More On Pabst -- and the "Great American Beer"

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Ted McClelland is back at Salon with another look at American beer. Worth reading, especially to learn what Dick Yuengling has to say. HUGE relief to know that he's keeping his cool (and his common sense) in the face of all this "last American beer" hooha. (I weighed in on that a few weeks ago here.)

By the way, Ted's earlier Salon piece is here. For a contrarian view of Ted's piece, see Jay's take. Another reason why I love the guy! (Jay, not Ted.) (Although Ted is a nice guy, too.)

All of this, of course, brings to mind Pabst's most recent effort, namely a revival of Schlitz.

My quick take on that is this: Ooooh, boy.......... Are these people serious? ("These people," in this case, is the folks at the company known as Pabst Brewing Company. See my note *1 below.)

Okay, sure, I understand the logic behind the revival of the Pabst brand -- an "anti-marketing" campaign aimed at hipsters. (*2)

But marketing Schlitz as "the beer you remembered in your youth"?? Using the slogan "Your Schlitz is back"? Are they NUTS? Anyone who actually remembers Schlitz is, well, old. And statistically speaking, old people (and I'm one of them) don't drink much. (You can read about that here and here.)

Plus, I remember Schlitz from the 1970s -- and I remember it because it was foul, skunky crap. (*3) Second, anyone who remembers Schlitz from the 1960s (before the company screwed up the beer) is REALLY old. And drinks even less.

This is surely one of the great exercises in pointlessness. Although I guess it's a great example of precisely the kind of pointless exercise that make capitalism go 'round. (You know. Like altering the recipe for Cheez-Its or the ingredients of Tide so they can be marketed as "new.")

Anyway, my prediction? The new "old" Schlitz is doomed.

Okay, back to work. (Again, I'm laying low because I'm working on a new book.)

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*1: By "Pabst," I mean the holding company (Kalmanovitz Family Trust) that owns and markets a bunch of old beer brands. It's not a brewing company; it's a marketing company that, well, markets beer. You can see the list by going here. After you've assured the website you're legal age, click on "Our Portfolio."

*2: By the way, Neal Stewart, the guy who concocted that now-legendary Pabst campaign, maintains a blog. He's currently working his magic at Flying Dog Brewery in Denver. (Although I gather he's also about to go to grad school.) (But wait. It's an MBA program. Shouldn't he be teaching MBA students, rather than being one of them?)

*3: Turns out I wasn't imagining it. As I explain in my book, in the 1970s, the brains at Schlitz tried to increase profits by slashing operating costs. Among other measures, they changed the beer's ingredients and altered the brewing process. The beer was undrinkable. The company imploded.

Good Beer, Great Beer. Commercial Beer, Beer-As-Wine

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I am more than a bit swamped at the moment, which is why the blog entries are, well, less-than-regular these days. (*1)

But I want to alert readers (if there are any...) to the intriguing discussion going on over at Beervana. The initial trigger was Jeff's entry about Trappist Ales, but there's now a larger debate under way about brewing creativity and money.

Or at least that's part of the discussion. (At both of Jeff's entries, read the "Comments." That's where the discussion is taking place.)

I note this because I've been thinking the past week or so about why some breweries fail and why they succeed, and what role innovation plays in success or failure, and whether craft brewing will ever own a larger share of the American beer market than it does now. I don't have any great thoughts at the moment because I need to focus my brainpower on the new book (which isn't about beer). But part of my brain has been pondering those things, so I'm intrigued by the discussion at Beervana.

So have a look.

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*1: I'm writing a new book and thanks to the issues with my arm last winter and thanks to Mr. Brito, I'm running waaaaaaay behind. Way way way behind. Plus, the only way to write a book is to shut out the world and think deep. Blogging requires brainpower and I don't have much to spare at the moment.

Historical Tidbits: Beer Consumption By State, 1946 and 2006

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I don't know. Historical Tidbits? Or Totally Useless Information? You be the judge . . .

Top Ten States, Per Capita Beer Consumption -- 1946

1. Wisconsin -- 27.6 gallons per capita

2. Nevada -- 26.7

3. New Jersey -- 26.1

4. Rhode Island -- 25.5

5. New York -- 25.4

6. Illinois -- 23.9

7. Pennsylvania --23.8

8. Michigan -- 23.0

9. Maryland -- 23.0

10. Connecticut -- 21.9

Top Ten States, Per Capita Beer Consumption -- 2006

1. North Dakota -- 32. 2

2. New Hampshire -- 31.5

3. Nevada -- 30.9 4

. Montana -- 30.1

5. Wisconsin -- 27.7

6. Louisiana -- 27.6

7. South Dakota -- 27.4

8. South Carolina -- 26. 5

9. Wyoming -- 26. 4

10. Delaware -- 26. 3

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Sources: "U. S. Public Sets New Beer-Drinking Record in '47," Modern Brewery Age (June 1945), p. 103; Brewers Almanac, 2007, online at the Beer Institute.

Historical Tidbits: Beer Is Good for You. Really, It Is.

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In 1958, Dr. Leon A. Greenberg of Yale University's Alcohol Center and Laboratory of Applied Biodynamics created a test designed to study the relationship between beer and stress. Greenberg built a device "similar in principle to the lie detector" that would allow him to measure "emotional tension."

He assembled a group of male volunteers in an "air-conditioned, sound-proofed room," served them bottles of 4.3% beer (no word on the brand he used), and asked the men to sort and count packs of cards as they drank.

Greenberg used various noise-makers, including an electric horn, to induce "emotional tension" in his subjects.

Six ounces of beer reduced the men's "tension level" by 13%. Twenty-four ounces reduced it by 37%. Greenberg found no evidence that the men were intoxicated nor did beer consumption affect the speed or accuracy at which they sorted the cards.

He concluded that the "social use of beer may serve an important role in blunting the excessive strain of ordinary life."

Hey, the guy was a professor at Yale. If he says it's true, it must be, right?

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Source: "Prosit!" in Newsweek, February 3, 1958, p. 56.

Fritz, Fritz, Fritz . . .

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What am I gonna do with you? We sit there for three hours watching the sun set over Des Moines, eating Chef Bailey's astonishing Iowa-based meal. We drink that amazing bottle of '82 wine, while dissecting the world's problems -- and you never mention that you've just received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the James Beard Foundation.

WHAT am I gonna do with you??

P.S.: Congratulations!