alcoholic beverage founded 1844 in milwaukee wi founder jacob best headquarters los angeles california key people frederick pabst products beer website http www.pabstbrewingco.com the pabst brewing company p pst is an american company that dates its origins to a brewing company founded in 1844 by jacob best and by 1889 named after frederick pabst . it is currently the holding company contracting for the brewing of over two dozen brands of beer and malt liquor from defunct companies including pabst brewery brands p. ballantine and sons brewing company g. heileman brewing company lone star brewing company pearl brewing company piels bros. national brewing company olympia brewing company falstaff brewing corporation primo brewing & malting company rainier brewing company f & m schaefer brewing company joseph schlitz brewing company jacob schmidt brewing company and stroh brewery company . 1 wikimedia commons has media related to pabst brewing company complex . the company is also responsible for the brewing of ice man malt liquor st. ides high gravity malt liquor and retail versions of beers from mcsorley s old ale house and southampton publick house of southampton new york . 1 pabst is headquartered in los angeles california . 2 3 on november 13 2014 pabst announced that it had completed its sale to blue ribbon intermediate holdings llc . blue ribbon is a partnership between american beer entrepreneur eugene kashper and tsg consumer partners a san francisco based private equity firm . 4 prior reports suggested the price agreed upon was around 700 million . 5 contents 1 history 1.1 formation 1.2 kalmanovitz era 1.3 metropoulos era 1.4 kashper era 1.5 outside of the united states 2 product lines 2.1 pabst blue ribbon 2.2 jacob best 2.3 ballantine 2.4 schlitz 2.5 old milwaukee 2.6 colt 45 2.7 st. ides 2.8 stroh s 2.9 old style 2.10 lone star 2.11 olympia 2.12 rainier beer 2.13 schmidt beer 2.14 national bohemian 3 former brands 3.1 andeker 3.2 red white and blue 4 awards 5 advertisements 6 footnotes 7 further reading 8 external links history edit formation edit the original brewery was founded in 1844 as the empire brewery later best and company by brewer jacob best . the brewery was run by jacob sr. and his sons phillip charles jacob jr. and lorenz ; phillip took control of the company in 1860 . 6 they started the brewery on chestnut street hill in milwaukee with a capacity of 18 barrels 2.9 m3 . later in 1863 frederick pabst a steamship captain and son in law of phillip best bought 50 % of phillip best brewing assuming the role of vice president by which time the brewery was already selling a lager that they began bottling in 1875 under the name best select . by 1874 phillip best brewing co. was the nation s largest brewer . 7 in 1866 best s other daughter lisette married emil schandein and best sold the remaining half of the business to her husband making frederick pabst president and her husband vice president . 8 9 schandein unexpectedly died in germany and lisette schandein took over as vice president of the company which she remained until 1894 . during prohibition pabst stopped making beer and switched to cheese production selling more than 8 million pounds of pabst ett cheese . when prohibition ended the company went back to selling beer and the cheese line was sold to kraft . 10 pabst was renowned in milwaukee for its brewery tours . visitors to pabst s tour were rewarded with sometimes bottomless glasses of beer at its end of tour sternewirt pub . complete with a statue of captain frederick pabst and waitresses pouring from pitchers of pabst blue ribbon pabst bock and andeker the pub was popular with both tourists and locals especially students from nearby marquette university and the university of wisconsin milwaukee . 11 12 pabst s sales reached a peak of 15.6 million barrels in 1978 and then went into steep decline . 7 kalmanovitz era edit the former pabst brewery in milwaukee wisconsin paul kalmanovitz a self made beer and real estate baron purchased the pabst brewing company in 1985 for 63 million in a hostile takeover through the auspices of his holding company s & p co. ; 13 14 s & p s first brewery was maier brewing company purchased in 1958 . 13 when kalmanovitz died in 1987 s & p co. became legally inseparable from the kalmanovitz charitable trust . 13 s & p company was ordered by the irs to sell the pabst brewing company by 2005 or lose its not for profit tax free status . after a while pbc claimed that they were unable to find a buyer at market value and requested an extension until 2010 that the irs granted . citation needed in 1996 pabst s entire beer production was contracted out to the stroh brewery company which utilized excess capacity at the former flagship brewery of the g. heileman brewing company of la crosse wisconsin it had absorbed earlier that year . in turn the historic pabst brewery in milwaukee was closed 7 ending a 152 year association with the city and turning that company into a virtual brewer . 7 in 1999 pabst purchased the stroh label 15 and the brewery in la crosse was sold to city brewing company . 16 in 2001 production was contracted to miller brewing company and by then what remained of the pabst company operated out of san antonio . 14 in 2006 ceo brian kovalchuk resigned and the board replaced him with kevin kotecki . kotecki swiftly moved the pabst brewing company and its roughly 100 headquarters personnel to woodridge illinois a chicago suburb . the offices in woodridge were located on historic us route 66 . citation needed between 2005 and 2010 pbr brand volume increased 69 percent and pabst s gross margins increased 48 percent operating profit rose 81 percent and net revenue per barrel increased 28 percent . 