What’ll you have? Pabst Blue Ribbon?

Christopher Ford, owner of Sweet P's Bar-b-q

Christopher Ford, owner of Sweet P's Barbecue

Suddenly, everybody is drinking the beer that my dad used to drink in the ’70s. And they aren’t people even remotely resembling my dad.

The hip beer these days is, of all things, Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Our great client, Cherokee Distributing Company, distributes Pabst in this area. While Pabst sales were up nationwide by 18 percent last year, they were up 24.7 percent here in East Tennessee – the highest increase in the state.

Why?

“It’s kind of a retro beer,” explained Christopher Ford, the proprietor of the super cool Sweet P’s Barbecue at Willow Point Marina. Ford said he started drinking the brand over 15 years ago when he was the front man for the trendy rock band Gran Torino. “PBR was one of our beers of choice,” Ford said.”We didn’t have any money and it was extremely economical. And it is good. We drank in a lot of dives — and they always had PBR.” Sweet P’s is a PBR restaurant, of course.

Mary Ellen Brewington, of Cherokee Distributing, said her company acquired the brand in 2002 when it purchased Dinwiddie Distributing Company.  She has seen the brand’s popularity surge, particularly in the past two years. “Bottom line: PBR is hip and a good value,” she said.

She said PBR marketers make it a point to engage with their customers. Just go to the Pabst Web site and you’ll see this is true. It features photos of real Pabst drinkers and, just last month, the company concluded a contest for Pabst art submitted by fans. There’s a gallery of the fan art on the Web site: “Like an art museum without all the wimpy hush hush,” the site announces. The art makes great posters.

Christa DeCicco, lead singer of Christabel and the Jons, unwinds after a recent show.

Christa DeCicco, lead singer of Christabel and the Jons, unwinds after a recent show.

“Beer brands move in cycles – just like fashion,” Brewington explained. “In the ’70s, it was all about light beer. In the ’80s, craft beers became popular.” (Knoxville was one of the orginal test markets for Miller Lite, she said.)

Today, she said, PBR drinkers seem to be the kinds of people who beat to their own drums. “They are making a statement that they don’t care what people think. They don’t need a designer label to be cool,” she said.

Randy Burleson, who owns the Aubrey’s family of restaurants as well as Bistro by the Tracks in Bearden, Sunspot on campus, and Barley’s in the Old City, says his restaurant group, thanks in particular to Barley’s, is the biggest seller of Pabst Blue Ribbon in Knoxville. “It’s a cult beer — and it’s good,” he said.  Brewington agreed: “Remember, Pabst has a blue ribbon for a reason.”

Here are some interesting facts about Pabst:

  • In 1844, a German immigrant named Jacob Best started Empire Brewery in Milwaukee and produced Best Lager. It had an 18-barrel capacity, which is about 90 gallons — hardly an “empire.”
  • In the 1860s, a steamboat captain named Frederick Pabst married into the family and was taken into the company. The company started marketing Best Select Lager in bottles.
  • In the mid-1880s, the beer began winning awards in national and international competitions and the company was renamed Pabst Brewing Company. To signify the wins, Captain Pabst started tying silk blue ribbons around the necks of the Best Select Lager bottles.  The beer eventually was renamed Pabst Blue Ribbon.
  • After prohibition, termed “the Dark Ages” on the Web site,  Pabst became one of the first companies to offer canned beer.
  • The 1940s and 1950s were a time of explosive growth for all American beers and Pabst remained one of the top five brewing companies for 40 years.
  • Due to a silk shortage during World War II, Pabst stopped tying ribbons around its bottles and instead developed the famous blue ribbon logo.
  • The all-time high for Pabst was in 1977 when it sold a record 18 million barrels.
  • By 2001, sales had fallen to fewer than one million barrels.

And now, the resurgence is under way.

Super hip Nama sushi bar on Gay Street has PBR on tap. This is bartender Nick Grubb.

Super hip Nama sushi bar on Gay Street has PBR on tap. This is bartender Nick Grubb.

Author and Knoxville historian Jack Neely signs his latest book at the Square Room. What's he drinking? PBR, of course.

Author and Knoxville historian Jack Neely signs his latest book at the Square Room. What's he drinking? PBR, of course.

Scott Frith, deputy administrator of elections for Knox County, and lawyer Stephanie Jernigan, have some PBRs at Bistro on Gay Street

Scott Frith, deputy administrator of elections for Knox County, and lawyer Stephanie Jernigan, have some PBRs at Bistro on Gay Street

I love this classic Pabst Blue Ribbon commercial! “Finest beer served …anywhere!”
Photo credit: Picture of Christopher Ford was taken by Moxley Carmichael’s Ashley Hubbard.
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12 Responses to What’ll you have? Pabst Blue Ribbon?

