Pabst Blue Ribbon was a failing premium beer — hipsters revived it for free

Pabst Blue Ribbon was first brewed in 1844 by the Best Brewing Company in Milwaukee. The 'Blue Ribbon' name came from silk ribbons tied around the bottle neck between 1882 and 1916, a marketing tactic by Captain Frederick Pabst. The beer won 'America's Best' at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. By 1977, Pabst was at its peak, selling 18 million barrels annually.

The decline was slow and brutal. Between 1980 and 1981, the company had four different CEOs. By 1982, Pabst had slipped from third to fifth place in US beer sales. The headquarters left Milwaukee in 1996, and the brewery there closed. By 2001, annual sales had fallen below 1 million barrels — a 95% decline from the 1977 peak. The brand was a fading relic, kept alive by a shrinking base of older drinkers in the Midwest.

In the early 2000s, something unexpected happened. Urban hipsters in Portland, Brooklyn, and Austin began drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon. It was not a marketing campaign — the company had no budget for one. The brand appealed precisely because it was unfashionable, cheap, and 'authentic.' It was the anti-beer for a generation that rejected the marketing of premium lagers. A 2003 New York Times article called it 'The Marketing of No Marketing.'

Pabst's management made a deliberate choice not to embrace the countercultural label. They feared that marketing to hipsters would kill the very authenticity that made the brand attractive. Instead, they sponsored indie music, local businesses, and dive bars. Sales stabilized and grew modestly. In 2010, the company was sold for $250 million. Pabst had done nothing to create the trend — it had simply survived long enough to be rediscovered.