Sales of Pabst Blue Ribbon are up a whopping 25 percent this year, according to Information Resources Inc.
"Well, of course," you say. In this economy, consumers are looking for low-cost options, and cheaper beers are going to do better than more expensive ones.
But Pabst raised its prices last year and now it isn't as cheap as you may think: The beer now costs $1.50 more than MillerCoors' Keystone, $1 more than Anheuser-Busch's Busch and Natural brands, and 50 cents more than Miller High Life, Crain's reports.
Yet, despite being more expensive, PBR is doing remarkably better than all those brands in profits.
Pabst managed to pull of a strangely effective word-of-mouth campaign that made the long-declining brand an "ironic downscale chic choice for bike messengers and other younger drinkers who viewed the beer as a statement of non-mainstream taste," reports Crain's.
Let's call a spade a spade: Those "non-mainstream," "younger drinkers" are hipsters.
Usually found smoking European cigarettes and/or cloves, hipsters are known for their despise of anything "mainstream" and their fondness for irony. They listen to bands that no one has ever heard of and start fashion trends that are cool because of their "uncoolness", e.g., trucker hats or vintage plaid shirts.
This is where Pabst Blue Ribbon comes in.
"It's an anti-establishment badge," said a major market wholesaler. "It seems to play to the retro, nonconformist crowd pretty well."
Hipsters enjoy drinking a beer that isn't as "established" as other better-known brands, asserting themselves are more "genuine" and "unique" than the mainstream that surrounds them.
They should be careful though. With the incredible rise in sales, Pabst Blue Ribbon could become so popular, it may enter the mainstream, and hipsters will have to abandon it in favor of another "cheap" beer. (story courtesy of NBC Los Angeles)
First off, did I miss the fucking boat on PBR being considered a "good" beer? I've drank my fair share of that stuff and I think it sucks something fierce. If you don't pound that shit down right out of the fridge it gets pretty skanky after about 20 minutes, even more so when it's canned and not bottled. Pabst is fucking garbage, plain and simple, and the people that brew it and bars that sell it know that. You can find "$1 Pabst" promotions at half the bars in the country, but you don't see too many "2-for-1 Guinness" or "Half-Off Sierra Nevada" deals do you?
So fucking what if they stuff is $1.50 more than Keystone or Natty Light? Stating that your beer costs slightly more than Keystone as if it's a good thing is like saying a girl you want to bang is slightly sluttier than Paris Hilton and that's why you want to bang her. You can pretty much buy an entire canning line of Natty Light for 13 bucks so how is a slightly higher price a sign of that much better quality?
A 6-pack of REAL good beer is going to cost you more than a case of Keystone or Natty or PBR and there are plenty of non-conforming microbrews out there that are a hell of a lot better than Pabst. Not to mention the fact that the Pabst Brewing Company has been around since the mid-1800s, so saying they aren't "established" is like saying the Dallas Cowboys are an expansion team.
Secondly, when the fuck did wearing goofy clothes and listening to obscure bands make you a "hipster?" Where I come from, we call those guys douche bags or losers. I thought the phrase "hipster" went out the window as soon as "Happy Days" went off the air but it appears I was wrong in that thought also. The whole concept of being "different" and "non-conformist" by conforming to awkward things is bullshit anyway, so the fact that this sub-group of middle-class white kids has managed to bring PBR into mainstream focus is a fucking riot to me. Nothing like drinking what everybody else is drinking because it's suddenly "cool" to express your individuality, huh?
I'm going to call this what it is; a bunch of un-original lemmings latching onto something that they thought was cool and different but in actuality has been around since it was still legal to own black people. The real reason these so-called hipsters probably bought PBR was because they had spent the rest of their money on trucker hats and Flaming Lips vinyl records and couldn't afford a good 6-pack of Big Sky or Left Hand Brewery beer and resorted to PBR because they know Keystone and Natty sucks.
P.S.- Anybody who thinks PBR is better than Miller High Life is a fucking moron.
