Before this research project, I knew nothing about Pabst beyond it being a popular beer for all of the hipsters on college campuses. After my research that I have done, I realize that it is much more than that. I learned not only who started Pabst or that the first brewery was started in Milwaukee, but I also learned about the awards that this beer has won and where the iconic blue ribbon came from. This research also opened my eyes to what went on during the Prohibition. Without this research project, I would have never known that Pabst went from beer to cheese, malt drinks, and water during the Prohibition.

The sources that I came across helped me answer the questions that I sent out to answer from my first blog post. Overall, I really enjoyed finding out information about this beer that has been in my life for so long. I believe that I am going to find out more information about Pabst and gain more knowledge about this award winning beer.

My next source was found on the website www.smithsonianmag.com. I found this to be a perfect source of information because the Smithsonian is the official journal published by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. With me having an understanding of how important the smithsonian is, I have a sense of the smithsonian’s invented ethos. This magazine has been publishing articles for over 40 years and I would imagine that the information that the Smithsonian Institution is giving out would be accurate. I also believe that the audience of this article wouldn’t depend on the area of the reader, but more about the age of the reader. This article could be specified towards Wisconsinites just because the history of Pabst is geared in the city of Milwaukee, but besides that, I would be surprised if I saw anyone under the age of 30 picking up a smithsonian magazine. This is an obvious statement, but the audience would also have to be somewhat interested in history.

This article is talking about how Pabst went from Pabst’s Best Select to “Pabst Blue Ribbon.” This article begins with the author talking about how Pabst was in his life with stories about his grandfather and himself. Then it gets more into the history behind the blue ribbon. It all started during The World’s Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. This fair was held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in America. Pabst Best Select ended up winning the top beer award that year at the exposition. The award was a blue ribbon. Because of the amount of awards that this beer had won, the Captain Pabst began putting blue ribbons on the beers, even before the Exposition in 1893, as a sense of pride. That blue ribbon that was being put on the beers caused the beer to be recognized as “The Blue Ribbon Beer.” Shortly after the exposition, the beer changed from Pabst’s Best Select to “Pabst Blue Ribbon.” By the 1900’s, Pabst was going through more than one million feet of ribbon per year, but had to stop during World War I because of the silk shortage. Towards the end of Prohibition was when the Blue Ribbon became iconic when they were put on the newly created cans of beer.

I found this source to be useful in helping me really understand where the name “Pabst Blue Ribbon” came from. This is a different type of history where I am not getting a sense of history of production or where the company started, but I get to know of how the name and iconic symbol of the blue ribbon came to be today.

My next source that I have come across is a book called Bottoms Up : A Toast to Wisconsin’s Historic Bars & Breweries by Jim Draeger & Mark Speltz. This book briefly talks about the history of 70 different bars and breweries in Wisconsin alone. The bars and breweries that were selected for this book gained recognition as some of the most historical sites in Wisconsin. I selected this source because it shows that this Pabst has importance if it was mentioned it this book. Because this book focus’s on bars and breweries just in Wisconsin, the authors automatically limit their audience to Wisconsinites, and also Wisconsinites of the legal drinking age. I find this book to be useful because it talks about so many destinations in Wisconsin. If readers were like me,  they might learn about bars and breweries that they have seen or heard of, but never actually knew about. If you read this book, I believe that things such as where places got started will surprise you and you may realized that a bar or brewery that was listed in this book is closer to you than you were aware.

This book stated very useful information about the Pabst Brewing Company, or should I say  the Phillip Best Brewing Company. Phillip Best Brewing Company was the first name of the factory on 901 West Juneau Avenue. The factory later became the Pabst Brewing Company after a steamboat captain, Fredrick Pabst, married into the Best family and took over the brewery.  This book then talks about the success of Pabst by stating that the company production went from 225,000 barrels in 1880 to over 1 million barrels in 1892, which made Pabst the largest lager brewer in the world at that time. There were also some additions to the factory through the years such as a bottling house, boiler house, stables, and mechanical buildings. This book also talks about some tactics that the company used during the Prohibition, some of the things that I mentioned in my previous blog post, and also including nonalcoholic beer and water bottling.

Some of the buildings that helped Pabst become what it is today have been bout out and made into a development, which is now called The Brewery. Residents have moved into apartments in the former keg house and is now known as the Blue Ribbon Lofts. Despite what has happened to parts of this corporation, the beer hall and tour center have been preserved and even still serves beer and is keeping the history alive today.

I found this source to be very valuable and helped me understand the Pabst Brewery Company. It was very cool for me to expand my understanding while realizing the importance of this company because it was one of the breweries in Wisconsin that were listed in this book of historical sites.

My first source that I came across was the Pabst Blue Ribbon official website. I figured that if I was going to use a source, why not go to the official website? Once I got past the age-restricted entry, I noticed that there was a tab labeled “History”. Once I got into the history tab, I saw that there was a timeline specified to the Prohibition era labeled “Prohibition & Beyond”. I chose to focus on the Prohibition because when people are learning about the upcoming of a brewery that was founded in 1844, you wonder how they adjusted during the Prohibition.

This timeline begins in 1920, shortly after the Prohibition began. It shows how the Pabst organization adjusted by making the next best thing for Wisconsinites…. Cheese. Along with the creation of Pabst-ett cheese, which Pabst sold over 8 million pounds of,  Pabst also created soft drinks and malt extract. In 1933 when Prohibition ends, Pabst sells their cheese operations to Kraft, and began getting back to what they were best at which was selling beer.  I found this as an unusual way to adjust but it worked for them in the time being where they couldn’t brew beer.

This is a historical page about Pabst, created by Pabst, and for Pabst fans. The reason that I point that out is because it is created by Pabst, there is going to be some type of bias throughout this website. If you were making a website about something that you created, you would want the website to exclude anything negative and to promote what you have created. This is the same situation here. While this source is informational, it is also promotional. These were a couple things that I had in mind while looking through this site.

I have chosen to do my research on the history of the Pabst Brewing Company, to see the evolution of this company, and what changes they have made over the years since the very first Brewery in Milwaukee. I will be asking questions such as “Who started this company?” “What kind of products does this company offer?” “Has this brand of beer won any awards?” and questions of that nature.

I believe that the reason is why I am interested in this topic is because I am from Superior WI, and Pabst is a Wisconsin beer. The fact that the first Pabst Brewery was created in Milwaukee was just the icing on the cake. What is the one thing that people think about when they hear Wisconsin? If the first response isn’t cheese, than it would be beer. Wisconsin is well known for their beer and cheese. That being said, beer would be a great topic to take on. Another aspect of my interests in this topic is that I am a college student and I have seen my fair share of Pabst throughout my college experience. My family loves to drink including the occasional Pabst, which makes it fitting for me to talk about this subject. Though my family and I have drank Pabst, I haven’t really ever bothered to find out the history of it, and with this research project, will actually find out about the history of a beer that has been around me for so long.