What we’ve all known for a long time, the rest of the world is just discovering. That is the fact that Pabst Blue Ribbon is the hot, happening beer in the United States.
Attribute it to its cheepness or its fine ingredients or whatever you like, but it’s been an impending, inevitable reality for some time now. In Atlanta, one of the most popular (and oldest) bars in the city, Moe’s & Joe’s is a shrine to PBR. Every piece of PBR memorabilia one can think of is affixed to the walls. The youngsters pack into this place and swill more PBR than you thought was possible without inducing some sort of blindness condition.
So here in Atlanta, we’ve been drinking this stuff for a while. It was a bit fringe, but once the Earl opened, every hipster in town started chugging this stuff as if they were trying to slowly replace all of their bodily fluids with PBR.
But for me, it began with a wonderful time in a fine city in one of the best locales on the planet. The year was 1995, and Taung Child, the band I played in, was chugging its way across this vast nation on a tour of sorts. Our destination on this particularly humid June day was the Replay Lounge, in Lawrence, Kansas. The Replay combines some of the finest things in life into one location: live music, pinball, unstoppable youngsters, a bar and a large outdoor patio.
At the time we went there, one was greeted at the door by a lovely young alterna-hipster hottie selling PBR tall boys for $1.00 out of a large washtup full of ice. On a humid Kansas night, after a long drive in a van with three other men and a heavy heart, it was just the perfect thing. To sit on that patio and relish the gooeyness of the humidity and the singing of the night insects while swilling PBR’s was just too perfect.
Since then, I’ve probably consumed hundreds, if not thousands of the things. I don’t drink it exclusively, but when you play in a band in Atlanta, you tend to get a lot of free PBR. And you know what they say about switching your style up right in the middle of something… you shouldn’t do it.
Even among many beer snobs, an occasional PBR on a hot day is OK, despite what these people say.
According to the Washington Post and some other articles, PBR is now sweeping the nation. But I don’t really care about all that. It’s fine, but to me, PBR takes me right back to so many excellent memories of times I shared with my friends, of loves gained and lost, musical highs and lows, and a vast well of emotion and experience. Having been through all it is that makes me me, and arriving at the place where I am now, with my wife, happiness, good fortune, good things all around me, I have gained the emotional perspective on all of those events. Whether traumatic, pleasant, fun, infuriating or ecstatic, I can reflect upon those times as an amazing patchwork of people and place. I can sip a Pabst, and remember the longing or the anxiety, and rather than bumming me out, it just makes me smile.
So even though I don’t play in any bands anymore, and I tend to not go out very often these days, you’ll still find me once in a while at The Earl or somewhere else, with a cold tallboy of PBR in my hand, the condensation dripping from the can into puddles on the table, joining with everybody else’s condensation to form a slick gloss over all that is right in the world. Especially this table:
12 responses so far ↓
1 trav // May 9, 2003 at 2:35 pm
Geez Scott, any spare time today?
2 scottythe body // May 9, 2003 at 4:21 pm
I’ve got thousands of these boring things lined up and ready to go. Just need more slow days like this and I could bury the world in worthless crap.
3 Tikihead // May 10, 2003 at 10:29 pm
Does anyone remember the PBR is folding campaign of around ‘97? A press release was issued stating PBR would not be making any more beer, sales jumped and the whole thing was forgotten about. Weird.
4 bobby // May 13, 2003 at 10:51 pm
I think the original PBR exists in name only. Miller owns the name and the beer is brewed under contract in San Antonio, TX. I was dissapointed during first visit to Milwaukee last year not to be able to find any PBR, anywhere. Not even in the Miller restaurant that was in the Hilton I stayed at.
Well, thankfully, you can order PBR draft at Joe’s on Juniper!
5 BMckinney // Jul 11, 2003 at 7:26 pm
Need information on a clock…........description is of bartender standing behind the bar with a large bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. This clock is electric and appears to be from the mid 1900’s. This clock is a mantle clock and measures about a ft. and a half across and 8 inched in height.
6 JFlorida // Aug 11, 2003 at 11:30 am
Quote :”clock…........description is of bartender standing behind the bar with a large bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.”
I have that same clock. I’m trying to determine the value.
7 Anonymous // Jul 30, 2004 at 7:13 pm
Pabst is its own company, the are not owned by Miller, they are only contracted to brew the beer, because Pabst closed there brewries. Some of Pabst brands are also brewed in the old Hielman’s brewrey in LaCrosse Wi..
8 geoff // Oct 7, 2004 at 7:02 pm
companies still can exist once they are “bought,” you know, such as McDonalds, Disney, Taco Bell, Volvo, et cetera…. pretty much every brand out there is owned by a different brand or corporation
9 Richard Rule // Nov 17, 2004 at 8:51 am
Yep, once San Antonio got the brand, they simply put in Pearl beer in a Pabst can. Terrible stuff. The original recipe is no longer available
10 Scottie // Feb 5, 2006 at 4:53 pm
When I win the lottery, I’d like to buy the original recipe for PBR. Man, that was some graet tasting beer. Back in the 6o’s and 70’s it was one of the top sell beers in the USA. Poppa Pabst would roll over in his grave if he knew what his family did to his beer. You would think that Miller would change it back instead of the cheap beer it is today. Thanks.
11 pearl the landlord // Apr 7, 2008 at 1:51 am
i want my pbr!
12 bree // Aug 29, 2008 at 12:18 am
Does anyone remember the ‘PBR me ASAP’ song? Was it from radio or tv commercials? And, why can’t I find it on the intertubes any where? Did I dream it up in a deliciously drunken tall boy haze?
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