Expert: Spencer W Thomas - 5/29/2003

Question
Could you please tell me what happened to Schlitz beer? Did they go out of business, declare bankruptcy, merge with or sell out to another company? Thank you very much for your response? Al Brown

Answer
Here's at least part of the story, as I got it from one of the brewers who helped develop the Schlitz recipe.  It was originally brewed by Pabst.  The "label" was bought by Stroh, then sold to Heilemann (possibly when Stroh went out of business, or possibly before that, I'm not sure).  Now Miller owns it.  Whether they'll ever revive it, who knows.

In the last third of the 20th century there was a great "shake-out" among the "regional" beer brands.  Most of them eventually went out of business, unable to compete with Bud (Anheuser-Busch) and Miller.  The ones that survive (F.X. Matt, Minnesota Brewing, etc.) did so by adapting to the microbrew movement.