Posted on 07/02/2008 1:52:46 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer, according to an old ad campaign.
And, as Milwaukee-area beer lovers are discovering, a lot of places are out of Schlitz, at least in the bottled form.
Within days of the Schlitz 1960s formula being brought back to Milwaukee, the beer was largely sold out - snapped up by both older guys who remember the beer from back in the day, and younger drinkers curious about the fuss.
A new shipment is coming to liquor stores and taverns beginning Wednesday, but it will be relatively small, said Mike Merriman, president of Beer Capitol Distributing Inc., the wholesaler for Schlitz in Milwaukee County.
Pabst Brewing Co., which owns the Schlitz brand, is expanding production based on the heavy demand in Milwaukee, and Merriman hopes to see the supply situation smoothed out by mid-July. Until then, he said, it will be "a little bit hit and miss" for consumers.
"The overwhelming success was much better than anticipated," Merriman said Tuesday.
The bottled Schlitz, which is being sold as the "Classic 1960s formula," was first rolled out last year in Tampa, Fla., and Minneapolis. Pabst launched it in Chicago in April, and in Milwaukee last week.
Compared with the Schlitz sold in cans, the reformulated Schlitz in bottles has a more full-bodied taste. Pabst, based in suburban Chicago, owns dozens of brands but doesn't operate any breweries. Classic Schlitz is brewed under a contract arrangement by MillerCoors LLC at its Eden, N.C., brewery.
Based on sales in those other cities, Pabst rolled out Classic Schlitz in a handful of Milwaukee-area liquor stores and taverns. Beer Capitol is initially selling it at around 30 locations, Merriman said. He'd like to eventually see it in roughly 700 outlets throughout Milwaukee County.
W.O.W. Distributing Co., a Schlitz wholesaler for Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties, saw the beer quickly sell out within its 10 accounts, said President Aldo Madrigrano. He's eager to get more cases delivered.
"It's a good problem, but it is a problem," Madrigrano said.
At Ray's Liquor, in Wauwatosa, Beer Capitol delivered 70 cases - the equivalent of 112 12-packs, and 56 six-packs - a week ago Tuesday. It was virtually all gone by the time Ray's opened the next day, said Roy Mueller, general manager.
"That's quite amazing," Mueller said.
He said the customers were a mix of older and younger drinkers, including people in their 30s who wanted to try bottled Schlitz. With the strong demand, it's priced at $5.49 for a six-pack. By comparison, a six-pack of Miller Lite sells for $4.99.
Ray's will receive a new shipment today from Beer Capitol. But Mueller said it probably won't even make it to the sales floor. He has a waiting list with about 40 names, and plans to call those customers.
"We'll probably allocate a six-pack apiece," he said.
Nasty stuff
Wasn’t the old commercial on TV on Saturday baseball a cartoon guy called the Old Pro, or something like that and he made the commerical for Schlitz.
schlitz would make a killing here as well. tons of people wear schlitz t-shirts and trucker hats. it's kitchy.
The dreaded "Beer Goggle" effect:
How many old pull tab chain necklaces have you made in your lifetime? ..remember them?
$5.49 for a six pack of Schlitz?
For goodness sake, I can buy a 12 pack of Old Milwaukee for $6.49.
Dollar for dollar, there is no finer beer than Old Milwaukee.
Well that makes sense.
Minneapolis in the 60s:
The only beer you could find was Schlitz and Hamms.
Only foreigners drank Budweiser.
My mother-in-law was secretary to the chairman of the board at Schlitz. We got free cases of beer twice a month, sweet deal when you’re newly married and poor.
I still have her old stapler with the Schlitz name on it and her old manual typewriter.
They turned the Schlitz building into condos I believe.
Let's get together for a glass of Schlitz
A friendly glass of Schlitz
Brewed with pride(?) and just a kiss of the hops
To put real gusto into every drop
Oh...and then I forget the rest.
Based upon comments from experts I must politely question the validity of your beer googles.
You can drink a girl pretty, but you can’t drink her thin.
Could Stag and Mr. Magoo may a come back as well?
Is this stuff actually good? Or just another American domestic beer?
It’s always puzzled me how we took loads of British, Irish, and German immigrants and ended up with such terrible domestic beers. Just watered down, riced up garbage all too often.
“It’s always puzzled me how we took loads of British, Irish, and German immigrants and ended up with such terrible domestic beers. Just watered down, riced up garbage all too often.”
