Pabst Blue Ribbon Day

January 2, 2017 By Jay Brooks

Here’s a little tidbit I found somewhere along the line, but don’t know the exact source, although it seems to mostly check out. On January 2, 1898, Pabst “officially” named their beer previously known as “Best Select” to “Pabst Blue Ribbon.” I say “officially,” because it had been known colloquially by that name before then, at least since 1893, when they supposedly won the blue ribbon (despite there being some controversy surround that event) that led to its name. According to Pabst’s own company history:

1876: The First Gold Medal. Pabst’s Best Select lager wins a gold medal at the Centennial Celebration, marking the first of many awards the beer will win throughout its 150+ year lifespan.
1882: A Blue Ribbon on Every Bottle. Having earned awards at US and international competitions, Pabst begins hand-tying a blue silk ribbon around the neck of each Best Select beer to identify it as a first-place winner. You know, because it was.
1889: Another New Name. Pabst follows in his father-in-law’s footsteps, changing the brewery’s name to honor himself. The Pabst Brewing Company is born.
1892: One Million Feet of Silk. As production rises, so does the demand for blue silk ribbon. The company purchases nearly 1 million feet of silk ribbon per year, which workers tie by hand around each bottle of Best Select.
1893: America’s Best Beer. Pabst is awarded the blue ribbon at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, beating out many other popular American brewers. And not surprisingly, some unpopular ones.
1895: What’ll You Have? Patrons keep asking bartenders for the beer with the blue ribbon, and the nickname sticks. The phrase “Blue Ribbon” is added to the Best Select name on the label.
1898: A New Name for the Classic Beer. The beer’s name is officially changed to Pabst Blue Ribbon, and the brewery produces one million barrels. Pabst begins exporting heavily to New York, even opening his own hotels, theatres and restaurants that, oddly enough, do not serve rival Schlitz beer.

This is the earliest PBR label I could find, from 1910.
pabst-1933-banner

But even by 1933, when prohibition ended, this ad, using an earlier ad, shows that the label hadn’t changed much between 1910 and then.

The book “Brewing in Milwaukee,” by Brenda Magee, has an illustration of the first Pabst Blue Ribbon Select bottles, along with a short history.

PB-Select-lg

When they filed a new trademark application with the U.S. Patent Office on December 8, 1947, apparently in order to be in compliance with the “Act of 1946,” they were granted Registration No. 521,795 on March 7, 1950. In the application, they stated that “[t]he trade-mark was first used in January 1898, and first used in commerce among the several States which may lawfully be regulated by Congress in January 1898.” Similarly, when an Historic Designation Study Report” was prepared in late 1985 for the Pabst Mansion, it stated. “The beer’s reputation was greatly enhanced by being judged the best at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The word’s “Blue Ribbon” were first added to the label in 1895 with the Blue Ribbon label first used in January 1898.”

I’ve been collecting dates now going on forty years, having starting with a small notebook that I’d hand scribble dates wherever I found them. That was recopied in its entirety … twice, because I kept outgrowing them, before finally turning to the infinite space of digital. But in those early days I was not as scrupulous in keeping a record of my sources, mostly for space reasons. But the truth is it was originally something I did for fun, just for me, and I never really saw any potential for it until it decades to late to go back and find the literal thousands of sources I used to compile the original lists. But somewhere, I found an entry giving January 2 in 1898 as the date that Pabst first used, or sold, the Pabst Blue Ribbon beers with a new label, officially calling them that for the first time. Maybe it’s because the first was a holiday and nothing was sold until the next day, who knows. But even though I can’t be absolutely sure of that, it’s still fun to take a look back at the label for one of the most well-known brands of beer through the years, and today seems as good a day as any, 119 years later. So here’s a few more labels I turned up.

1936.

pbr-1946-b
Also 1946.

pbr-mod-2
Modern era.

pbr-2012
2012.

pbr-2015
2015.

Current label logo.

Beer In Ads #2143: You Hear It Everywhere … “Finest Beer Served … Anywhere!”