17 metropoulos era edit on may 26 2010 investor c. dean metropoulos reached a deal to purchase pabst for about 250 million . 18 on may 14 2011 it was announced that pabst would be relocating to los angeles california . 2 pabst retains a data center in san antonio texas the previous location of its headquarters . pabst s long obsolete brewery complex in milwaukee has been targeted to be developed into restaurants entertainment venues stores housing and offices . the 317 million project is the subject of much debate in milwaukee . 19 on may 28 2008 a former pabst brewery in newark new jersey which was in the process of being demolished caught fire and was seriously damaged . 20 pabst brewing company won large brewing company of the year at the great american beer festival in 2011 and 2012 . 21 kashper era edit pabst brewing company announced november 13 2014 that it had completed its sale to blue ribbon intermediate holdings llc . blue ribbon is a partnership between american beer entrepreneur eugene kashper and tsg consumer partners a san francisco based private equity firm . 4 prior reports suggested the price agreed upon was around 700 million . 5 in july 2015 pabst announced plans to return to milwaukee and build a small brewery on the site of the original pabst brewing complex . 22 the company plans to spend between 3 million 4 million to redevelop an old german methodist church turning it into an innovation brewery . the new location will craft small batch brews and focus on the production of new craft beers . outside of the united states edit pabst blue ribbon america has a licensing agreement and joint venture arrangement with china pabst blue ribbon . it is produced marketed and distributed by cbr brewing company which jointly owns the company along with guangdong blue ribbon group under a sub licensing agreement with the pabst brewing company . cbr is a british virgin islands owned company but it is based in china . 23 24 25 china pabst recently released a new beer called pabst blue ribbon 1844 for consumption in the domestic market ; it sells for 44 u.s. dollars a bottle . 26 product lines edit pabst blue ribbon edit main article pabst blue ribbon pabst blue ribbon also known as pbr is the namesake of the pabst brewing company products . originally called best select and then pabst select the current name came from the blue ribbons that were tied around the bottle neck a practice that ran from 1882 until 1916 discontinued due to a silk shortage during wwi . it was once again tied around the bottles after prohibition from 1933 until 1950 . jacob best edit jacob best pilsner is a pale lager named after pabst s founder jacob best . ballantine edit ballantine ipa relaunched in august 2014 after nearly 20 years off the market . this is pabst s foray into the craft beer scene . 27 ballantine s flagship beer ballantine xxx ale has remained on the market since the prohibition ended . ballantine brewery was acquired by pabst in 1985 when it bought falstaff . schlitz edit schlitz was first brewed by the joseph schlitz brewing company in milwaukee wisconsin . schlitz was one of the world s top selling beers during the first half of the 20th century . 28 pabst brewing company also produces four schlitz malt liquors schlitz red bull schlitz bull ice schlitz high gravity and schlitz malt liquor . 1 old milwaukee edit main article old milwaukee old milwaukee is a pale lager . it was first brewed in 1890 by the joseph schlitz brewing company in milwaukee wisconsin and was later reintroduced in 1955 as a value priced beer . colt 45 edit main article colt 45 malt liquor colt 45 is a brand of malt liquor first produced in 1963 by the national brewing company in baltimore maryland . colt 45 is the namesake of running back jerry hill 45 of the 1963 baltimore colts . st. ides edit main article st. ides st. ides is a brand of malt liquor first launched by the mckenzie river corporation in 1987 . st. ides gained prominence during the late 1980s and early 1990s through the use of celebrity endorsements by rap artists such as ice cube 2pac dr. dre snoop dogg scarface the notorious b.i.g. and method man & redman . stroh s edit the stroh brewery company in detroit michigan first brewed stroh s beer in 1850 . stroh s is an american style lager . old style edit old style was first brewed in 1902 by the g. heileman brewing company in la crosse wisconsin under the name old style lager ; it was popular in wisconsin the chicago metro area minnesota eastern iowa lincoln nebraska southwestern michigan upper michigan and fargo and grand forks north dakota . it has been served at wrigley field for many years and is popular with fans of the chicago cubs . the original heileman s old style brewery in la crosse is now owned by the city brewing company . it brews la crosse lager which is based upon the original old style recipe and is kr usened for 30 days . this beer may also be the basis for the brewery s nationally distributed db hobbs brand . 29 in the early 1990s chicago born actor dennis farina made a series of commercials for old style beer mentioning that it was our great beer ... and they can t have it . 30 the production of old style has returned to its birthplace in la crosse wisconsin . in a contract with pabst city brewery became the sole producer of the old style brand . along with the homecoming of the beer the brand introduced old style oktoberfest . 31 lone star edit lone star was first brewed by