  1. Phyllis Patterson, on February 4th, 2010 at 3:09 pm said:

    Okay, it can’t just be PBR in a can and it can never be PBR on tap. It has to be a PBR TALLBOY.

  2. Tami Hartmann, on February 4th, 2010 at 3:26 pm said:

    Who would have thought? I had an uncle that was a rep for PBR. We would turn our noses up at his product back when we were young and thought we knew it all — and that was during Pabst’s heyday. That must have been our rebellion. We were way too cool to drink our parents’ brand!

  3. Annette Winston, on February 4th, 2010 at 3:39 pm said:

    My friend Don Paine, an esteemed Knoxville lawyer, has said that you can tell the state of the economy by the kind of beer cans he picks up when he walks up Sharp’s Ridge. Guess he’s seeing some PBR these days.

  4. Aaron Thompson, on February 4th, 2010 at 4:43 pm said:

    Nice article. I started carrying PBR on tap around three months ago at Sapphire when I started to see the trend. Quite honestly, people always assume bars make a lot of money off of beer, but it isn’t true in all cases. PBR represents a good value to the consumer, but even better, to the bar.

  5. Shaun Fulco, on February 4th, 2010 at 4:46 pm said:

    PBR is definitely the “hip” people’s beer of choice these days. It’s funny to me to see it make such a come back, reminds me of my grandfather. My grandmother did not want my grandfather to drink beer. He would promise to her that he would only drink “a few” per week. She would put 4 beers in the fridge for him at the beginning of each week. I was around 6 or 7 years old then and remember seeing my grandfather make fairly frequent trips to the back of a large (and dark) storage room. One day, out of curiosity, I went into the dark storage room with a flashlight and to my surprise I found several cases of PBR in the back of that room. Grandfather was replacing the beers that he would drink throughout the week so it always appeared he only had “a few” beers each week. My grandfather lived a full life and reached the age of 86, perhaps PBR had something to do with it! For the country music enthusiasts, how about the song “Toes” by the Zac Brown Band — “not a worry in the world a PBR on the way, life is good today…life is good today”.

  6. John Dominic Barbarino, on February 4th, 2010 at 9:03 pm said:

    PBR was a trending nod to nostalgia five years ago in trending nabes in Brooklyn with the under twenties guys who also were playing around with Old Spice after shave lotion. Guess the scale of trends reaching to the inner states is still the same. Thought the internet was making that time a lot shorter. Times were any beer that was three bucks a six pack was the beer of choice, especially when one dude had phony ID that worked.

  7. brian gregory, on February 4th, 2010 at 10:46 pm said:

    Cheap and refreshing. Ill buy that. Hip and trendy…. Not a chance. But when you can go to aubreys on papermill and get a tallboy for 2 bucks hell I’m even tempted to try one. Hell, fat tires 4 bucks on draft. For the non serious beer drinker looking for a tasty beverage on a boat in the hot summer sun…. Pbr will do it. Impressing the little lady on valentines at the orangery. Not so much

    Still who can forget those college days with beast, beast ice, golden anniversary, pbr. At 6 to 8 bucks a case even if u got caught with it in ur dorm it wasn’t too much of a loss if the RA or popo took it away.

    The big question I have: will it be served at the chic party of the year…. The annual moxley carmichael bash friday night???
    I’m betting on it. But get some labatts blue for us northern folks. You can’t find that anywhere in the southland!

  8. Gary Bentley, on February 5th, 2010 at 12:17 pm said:

    According to the youth movement. PBR became the American Beer of choice when Budweiser sold out to InBev. PBR is the only mass produced American Owned Beer left. American Pride is on the line so Buy American.

  9. Cynthia Moxley, on February 7th, 2010 at 2:15 am said:

    John: Thanks for the link. Great article. Brian: Thanks for coming to our client party. Hope you noticed that we did indeed serve PBR – among other things. Shaun: Great story. Thanks everybody. Cheers!

  10. Dwight Van de Vate, on February 11th, 2010 at 11:58 am said:

    There’s a chapter in Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” describing a period during which Hush Puppy shoes evolved from dowdy to trendy…wonder if the same dynamics apply here?!

  11. Sandi S, on February 26th, 2010 at 5:40 pm said:

    Zac Brown has made PBR de rigueur.

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