22 October 2001

The End of the American Dream Schlitz, Stroh, Heileman and Pabst or the disappearance of the regional US brewers

"Schlitz is gone, Stroh is gone ... and I am not feeling too well myself." This is how Pabst might be thinking these days. Greedy shareholders, sly lawyers, unscrupulous entrepreneurs: The decline of the regional US brewers has had several protagonists, few winners and one big loser - the city of Milwaukee, whose downtown today resembles a memorial to the brewing industry.

During the second half of the 20th century, three brewers made Milwaukee famous: Schlitz, Pabst and Miller. Among those big wig brewers - we are talking hectolitre millionaires after all - Pabst was the oldest. The brewery was founded in 1844. That was even before Milwaukee became a city. The Miller brewery started production four years later in 1848, Schlitz in 1849 and Blatz in 1851. But to a large part....

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