| Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company | |||||||||||
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| Location | Milwaukee, Wisconsin | ||||||||||
| Owner(s) | Pabst Brewing (brands owner) | ||||||||||
| Year opened | 1858 | ||||||||||
| Website | http://www.schlitzgusto.com/ | ||||||||||
| Active beers | |||||||||||
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The Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company was an American brewery based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was once the largest producer of beer in the world. Its namesake beer, Schlitz, was known as "The beer that made Milwaukee famous" and was famously advertised with the slogan "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer".[1] Schlitz first became the world's top beer producer in 1902 and enjoyed that status at several points during the first half of the twentieth century, exchanging the claim with Anheuser-Busch multiple times during the 1950s.[2]
The company was founded by August Krug in 1849 but acquired by Joseph Schlitz in 1858.[3] Schlitz was bought by Stroh Brewery Company in 1982 and subsequently sold along with the rest of Stroh's assets to the Pabst Brewing Company in 1999.
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In Milwaukee, Schlitz was hired as a bookkeeper in a tavern brewery owned by August Krug. In 1856, he took over management of the brewery following the death of Krug. Two years after Schlitz married Krug's widow, he changed the name of the brewery to the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co.[4]
The company began to succeed after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, when Schlitz donated thousands of barrels of beer to that city, which had lost most of its breweries. He quickly opened a distribution point there, beginning a national expansion. Schlitz built dozens of tied houses in Chicago, most with a concrete relief of the company logo embedded in the brickwork; several of these buildings survive today, including Schuba's Tavern at the corner of Belmont and Southport. In 1873 Schlitz rejected a purchase offer from Tennessee brewer Bratton and Sons; Schlitz felt his dream of quality beer for the people was more important than immediate financial gain.
Schlitz died May 7, 1875, when on a return visit to Germany; his ship hit a rock near Land's End, Cornwall, and sank. Control of the corporation passed into the hands of the Uihlein brothers, nephews of founder August Krug. When Anna Maria Krug Schlitz died in 1887, the Uihleins acquired complete ownership of the firm.[5]
The company flourished through much of the 1900s, starting in 1902 when the production of one million barrels of beer surpassed Pabst's claim as the largest brewery in the world. Schlitz was continuously in competition as one of the top breweries in America for the next 70 years. While prohibition forced the suspension of alcoholic brewing, the company changed its name from Brewing Company to Beverage Company and adapted its slogan to "The drink that made Milwaukee Famous."
Popularity of Schlitz's namesake beer, along with the introduction of value priced Old Milwaukee in 1955, kept the brewery on a strong financial footing. However, changes implemented in the early 1970s led to its eventual fall. Faced with the need to meet large volume demands while also cutting the cost of production, the brewing process for Schlitz's flagship Schlitz beer was changed in the early 1970s. The primary change involved using high-temperature fermentation instead of the traditional method, and also substituted less-expensive extracts rather than traditional ingredients.[6] Schlitz also experimented with a continuous fermentation process.[7] even designing and building a new Baldwinsville, New York, brewery around the process. The reformulated product resulted in a beer that not only lost much of the flavor and consistency of the traditional formula but spoiled more quickly, rapidly losing public appeal.
Schlitz remained the No. 2 brewery in America as late as 1976, but the ongoing formula changes implemented in an effort to keep cutting costs continued the downfall. The ultimate blow to the company was a crippling strike at the Milwaukee plant in 1981, which led to serious financial difficulties and an eventual acquisition by Stroh Brewery Company of Detroit, Michigan, after a lengthy 1982 legal battle.
What remained of the historic Schlitz Brewery complex in Milwaukee was transformed with Tax Increment Financing and other government support into a mixed-use development called Schlitz Park.[8]
Further hurt by the rise of high-volume light beers such as Miller Lite and Bud Light, a direction Schlitz did not aggressively pursue (although James Coburn appeared in commercials for the short-lived "Schlitz Light"), the popularity of its namesake beer declined significantly following the sale to Stroh, itself taken over by Pabst in 1999. The once strong Schlitz brand was relegated to cheap beer or "bargain brand" status and became increasingly difficult to find in bars and restaurants, especially after the draft version was discontinued in 2001.
During the reformulating period of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the original Schlitz formula was lost and never included in any of the subsequent sales of the company. Through research of documents and interviews with former Schlitz brewmasters and taste-testers, the 1960s formula was reconstructed; the new beer, along with a new television advertising campaign, was officially introduced in 2008.[9]
The first markets for relaunching included Chicago, Florida, Boston, Minneapolis-Saint Paul and later Milwaukee and New York.[10] The beer also became available in Ontario, Canada, brewed by Stroh's Brewing, a subsidiary of Sleeman Breweries. On October 1, 2008, the original Schlitz was introduced into liquor stores and taverns in Madison, Wisconsin,[11] and in the St. Louis, Missouri, area in April 2009. The classic "gusto" version will eventually be introduced into remaining markets. Schlitz is also available at select bars in the New Orleans area.
Four malt liquors—Schlitz Malt Liquor, Schlitz Red Bull, Schlitz Bull Ice and Schlitz Very Smooth Lager—are also produced.
Schlitz benefited from a resurgence of so-called Old School beers, like Pabst Blue Ribbon and Blatz, and also from placement in movies.