Beginnings In Milwaukee,
Joseph 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. In 1858, Schlitz married the widow, Anna Maria Krug, and then changed the name of the brewery to the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. in 1861, Krug's 16-year-old nephew, August Uihlein, began employment at the brewery. The often circulated story of Schlitz' proposed donation of thousands of barrels of beer to the Chicago population after the
Great Chicago Fire of 1871 is simply a modern myth, pushed by later marketing campaigns. Schlitz' national expansion was based on new distribution points in Chicago and elsewhere, and the consequent use of the railway. From the late 1880s, 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 the
Lake Street Schlitz Tied House at the corner of Lake and Loomis, and Schuba's Tavern at the corner of Belmont and Southport. In 1873, Schlitz rejected a purchase offer from Tennessee brewer Bratton and Sons. In 1875, Schlitz returned to his homeland on the
SS Schiller. While returning home, the ship hit a rock near the
Isles of Scilly and sank, killing Schlitz and 334 others. His body was never recovered. Honoring Krug's wishes, Schlitz had it written in his own will that he also wanted the
Uihlein brothers to run the brewery when he died. Management was promptly passed to the four Uihlein brothers,
August, Henry, Alfred and
Edward. When Anna Maria Krug Schlitz died in 1887, the Uihleins acquired complete ownership of the firm, and the Uihlein family continued to run the brewery for over one hundred years. Despite this change, the Uihleins decided to keep the name Schlitz, as Americans had difficulty pronouncing their surname.
Prohibition and success grain elevators 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 United States. Schlitz began pioneering numerous advances in the brewing industry, most notably the use of brown glass bottles beginning in 1912. Previously, beer was bottled in clear glass bottles, but this allowed sunlight to spoil the flavor of the beer. The entire industry quickly adopted the brown bottle, and the design is still used to this day. Schlitz's pioneering of the brown bottle was the inspiration for the Schlitz Brown Bottle Restaurant in Milwaukee, which opened in 1938. However, their success would meet the first of several major obstacles. In the early 1900s, the
temperance movement was gaining traction, and production and consumption of alcohol was eventually outlawed entirely with the passage of
Prohibition in the United States in 1920. During Prohibition, Schlitz faced difficulties trying to stay open and keep their workers employed. In 1919, with Prohibition imminent, Joseph E. Uihlein Sr. created a division of Schlitz that would produce
milk chocolate, looking to make good use of Wisconsin's large dairy industry. The chocolate was sold under the
Eline brand (the phonetic pronunciation of Uihlein). However, Eline Chocolate did not have much success, as
the Hershey company was dominant in the highly competitive chocolate industry, and Eline candies were often rife with quality control problems. Despite pouring millions into the chocolate division and creating a
hard candy and gumball line, the venture was a failure and was abandoned by 1928. This forced the company to change its name from Schlitz Brewing Company to the Schlitz Beverage Company and changed its "famous" slogan to "The drink that made Milwaukee famous." Schlitz primarily focused on producing malt extract and non-alcoholic soft drinks called
Schlitz Famo that they used to keep the brewing equipment operational, as the Uihleins correctly deduced that Prohibition would not be permanent. After Prohibition ended in late 1933, Schlitz again began producing beer and quickly became the world's top-selling brewery in 1934. The popularity of Schlitz's namesake beer, along with the introduction of value-priced
Old Milwaukee, allowed Schlitz to regain the number-one position. Schlitz and Anheuser-Busch continued to compete for the top brewery in America for years. By 1967, the company's president and chairman was August Uihlein's grandson,
Robert Uihlein Jr. Schlitz also experimented with continuous fermentation, even building a new brewery specifically designed to use the process in
Baldwinsville, New York. The reformulated product resulted in a beer that not only lost much of the flavor and consistency of the traditional formula, but also spoiled more quickly, rapidly losing public appeal. In 1976, concern was growing that the Food and Drug Administration would require all ingredients to be labeled on their bottles and cans. To prevent having to disclose the artificial additive of the silica gel, Uihlein switched to an agent called "Chill-garde" which would be filtered out at the end of production, so it would be considered nondisclosable. The agent reacted badly with a foam stabilizer that was used and Schlitz recalled 10 million bottles of beer, costing it $1.4 million.
