Chicago Machine

PBR-Loving California mural, "I am Pabst." Image by Dan_H

The sale of the much beloved Woodridge-based Pabst Brewing Company to food mogul C. Dean Metropoulos went final on Friday. Now that all parties are talking with the media, a few tidbits almost as tasty as the revitalized Schlitz (another Pabst product we have been guzzling of late) have emerged, including a response to Karl’s suggestion last month that Billy Dee Williams be brought back to re-kick start the brewery’s Colt 45 brand. In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Metropoulos name-checks Jamie Foxx and Snoop Dogg as potential updated brand ambassadors.

Metropoulos also confirms that he had been looking to acquire a company for his sons to take the lead in running, noting that they had looked seriously at a modeling agency before focusing on one of the nation’s last and greatest independent breweries.

Buttoned-up East coast business reporters continue to struggle to describe the brewery’s allure, particularly the flagship Pabst Blue Ribbon’s growing popularity. The New York Times credits PBR’s strength to and embrace by “blue-collar workers and Brooklyn hipsters” while Bloomberg implies that the late, great Dennis Hopper turned the tide for it in Blue Velvet… Video after the bounce.

Reuters is even more hilariously awkward, though they do get to the real core of PBR’s embrace in the Chi:

… the low-cost Pabst Blue Ribbon has been rediscovered by thrifty, or broke, East Coast drinkers, who consider it exotic because of the beer's blue-collar, Midwest roots.

"It's cheap, and working in a downtown bar, there's not much that's cheap," said Heidi Schultz, who has tended bar at Chief Ike's Mambo Room since 1994. "Nobody has as much money as they used it, (and) it's not horrible."

But, come to think of it, maybe the Times is onto something afterall...this would make an amazing ad campaign!