Days of Future Pabst
By ice rivers
- 288 reads
Back in 1950, we were the first family on our block to own a television set. Our amazed neighbors used to come over and gather in front of the tube. In the afternoon, my pals would come over and we'd watch Space Patrol or Tom Corbett Space Cadet .
The men in the neighborhood would come over on Friday nights to watch Gilette's Friday night fights. With the advent of teevee, boxing and wrestling quickly became staples in teevee broadcasting. All ya needed were a couple of cameras to capture the action in the ring.
I was always aware when the fights came on because I would be sent to bed while the guys were still gathering. In my room, I could hear the sounds downstairs most of all the Gillette March which began with "too look and feel sharp Ba Da Da Dannt dah."
The first fight I ever watched was Sugar Ray Robinson kayoing Bobo Olsen and winning back the middleweight title. From that point on I watched the Friday night fights every Friday night and slowly became aware of commercials.
The first two commercials I remember in my life were for Gilette Blades and Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. I liked the Pabst ad because it had an animation...a guy sitting at a table when a waitress walks up to him and asks "What'll you have?" to which the guy at the table responds "Pabst Blue Ribbon, Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer". Next they showed a three part "test" with a close up of the bubbling beer being poured into a glass. Test one, the crrreamy head...test two the natural arrroma...test three the grrreat taste... all of this followed by the question once again flashing on the screen///whaddya have and then the answer popping up accompanied by a chorus of voices proclaiming "Pabst Blue Ribbon,"
I didn't know what beer was but I loved the commercial.
Pabst according to the can was first brewed in Milwaukee in 1844 and was America's favorite beer in 1893. In other words by the time I started drinking beer, Pabst was for old farts only while Budweiser and Miller Beer dominated the college market. In Rochester, we had our own beer, Genesee, named after the northern flowing river that passed through the heart of downtown Rochester on its way to Lake Ontario.
Today, with micro-breweries springing up everywhere, the prices of beer at the bar make it way too expensive for me. The most popular bottled beers are no longer on tap. Forget about getting a Bud on draft and Bud Lights ( our most popular beer) is rarely on draft and over priced when it is available.
In this time, Pabst is making a comeback. Our favorite Irish bar has 16 ounce Ice Cold Pabst drafts for $2...half the price of the other offerings. Good old PBR almost 200 years old and still great.
Yesterday, we stopped into the local pub for dinner. We asked if they had PBR. They did. 16 oz cans for $2.50....much cheaper than the other choices. I ordered one.
When she brought the beer, I gave her a little story about the commercial. She poured the PBR slowly into my glass. We admired the flow, we admired the head, I took a sniff and then a long taste all with the waitress looking on and chuckling at each response.
She left the can. I started reading the can and admiring the PBR blue ribbon on the front of the can. That ribbon hadn't changed much since 1843..since 1899,,,since the Friday night Fights...always the proud blue ribbon.
I took another long taste and flipped the can around. Nowadays beer cans have become works of art. I was pleasantly surprised that good ol PBR was keeping up with the trend thus regaining popularity with the young IPA drinkers and the 25 year old beer snobs.
The backside looked like something out of Yellow Submarine, very psychedelic. "Pabst has always been your beer. Now make it your can."
The nineteenth century emerges in the twenty first century.
It was December 16th. The temperature was 76 degrees. The waitress brought our check. She didn't charge for the PBR.
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Comments
I loved reading your trip
I loved reading your trip down memory lane! My grandfather (RIP) always had a Pabst Blue Ribbon every day at lunch.
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