Second union strike and sale to Stroh By the 1980s, Schlitz had rebounded somewhat, but it had now fallen from the second-most-popular brewery in the country to the fourth, as Miller and Pabst had overtaken it for the first time in decades. The final blow to the company was
another crippling strike at the Milwaukee plant in 1981. About 700 production workers went on strike on June 1, 1981. The strike was triggered because there was no replacement contract when the union's contract expired. The strike lasted for almost four months, and the company quickly abandoned all remaining hope that it could be saved, as all previous attempts were utter failures and the strikes had now crippled the company's production line and finances. The Schlitz management team finally threw in the towel and began negotiating a deal to sell the company and cut their losses. As the Milwaukee plant was the oldest and least efficient of the Schlitz breweries, and unable to afford to keep operating it due to the strike, Schlitz closed the doors to the Milwaukee brewery, thus ending the strike and, ultimately, signaling the end for Schlitz being one of the most popular beer companies in America. Also during that time, the "No One Does It Like the Bull" ad campaign was introduced. It featured music groups such as
Kool and the Gang (who appeared in three of those commercials), the
Drifters,
Teddy Pendergrass, the
Average White Band,
Dr. Hook, the
Platters, the
Lettermen,
Tommy James and the Shondells, the
Four Tops, the
Marshall Tucker Band and
38 Special engaging in a "battle of the bands"-like atmosphere before the bull storms into the room. The Baldwinsville brewery was purchased by Anheuser-Busch in 1981 to supplement production of the upcoming Budweiser Light – now Bud Light – release in 1982. Because of the nonstandard brewery design, Baldwinsville is unique and capable of complex production, making it a key player in the 12 domestic Anheuser-Busch plants. In 1982, there were competing bids for ownership of the Schlitz brand. The
Stroh Brewery Company of
Detroit, Michigan beat out Pabst and Heileman by bidding for 67 percent of Schlitz. By spring of that year, Stroh had purchased the entire company, making Stroh's the third largest brewing enterprise in America. During the takeover, Schlitz fought a fierce battle in the courts trying to remain independent. Schlitz finally accepted the takeover when Stroh raised its offer from an initial $16 per share to $17, and the U.S.
Justice Department approved the acquisition once Stroh agreed to sell either Schlitz's
Memphis or
Winston-Salem breweries. The Milwaukee Schlitz Brewhouse stood unused after the sale to Stroh, until it was demolished in 2013. 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.
Pabst acquisition and revival The once-strong Schlitz brand was relegated to cheap beer or "bargain brand" status and became increasingly difficult to find in bars and restaurants. Stroh itself was beginning to struggle from the weight of its business, and it had never been able to get out from under the debt it incurred when purchasing Schlitz. In 1999,
Pabst Brewing Company gained control of the Schlitz brand with its acquisition of the Stroh Brewery Company. The first markets for relaunching included
Chicago,
Florida,
Boston,
Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and Schlitz's former headquarters, Milwaukee. The classic 1960s theme was also reflected when 1968
Playboy magazine playmate
Cynthia Myers became a spokeswoman for Schlitz beer in 2009. In 2014, Pabst Brewing Company was purchased by American entrepreneur
Eugene Kashper and TSG Consumer Partners. The deal included the Schlitz brand, as well as Pabst Blue Ribbon, Old Milwaukee, and
Colt 45. Prior reports suggested the price agreed upon was around $700 million. Pabst Brewing Company, now headquartered in
San Antonio, continues to produce Schlitz beer, Old Milwaukee, and four Schlitz malt liquors—Schlitz Red Bull, Schlitz Bull Ice, Schlitz High Gravity, and Schlitz Malt Liquor. ==Products==