"Pabst Blue Ribbon" news and stories

Like countless coming-of-legal-age drinkers before me, I cut my teeth on Pabst Blue Ribbon. PBR was the perfect beer -- if you cared less about flavor than cost, a principle that rules many boozing decisions when you're young. And though I'm loathe to admit it now, I also bought into the brand's blue-collar appeal: I saw PBR as a rebuttal to Bud, Coors and their watery, domestic ilk. Ahh, misguided youth.

Truth is, no matter how many kooky bike races or arm-wrestling competitions that PBR sponsored, it was always a big dog masquerading as an underdog. (Its 2.7 percent market share is nearly three times as big as America's largest craft brewer, Sam Adams.) And it may get even bigger.

The brand, which also includes Schlitz, Colt 45, Lone Star and Old Style, was just sold for $250 million to businessman C. Dean Metropoulos. He no doubt hopes to make PBR as much a household name as Chef Boyardee or Vlasic Pickles -- other homogeneous foodstuffs he's built into billion-dollar powerhouses.

Earlier this week, Advertising Age ran a story entitled "What Your Taste in Beer Says About You."

Citing researched compiled by Mindset Media -- a "market researcher specializing in psychographics" -- the article discusses how the beer a person drinks can be a strong indicator of his or her personality. For instance, Bud drinkers are "sensible, grounded and practical," Bud Light drinkers can have "frat boy-like personalities," and Michelob Ultra drinkers "think highly of themselves and can be a little bit conceited."

The concept is interesting, but why spend all that money on "research"? Most people could come up with those same assumptions on their own. In fact, the list can be extrapolated even further... massive research grant hopefully forthcoming.

• Pabst Blue Ribbon drinkers consider playing bass in a punk band "gainful employment" and have handlebar mustaches.
• Miller Lite drinkers consider the consumption of 20 beers "moderate drinking" and include beer bongs on their list of "proper glassware."
• Sam Adams drinkers love wearing the same Red Sox hat for their entire adult life and believe there's nothing wrong with hitting on someone else's girlfriend.
• Guinness drinkers think the best football team is Manchester United and consider a fist fight a "night out on the town."
• Busch drinkers think the best bar in America is their porch and consider a proper food and beer pairing to be "a pounder and a bag of Hardee's."

And snobby craft beers drinkers tend to be people like beer writers who think they have a right to make fun of others!

What other beers bring to mind distinct personality types? And what does your favorite beer say about you? Let us know in the comments!

An old friend came into town this Sunday. We kicked off the celebration with a bottle of DeuS and, long story short, I haven't gotten around to blogging until today. Perfect time to catch up on this week's beer happenings with a beer blog round-up.

1. There's been a lot of chatter about the Men's Fitness list of "America's five best bars for beer lovers." In today's beer climate, limiting the list down to just 5 seems impossible, and, with as little offense to Men's Fitness as possible, I'm not sure if they are the magazine to do it.
   
2. The idea of healthy beer has been a headturner as a number of blogs and news sites have been running the story of scientists at Rice University who integrated the anti-aging chemicals from red wine into a new BioBeer. Here's what Discovery had to say about it.
3. Hipsters really seemed to Digg this article on Sloshspot discussing The Evolution of Pabst Blue Ribbon's Beer Advertising. Or you can just drop into Bob & Barbara's on South St. in Philadelphia and see it all firsthand.

Ah, the economy. You can blame that sucker for anything. A recent article in Advertising Age suggests that the recent economic downturn has caused a significant uptick in the sales of budget beer brands such as Miller High Life, Keystone, Busch and Natural Light.

But I'm skeptical. Sure, a suffering economy will send people looking for ways to save, but Miller High Life was boosting advertising and making sales strides well before the market crashed. And uber-underdog budget brand Pabst Blue Ribbon exploded back from obscurity over the course of nearly a decade.

Economy aside, here are two other reasons that may explain the recent surge in the budget beer sector:

Read the reasons after the jump...

A great man -- MC Paul Barman -- once said of beer: "The liquid is ubiquitous and has such a hold; on all the strata, it's just got to be government-controlled. Behind the bottle and the throne sits an unknown man wiser and bigger for the liquor store the number one franchiser. Perhaps George Bush and his sons are relatives of Anheiser."

I'm not 100% sure what MC was talking about, but his gist is right: Sometimes you just feel like beer is everywhere. Television, sporting events, plastered on the side of a bus: It's seems like everyone wants us to be thinking beer. Which got me thinking, What beers do I encounter on an average day?

A far more accomplished lyricist -- John Lennon -- once wrote a song called "A Day in the Life," and from what I've heard Lennon liked to drink, so in his honor, here, after the jump, were my beer encounters on an average day... Tuesday.