January 1, 2017 By Jay Brooks

Sunday’s ad, and the first one for 2017, is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1949. In the later 1940s, Pabst embarked on a series of ads with celebrity endorsements, photographing star actors, athletes, musicians and other famous people in their homes, enjoying Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. I’ll be posting as many ads from this series as I could find all this month, but this first ad is something of a tease, showing ten of the ads to comes, which must have been originally a sort of ‘best of’ ad. But don’t despair if you can’t make out any of the stars in this ad, as I have larger versions of each of the photos shown here so that before January is over, you’ll know who each of them is, and why they were famous in the 1940s.

PBR-1949-best-of-2

Beer In Ads #2142: .. And It’s Double-Flavored, Too!

December 31, 2016 By Jay Brooks

Saturday’s ad, and the last one for 2016, is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, again from 1942. It’s another fairly odd cartoon with our two intrepid window washers, this time in white overalls with red shirts, up a flagpole, bouncing down. Another pun-filled ad again titled “‘DOUBLE-HOPPED’ is why it’s DOUBLE DRY .. and Double-Flavored, too!” The ad copy certainly suggests they were emphasizing the beer’s hop character, and then even mention the brewing process for this beer, or at least part of it, and it’s only slightly altered from the first of these I found three days ago. “Here’s how it’s DOUBLE-HOPPED to double your refreshment. 1. Hops are added in the brew kettles, the usual way. 2. Then, in a unique process, additional hops are suspended in tanks where the ale ages. Slowly, these tender young blossoms add their fragrance and flavor…giving double the tangy dryness, double the delicious aroma and distinctive flavor.” I don’t know how unique that was, it sounds pretty much like dry-hopping, though maybe it was unusual in the U.S. at the time. Or could simply have been adspeak hyperbole. But they’re not done, and end with this pun. “Hop To It and See!”

Patent No. 5077061A: Method Of Making Alcohol-Free Beer

December 31, 2016 By Jay Brooks

patent-logo
Today in 1991, US Patent 5077061 A was issued, an invention of Christian Zurcher and Rudiger Gruss, assigned to Binding-Brauerei Ag, for their “Method of Making Alcohol-Free or Nearly Alcohol-Free Beer.” Here’s the Abstract:

A method of producing an alcohol-free or low alcohol beer comprising thermally breaking malt draff to obtain a malt draff mash from a substrate selected from the group consisting of a full- or a high-alcohol content beer brewing base or a protein fraction obtained from malt draff by digesting, boiling or autoclaving during the production of edible draff meal in a draff mash. The method homogenizes, extrudes and mechanically removes insoluble chaff from the brewing base prior to thermally breaking up the malt draff, cooling the malt draff mash to about 72° C., emzymatically breaking up the malt draff mash by adding coarsely ground malt, heating the mash to 80°-85° C., adding thereto coarsely ground malt premashed in cold water to produce a wort with a final fermentation degree of at most 60% and a temperature of 70°-74° C., which is maintained until iodine normality is attained and subjecting the iodine normal mash to mashing.

I’ve visited the brewery in Frankfurt, and done several blind panel tastings of N/A beer, and Clausthaler consistently comes in at our near the top. Also, it was our best-selling non-alcoholic when I was the chain beer buyer at BevMo. too.

Beer In Ads #2141: It’s Double-Dry

December 30, 2016 By Jay Brooks

Friday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, again from 1942. It’s another fairly odd cartoon with our two intrepid window washers, all in red, back again. This time they’re again jumping down off a building, but it must have been shorter since they’re not using buckets as parachutes. The pun-filled ad is again titled “‘DOUBLE-HOPPED’ is why it’s DOUBLE DRY .. and Double-Flavored, too!” The ad copy certainly suggests they were emphasizing the beer’s hop character, and then even mention the brewing process for this beer, or at least part of it, and it’s only slightly altered from the first of these I found two days ago. “Here’s how it’s DOUBLE-HOPPED to double your refreshment. 1. Hops are added in the brew kettles, the usual way. 2. Then, in a unique process, additional hops are suspended in tanks where the ale ages. Slowly, these tender young blossoms add their fragrance and flavor…giving double the tangy dryness, double the delicious aroma and distinctive flavor.” I don’t know how unique that was, it sounds pretty much like dry-hopping, though maybe it was unusual in the U.S. at the time. Or could simply have been adspeak hyperbole. But they’re not done, and end with this pun. “Hop To It and See!”

