Schlitz: The Beer that Made Milwaukee Famous
It's back..yaaay! Starting Monday Schlitz has it's long-lost gusto back. I'm a tweenie of Schlitz drinkers: old enough to remember the last years of Schlitz's heyday, but too young to actually drink the real stuff. When I was young I remember Schlitz was well-promoted: there was the motorized Schlitz can in the local parade, and bars advertised Schlitz heavily just as they did Pabst, Blatz, and Old Style. Then in 1969 Miller was bought out by Philip Morris, who expanded the business aggressively. Anheuser-Busch used aggressive marketing to build a base in Wisconsin.
But the thing that really killed Schlitz--something I read about in my "Marketing Mistakes" textbook in college--was a series of management blunders to aid the bottom line, the most notable of which was to alter the formula to save a few pennies. According to an article published in 2003 by Insight on the News: "One decision was to bring in a consulting firm that advised Schlitz to cut costs by cutting the beer fermentation from 25 days to about a dozen. The plan cut costs by 50 percent, but it spelled the end. 'The beer tasted awful,' [an industry insider said]. "It had flakes in it. That, combined with a lousy advertising campaign ["Go for the gusto"], caused Schlitz to fall apart between 1974 and 1976." "
The taste in Schlitz, the number two beer nationwide at the time, was profound enough to cause beer drinkers to move to Miller and Bud. Changes in ownership, a problem with "hazy" beer, and a 1981 workers strike crippled the company.
By 1982 Schlitz was bought out by Stroh Brewery of Detroit and its famous Milwaukee operations moved across Lake Michigan shortly afterward. Stroh became America's third largest brewer, but because of the leveraged buyout had to Throughout the '80s quality declined further, and I remember my first few cans of Schlitz in the early '90s gave me the schitz.
Stroh itself was bought out by Pabst in 1999, and Schlitz, by then difficult to find and rarely consumed, struggled for a few years as Pabst itself struggled due to its own mistakes and heavy debt. Due to lack of advertising and cool retro label, Schlitz was consumed at places like Schuba's and the Green Mill, but its taste, somewhat improved from the early '90s, was still not enough to bring back the masses.
I'm a big fan of retro brews and have an old Schlitz globe at home (as well as a sixer of Old Style silos). But I will be eagerly awaiting my place in line in the corner liquor store on Monday. According to the article the "1960s formula" Schlitz will be sold in "Schubas Tavern, Southport Lanes & Billiards, Cardinal Liquors, 1000 Liquors, Chicago Brauhaus, Sheffield’s Bar, the Long Room, Simon’s Tavern, Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, Glunz Bavarian Haus and the House of Glunz."
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