S14DB

Pabst Brewing Co. for sale once again - JSOnline

By Tom Daykin of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Nov. 2, 2009

Pabst Brewing Co., owner of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Schlitz and other old-line beer brands, is on the sale block again.

Pabst's owner, the Kalmanovitz Charitable Foundation, based in Mill Valley, Calif., has hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch to find a buyer willing to pay around $300 million, according to the New York Post, which cited unnamed sources in a Monday article.

Executives at Pabst, based in suburban Chicago, and foundation officials didn't return phone calls seeking comment.

The sale effort is apparently the result of a deadline imposed by the Internal Revenue Service. Federal tax laws don't allow charitable foundations to own for-profit companies.

The IRS initially gave the foundation until 2005 to sell Pabst. That deadline was extended to 2010 when a buyer couldn't be found, according to a 2008 report by the Chicago Tribune.

Pabst, and its predecessor company, Best Brewing Co., was a Milwaukee mainstay for more than a century when it was acquired in 1985 by Paul Kalmanovitz. He bought other declining breweries, including Pearl and Falstaff, that were losing market share to growing giants Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing. Kalmanovitz died in 1987.

Pabst closed its Milwaukee brewery in 1996 and shuttered its last remaining brewery in 2001 after hiring Miller, now known as MillerCoors LLC, to brew its brands. Pabst in 2006 moved its offices from San Antonio, Texas, to Woodridge, Ill., where it has around 30 employees.

Because Pabst doesn't own breweries, it mainly operates as a marketing company, crafting strategies for selling dozens of brands, which also include Old Milwaukee, Stroh's and Heileman's Old Style.

In recent years, Pabst Blue Ribbon has seen revived sales when it was embraced by drinkers in their 20s, who see it as welcome contrast to heavily marketed beers.

Pabst Brewing also successfully relaunched Schlitz with its original formula from the '60s and announced it was bringing back "kraeusening," a process that uses additional fermentation, for Old Style.

Despite those efforts, Pabst Brewing's sales volume in 2008 dropped by 3.3%, to 5.9 million barrels from 6.1 million barrels, according to data compiled by Beer Marketer's Insights.

But that was a smaller drop than Pabst Brewing had seen in previous years. And it came as the company saw a big boost during the fourth quarter of 2008, with a 9% increase. That was fueled by a big jump in Pabst Blue Ribbon sales and higher Schlitz sales.

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Comments should be taken as Opinions not as Statements of Fact.

BustedS13

in before "OMG PBR IS SHIT DRINK ARROGANT BASTARD"

PBR is the best deal going in every bar downtown it seems
and Schlitz Gusto is just great beer.

Twinchy

^ i agree there is a bar in my area that sells them for like $3 i think for a 24oz can and during like happy hour its like $2 or $1 i think.. its not bad at all

BustedS13

my favorite bar in the area sells cans for 1.75 (.75 during happy hour), the hookah bar i dig sells bottles for 2.00 every day, and my preferred movie theater sells 24oz cans for 3.00, which is rad when you get a bucket of them and see a movie.

1quk240

there are a couple punk bars here that have PBR days for .50cents

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Agamemnon

PBR is huge in the north Seattle area. All the rockabilly folks swear by it.

I am a self described beer snob, and I can't get over how well it tastes compared to the other "cheap" beers out there.

Edgar @ Swapped

I love PBR because i'm broke

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exitspeed

I love beer and Milwaukee.

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S14DB

I can't take a beer company that doesn't own their own brewery seriously.

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Comments should be taken as Opinions not as Statements of Fact.

punxva

i couldn't agree more, soon our beer will be knocked off and sold as CBR from china.

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-Punxva

IIIXziuR

Oh man PBR, say it ain't so!
You taste oh so terrible and don't own your own brewery.
How silly.

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OhTheIrony.biz

!Zar!

Interesting read. Though I must say that journalist really needs to take a writing class.

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-=Mel=-

brndck

pbr USED to be the cheap beer in socal, but then the bars started catching on that everyone was drinking it so now they charge $4 for it. eff that.

zilvia group buy to own pbr?

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ericcastro

fuck pbr.
it was good when it was $1 for a tall boy at the bar in WA.
and about $6 ish for a 12 pack in the bar at 2am on your way out.

but the trend followers got it in the cool list and now its like $4 here in socal.
i will take a real beer for that price.

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No, its not an SR, its a single cam..........

Matej

In Soviet Russia bar pays you to drink PBR.

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ohtheIRONY.biz

brndck

fuckin matej....
that was the best lol i've had today!

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I am the future Eric Castro

http://outslidersandsmokeproduce.blogspot.com/

ronmcdon

yeah it is odd how that scene has that fetish over pbr.
the greaser barber-shop i used to go to in oc, ca served it to patrons for free.
wish more haircut places served beer.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/hawleywoods-...p-costa-mesa-2

can't really complain about free stuff,
but it's a pretty flat & plain tasting beer imo.
I'd also take it over most commerical beers like a Bud or Corona,
but then again that's not saying much to begin with.