Pabst-1942-double-dry

Patent No. 3486512A: Fluid Transport Line Cleaning Device And System

December 30, 2016 By Jay Brooks

patent-logo
Today in 1969, US Patent 3486512 A was issued, an invention of Anthony Marino, for his “Fluid Transport Line Cleaning Device and System.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:

Fluid transport line cleaning device and system inclusive of upright container having inlets for passing cleaning material and water into container for mixing in container and outlet for delivering mixture from container under pressure. Pipe having valve controlled outlets and line couplings for selectively passing mixture from container through fluid transport lines coupled thereto such as syrup lines and beer lines having tap rods and associated faucets at bar counter locations. Portion of pipe for beer lines being rigid and arranged for wall mounting at bar counter for supporting a portion of pipe and container in upright position.

US3486512-0

Beer In Ads #2140: “Double-Hopped” Is Why

December 29, 2016 By Jay Brooks

Thursday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, again from 1942. It’s another fairly odd cartoon with our two intrepid window washers, all in red, trading in their overalls for bathing suits. This time they’re at the circus, and diving off the high diving board, into the tiny bucket of water and bouncing over to the carousel, landing on a pair of camels, having snagged two bottled of ale along the way. A trick dive, indeed.vThe pun-filled ad is titled “‘DOUBLE-HOPPED’ is why it’s DOUBLE DRY .. and Double-Flavored, too!” I don’t think I realized that Pabst had made an ale, and it was called “Pabst Blue Ribbon Double-Dry Ale,” no less. The ad copy certainly suggests they were emphasizing the beer’s hop character, and then even mention the brewing process for this beer, or at least part of it.

Patent No. 2919193A: Process Of Preventing Haze Formation In Beverages

December 29, 2016 By Jay Brooks

patent-logo
Today in 1959, US Patent 2919193 A was issued, an invention of Harry J. Sandell, for his “Process of Preventing Haze Formation in Beverages.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:

The present invention relates to a method of reducing or preventing formation of hazes in fermented or unfermented beverages produced from cereals, fruits, other vegetable materials or parts thereof, and especially in malt beverages, e.g. beer, and in fruit juices and wines.
The present invention is based upon the surprising discovery that it is possible to prevent the formation of a haze in beverages such as, for instance, malt beverages, fruit juices and wines, by the addition of polyvinyl pyrrolidone or a homologue thereof in an excess over the above-mentioned quantity, i.e. 0 to 8 g. per hectolitre, which is necessary for maximum precipitation of the haze forming constituents. The process of the instant invention thus comprises adding polyvinyl pyrrolidone in a total quantity of at least 1 g. per hectolitre and in any case in an excess quantity of at least 50% over that needed for maximum precipitation. The stated lower limit 0 g. per hectolitre for the quantity of PVP that is needed for maximum precipitation either refers to the case (1) in which PVP having an average molecular weight of below about 15,000 is used and thus cannot form any precipitate or refers to the case (2) in which the kind or quality of beverage, e.g. beer, used does not give any precipitate with PVP even if the average molecular weight of the PVP used is above about 15,000. In the first-mentioned case, i.e. WhenP having a lower average molecular weight than 15,000 is used, it has been found, that a good result is obtained if the treatment with PVP is carried out according to the above-mentioned invention, i.e. by adding at least 1 g. of PVP per hectolitre. In the second case there is also obtained a good result if to the beverage there is added at least 1 g. of’PVP independent of its average molecular weight. While thus an excess of’P-VP of 1 g. per hectolitre might be considered as usable it has been found that when using PVP of an average molecular weight below about 15,000 or above about 15,000 it is suitable to add totally at least 5 grams of PVP per hectolitre provided that there is added at least 50% in excess over the quantity of PVP of’O to 8 grams per hectolitre that is needed for maximum precipitation of the haze forming-constituents with the PVP in question.

chill-haze

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