Prohibition killed our beer makers, except for a few large companies who survived by moving into other markets. When prohibition ended, the large companies dominated the market until around the 1980s.
Today, we have many good choices; and even the large beer companies improved their selections.
I was born in 1960, but my folks and grandparents were quite the beer drinkers every weekend. After church on Sundays, of course, from kick off to last touch down of the Packers Game that week, LOL!
My Aunt used to make us necklaces out of folded Wrigley’s Gum wrappers. Remember those?
So, yes, we always had beer tabs to play with. My family moved from Milwaukee in 1970 and no one knew what a “church key” was in our new town.
Do you? ;)
ping
Despite what you’re hearing on this thread, Schlitz on tap is pretty good if you like lagers. I’m reserving judgment on the new version, and if it’s marketed “upscale,” no thanks.
My Uncles and their pals used to drive to CO to buy Coors beer before it was distributed in the Midwest. They made a tidy profit for themselves for a few years there.
Grandma and Mom used to drive down to some Illinois border town from Milwaukee to buy oleo-margarine for all the neighborhood ladies who all chipped in for gasoline. Margarine was ILLEGAL here in the Dairy State back then.
If Sis & I were ‘good girls’ on the trip, we got to stir the coloring packet into the margarine to make it yellow when we got home. (How silly was that whole “ban” of margarine?)
So, I come from a long line of ‘bootleggers,’ LOL!
Back in the early 70s, Schlitz was the only American beer I knew of that tasted the same no matter where you bought it. A Schlitz in Thailand tasted just like one in America. Other American beers like Olympia were... different... overseas. This was important during the war because when you came in from getting shot at, the last thing you wanted was a taste adventure.
What that taste was, was American generic. Not bad, not great and much improved by being cold. But by the early 80s the taste of Schlitz seemed to vary from can to can, mostly in unfortunate directions. Eventually the delusion that a advertising could offset poor product quality did Schlitz in.
"Do you? ;)"Who doesn't? You need one for this beer can.
I'm a Leinenkugel Girl, myself. That and Sam Adams. And Husband can pour a mean 'Black & Tan' but that's usually too filling for me, unless it's a complete meal in the dead of a Wisconsin Winter.
Leinie’s guy here too! I love the Honey Weiss.
Did you know that sealed cans were invented long before can openers? What genius thought that up? LOL!
I used to wear a P-38 with my dog tags. I still have a scar on my right boob from a little mis-hap when I had to 'hit the ground,' fast one day. ;)
Honey Weiss is good. Some women I used to work with would make their own version of a ‘Black & Tan’ with Honey Weiss and Leinie’s Raspberry something-or-other beer. Blech!
One of my brothers makes an awesome Raspberry Beer. Not too sweet, which I prefer.
LOL! Did you put in for your Purple Heart?
Some punk would stare into the camera and say, “You want to take away my Schlitz?” Then he would tell you how he was going to beat you up.
It was probably the most disastrous add campaign of all time.
How dare you; I’m no John Kerry, LOL! :)
Hey! Yer ‘nearer da beer’ than most of us. What’s new in beer-related news up in yer part a da state?
(Have you started talking like that yet? I know you’re a transplant. It’s contagious, Ena Hey?)
The ad that made Schlitz infamous
Phil Rosenthal | Media - April 6, 2008
You can have your 3 a.m. White House crisis call. You can bring Harry Caray back from the dead as a raving coot. You can even have the one in which pals are riding in their Volkswagen, blithely gabbing away like they’re in an old Dockers ad, until they get plowed into by another vehicle.
But the scariest TV commercial of the last 40 years was for Schlitz beer, which Woodridge-based Pabst Brewing has announced it’s bringing back to a few select locations on Chicago’s North Side, using the classic 1960s Schlitz recipe, no less.
There are many reasons Schlitz, the No. 2 beer in America behind only Budweiser as late as 1976, virtually vanished years ago.
To save money, the brewing process was altered, changing the taste and making Schlitz the New Coke of beers. The brewer also was hurt by labor trouble. Eventually Schlitz, which for years touted itself as “the beer that made Milwaukee famous,” was acquired by Detroit’s Stroh Brewery Co., which itself shut down in 1999.
But in charting how Schlitz went flat, don’t underestimate the contribution of the TV commercials it ran in the late 1970s in a desperate bid to hold on to market share but which had entirely the opposite effect.
It’s gone down in popular lore as the Drink Schlitz or I’ll Kill You campaign, an example of being too edgy and not too sharp all at once.
