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Donohue took a job on the next ship headed to the war, the Drake Victory, a merchant vessel transporting ammo to the ’nam from New York. He got the names and units of a half-dozen guys in the neighborhood, grabbed a seabag, stuffed it full of PBR, threw on a pair of light blue jeans, a plaid shirt, and headed out. Two months later, in early 1968, he arrived in Vietnam — just in time for the start of the Tet Offensive against U.S. and South Vietnamese troops. ***** Donohue ran through his beer supply in transit, but stocked up...

A Russian beverage company said on Thursday that it was acquiring the Pabst Brewing Company, which makes the Pabst Blue Ribbon beer popular with barflies and hipsters alike and other brands like Colt 45 and Old Milwaukee. [snip] The buyer is Oasis Beverages, a Russian brewer and beverages distributor. Backing Oasis is TSG Consumer Partners, an American private equity firm focused on consumer goods, which will take a minority stake. “Pabst Blue Ribbon is the quintessential American brand – it represents individualism, egalitarianism and freedom of expression – all the things that make this country great,” Eugene Kashper, the chairman...

TALLAHASSEE —A nearly 6-foot-tall "Festivus" pole made from empty beer cans will be put up in the Florida Capitol this week as a not-so-subtle protest to the recent placement of a Christmas nativity scene. The mock monument will be erected most likely on Wednesday in the same first-floor rotunda as a nativity scene depicting the birth of Jesus Christ put up last week by the Florida Prayer Network. "I still chuckle, I literally can't believe there will be a pile of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans in the state rotunda," said Chaz Stevens, a Deerfield Beach resident who applied to the...

DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla.,- This year, a Nativity scene in Deerfield Beach, Fla., features a "Festivus pole" made of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer cans, as well as a Menorah. The pole, a reference to the Dec. 23 atheist "holiday" that became a pop culture hit after being featured in a "Seinfeld" episode, was installed Thursday by activist blogger Chaz Stevens, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported. Stevens said he had been trying to get the city to remove the Nativity scene for five years, and this year he decided to ask for space to express his own beliefs. "It's just 23...

Here’s another reason to be annoyed at hipsters: They’re driving up the price of beer. A recent study has found that the price of low- and mid-range beers has been climbing at U.S. bars and restaurants. And the guy who oversaw the study for Massachusetts-based research firm Restaurant Sciences said he thinks the popularity of Pabst Blue Ribbon could be the cause. “While all the attention has been on craft beers, the price of mainstay brands in the mid-price tier have risen more dramatically,” Research Sciences President Chuck Ellis said. …

As an unexpected shower cascades outside, Dennis Hopper walks into the hotel dining-room as if the sun has just burst through the clouds. Wearing jeans, a tie and a powder-blue jacket, he has a huge cigar wedged in his mouth - one of the few vices left to a man who, at his worst, consumed half a gallon of rum, 28 beers and three grams of cocaine a day. Looking more like a movie mogul than the counterculture icon of Easy Rider, he is in celebratory mood. "This is my 50th year in the film business," he announces, his grey...