View attachment 86130
Copied a portion of an article from CNN
When I was in college in the 1970s, my friends and I frequently bought a case of Schlitz beer to fuel a weekend of socializing.
It was a popular choice, not because it was “the beer that made Milwaukee famous,” as it boasted, but because it was relatively cheap, and actually had a pleasant, and pretty distinct, lager taste.
But by the late 1970s, people were buying cans of Schlitz and literally spitting it out. The taste had – inexplicably to many consumers – turned to garbage, though stronger words were used at the time. According to beer historian Martyn Cornell, it seems what happened was directly tied to a decision by the beer’s maker, the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, to incrementally change some ingredients and accelerate the brewing process, which in turn altered the taste.
It got so bad that after droves of consumers had bolted for Budweiser, Miller Lite or Coors, Schlitz launched an infamous ad campaign in which actors playing Schlitz drinkers – a boxer, a lumberjack with a hungry cougar – threatened to punch you out or have you mauled and eaten for lunch if you dared take away the “gusto” of a mug of Schlitz. These became some of the most memorable commercials in TV history, nicknamed the “Drink Schlitz or I’ll Kill You” campaign.
If you’re a young beer drinker, you likely have never even heard of the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, because since 1982 it has been resting in peace in the dustbin of history. (You can buy something called Schlitz some places today, a recreation of the old formula, but it’s now brewed by Pabst.)
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