In advertising circles, it’s held up as a cautionary tale. You know, cut through the clutter but don’t stab the client—that sort of thing.
You should be able to find an example on YouTube.com. Search for: Schlitz wilderness man.
In retrospect, the 1977 ad from Chicago’s Leo Burnett USA that’s online could be mistaken for a “Saturday Night Live” parody, along the lines of Spud, the potato beer that made Boise famous.
At best, it’s stupid. At worst, it’s a brand killer that squandered much, if not all, of the goodwill of earlier ads that embedded lines such as “When you’re out of Schlitz, you’re out of beer” and “Go for the gusto” into the national consciousness.
An off-screen, clearly uneasy person suggests taking away a rugged mountain-man/lumberjack-type’s Schlitz so he can try another beer, causing the cougar at the guy’s side to rear up and growl as if poised to attack until Mr. Menacing Drinker calms the cat down.
“Down baby, I can take care of this,” the glaring Not Quite the Unabomber says in a gruff voice that has you noticing the ax within his grasp rather than the fact he’s apparently delicate enough to bother pouring his beer from a can into a glass mug with the Schlitz logo on it even when he’s out in the wilderness. “You want to take away my Schlitz? You want to take away my gusto? Hah. You’re the first person that ever made me laugh.”
Then he says to the cougar, “Say hello to your lunch.”
The cougar again growls.
You can’t help but wonder how much of the product was downed before execs signed off on that one.
Forget the tag, which is “When you don’t have Schlitz, you don’t have gusto,” capped by the Paul Bunyan/Ted Bundy stand-in holding his can of Schlitz between his thumb and forefinger just so and adding, “You don’t have beer.”
They might as well have said, “This blood’s for you.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-sun-rosenthal6-apr06,0,7640509.column
I have not picked up any strange accents! My southern Caribbean works just fine, thank you. Although I will unintentionally mimic that Minnesota accent when a few folks around here start talking like that.
A case of schlitz.
Old Milwaukee. Man, those were the good ole days!
I beg to differ.................
In a blind tasting, Consumer Reports said Old Milwaukee was America’s best tasting lager.
It is not often you will stumble upon such a high quality beer, at any price. With its fine breeding and high quality, Old Milwauke is not a beer to be either trifled with, or sneered at.
Basically, Schlitz cheapened the taste of the beer and destroyed the brand’s reputation.
Most people don’t realize that Schlitz was enriched with “Sunshine Vitamin D”-— that same health promoting vitamin found in good tasting milk and not so good tasting cod liver oil. Believe it or not, the ads during the 1930’s stated Schlitz With Sunshine Vitamin D was good for its drinkers. From a personal viewpoint, Schlitz took a big chance with this bold statement, because a lot of people have a reputation of staying away from food and beverages that were considered good for them. In this case, Schlitz drinkers didn’t mind, because their favorite beer was delightful to the taste buds from the first sip to the last.
In later years, Schlitz advertising went from Vitamin D to kissing. In addition to the best ingredients used, the secret to the beer’s success was Schlitz-— and only Schlitz used “Just The Kiss Of The Hops.” No, the Schlitz people didn’t pucker up and kiss every hop it used for its beer. The Kiss Of The Hops contributed to a light beer taste without a single trace of bitterness.
With a lot of satisfied beer drinkers around the country, Schlitz consistently ranked among the top selling brands. Not only that, Schlitz was THE largest selling beer during the early 1950’s.
On the radio, Vic Damone sang a clever jingle on the real joy of good living. When beer was a part of that good living, Damone musically suggested that all beer drinkers “Move Up To Quality….. Move up To Schlitz.”
I spent a l-o-n-g summer at Camp Beauregard, LA teaching a survival course. I was pretty much speaking a mix of Cajun, French and ‘Old Milwaukee’ by the time I left, LOL! Man, people know how to eat down der! :)
Those New Glarus beers are awesome! When I was a kid, Mom used to drag me to New Glarus because she sewed and could only get a certain hand-made lace there for her creations.
Now I gladly go there for the beer, LOL!
They were harsh beers. Tasted like beer. Pabst, Old Milwaukee. Cold. I actually liked them and can taste it right now. Had a corner office a decade ago overlooking Miller brewery on State Street so I kind of warmed up to Miller. Been on a diet with Miller lite for many years since.
As we used to say, "It was like making love in a canoe..."
Lucky!—Napoleon Dynamite.
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