you get newfound glory for the brand.
So you can kind of see the irony that PBR
was not a company that should have really been embraced
(32:13):
by hipsters. At the time they got involved, it was
owned by corporate raiders essentially, and the idea that hipsters
were somehow sticking it to the man by buying this
stuff is just misguided. Yeah. I really think that that's
something you know, we talked about before that American consumers
don't do a whole lot of research and they just
knew that this was a beer that probably their grandpad
(32:33):
drank way back in the day, and no one knows
it anymore, and it's cheap, so we're going to pick
it up. It's ours now. Yeah, So what's the lesson
here for consumers? Just because like somebody else does it
doesn't mean you do it without doing your homework. I
feel like this is a lesson for all of us
on a lot of subjects. But the love of PBR
is almost like, you know, if I say jump, you
(32:54):
don't say how high you go? Why why should I jump? Right? Absolutely,
And I think it's almost the opposite in the sense
of everyone else isn't doing it. Do your research and
find out there's probably a good reason why they're probably
not doing it. Yeah. And it's interesting too, because socially
conscious consumers is something that you know has really bubbled
up now. It certainly maybe started back in Portland in
(33:15):
those days. But there are a lot of consumers now
who are socially conscious and they say that and then
they do something like drink PBR. It doesn't make sense.
There's some logic missing there. I think it's more maybe
just the image, though it's not so much necessarily the
product itself. It was the image that PBR put across
right of this, you know, every man's beer in a way,
(33:36):
and that got picked up by them and loved. Yeah,
when you break it down and really think about it,
it's weird. Although I have said this before, if you
were to do all of your homework on all of
the companies that are out there, you would never buy
another product ever again, Like I would basically have to
just go home, curl up in a ball and not
interact with human beings. That's true. You know, most of
the corporations do have some spots in their history that
(33:58):
are less than desirable. Pressure and I think the world
of the Internet has made it so easy for us
to find out that we almost choose and I really
believe this is what the hipsters did. We just choose
to put our heads in the sand. Yeah. Absolutely, And
it's a little bit too that they embraced it and
kind of because it wasn't popular, because it was barely
selling and not everyone nationwide had it in the local
(34:20):
grocery store. That kind of picked it up and and
almost without PBR's approval, change the image of it themselves.
They made PBR their beer, and they made it feel
the way they wanted it. Look, it's a good thing
that the company isn't some horrible, racist, you know, evil
company behind the scenes, because they could have been. For
(34:41):
the consumers, they had no idea. All they knew was
that it was cheap and it was vintage, and they
didn't do any homework to figure out who was behind it,
who owned it, where they made the beer. Nothing is
just vintage and cheap, and that I think is the
danger for consumers and embracing something that you don't actually
know anything about, right, and then what's the less for marketers? Well,
(35:01):
I hate to say it, but people are kind of stupid.
So if you tell you them blue ribbon around the
neck of the beer and call it award winning and
they're gonna buy it, Well, isn't that also why for
the longest time. A lot of companies either started with
an ARA one. You're at the top of the phone book,
must mean you're one of the best ones. I see
you at the front. So the question is where is
(35:23):
PBR now? We'll talk about it right after this. In
Americans drank more than ninety million gallons of PBR. It's
nearly two more than they drank in two thousand four.
(35:43):
But in order to be selling that much, PBR has
to branch out beyond the hipsters. And as we know
in American culture, you have to keep growing to succeed stockholders.
Shareholders they want more. They're not okay with big numbers
and big profits unless it's more order over quarter. So
PBR starts to get bigger and more mainstream. In fact,
(36:07):
they showed up on south Park in two thousand eleven.
They're noisy, set bitch, they're nasty, still that on that
Tenny S flight dress. And when you give them a
little paths Blue Ribbon they south Park PAPS was sold
(36:29):
to Blue Ribbon Intermediate Holdings l l C. It's a
partnership between Cashper and San Francisco private equity firm t
s G Consumer Partners. The cell was for a reported
seven hundred million dollars. At this point, they have their
headquarters in Los Angeles, having left Milwaukee way behind. In
(36:52):
with just five point five million gallons of production and
two point two percent market share, they're not doing nearly
as well as they had been. In seventeen. Barrel shipped
are two point five million, that's a change from sixteen.
They're down point six percent, market share one point two percent,
So the numbers aren't looking good as we move into
(37:14):
the present. Well, what happened the hipster thing was great?
Everything was going well. Production was up. Think about it,
nineties something million at the top of the hipster era,
down to five point five million in fifteen in terms
of gallons are barrels rather and two point five million?
Yeahen the loss of the market share has the company
announcing in January that it is eliminated seventy jobs. And
(37:38):
think about it, that's a lot. At the peak in
sen PAPS had four hundred and forty people, So getting
rid of seventy cuts out about a quarter of the workforce.
I really do suck at math. Okay, here's the big
problem now for PAPST, and this has been the truth
all along. They don't produce their own beer. So remember
back in two thousand when I said that they had
(37:59):
outsored their beer to Miller. We now Miller is Miller Cores,
and they had made a twenty year contract with that
company to produce their beer. So the contract is coming
up and Miller Cores is having struggles of its own
and they don't want to extend the contract past. So
off to court they go. Perhaps brewing company and Miller
(38:22):
Cores face off in court. Miller Cores has brewed several
of PAPS brands, including PBR, since, but again that agreement
set to expire, and now there's this disagreement in court.
Miller Cores is saying, look, we are our own problems.
We have to close production facilities and we just don't
have the capacity to brew PBR anymore. Now PBR says
(38:44):
this is all about them wanting to kill the competition,
and so they go to court, and as we know,
court always takes a long time. These cases always take
a long time. But it went almost the full and
on November the company's reached a settlement. Now we don't
know the details because the settlement wasn't disclosed, but in
a statement Following the lawsuit, PEPs says it will quote
continue to offer PBR and the rest of their authentic,
(39:07):
great tasting and affordable bruise to all Americans for many,
many years to come. Unquote. I'm not sure which good
tasting bruise they're talking about. Yeah, I don't know if
any brand that peels the majority of Americans, but okay, yeah,
So it looks like PBR will live on, though without
the hipsters because they got too big for their own good.
(39:29):
The numbers will most likely continue to decline, but you
never know. Maybe PBR will be found by some new
niche group that really loves beer drank beer. He had
one beer at the party and had beers with and
having some beers with friends, or just to meet up
and have some beers drinking beer, which I gladly do.
(39:52):
That niche could be in Washington, d C. I mean,
Brett Kavanaughs there a good bit of the time now
and he clearly likes beer. Before we go, HAPs Blue
Ribbon has managed to hang in there through prohibition, corporate takeovers, lawsuits,
and consumer disdain, and good news for those who love
bad beer. In the midst of all the PBR ups
and downs the company. Perhaps Brewing Company has essentially bought
(40:14):
up a bunch of other beer brands like Lone Star, Schlitz,
and Schaefer that were once cool and have lost their way.
So maybe the gen Z version of the hipsters will
embrace Schaefer and the Paps Company will continue. It's a
roller coaster ride through history. That's our show for today,
(40:36):
See you next time. Physiography is produced by the iHeart
Podcast Network. I'm your host Dana Barrett. My co host
and producer is Nick Bean. Our executive producer is Christopher Hassiotis,
and Josh Than provides audio production. Have questions I want
(40:58):
to give us feedback or have a company of like
us to cover, Email us at info at photography dot Show,
or contact us on social. I'm at the Danta Barrett
on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or just search for me
on LinkedIn. Thanks for your support
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