Advertising didn't kill Schlitz. They made some processing changes to their formula that caused a micro infection. Not sure, could have been Pediococcus. But they did it all at once, and ruined so many batches, that customers left and never came back.
Oh, Schlitz: How a Historic Ad Campaign Helped Kill America’s Biggest Beer Brand
"they" did not cut costs! "they" was actually one single guy, who inherited an empire, and put his mark on it.. which killed it.. Robert Uihlein Jr
This is listed among some collections of "biggest mistakes in the history of US Business" IIR
I drank a bunch of these PBR owned zombie brands over the last 20 years, Black Label, Schlitz, Old Milwaukee, Lone Star, etc [1] and I've always wondered when I'm drinking one if it's the same flavor as one from previous years or even if the flavor is consistent across regions (assuming PBR was just slapping labels on contracted brewing).
Indeed. I lived there for 4-5 years and left right before they started tearing down Fry Street. At that time I could see Bill Callahan at Rubber Gloves for 5 dollars, then head to the square and get my fill. Leave my car and walk home. Wake up and do it again, but instead see The Black Angels in someones house. Saw many great shows at Dan's Silverleaf and saw a number of terrible art exhibitions from the students. I had moved to the east coast by the time they burned down the Flying Tomato and it seemed like a fitting end given what I saw of the place the last time I had visited in early 2007.
I'm very fond of that place at that time. I used to commute straight into the metroplex and back out to Denton. I'd get home and park my car and have most everything a dude in his early 20s needed in walking distance.
“Beers that say their own name:”
Schlitz!
Pabst!
Busch!
Blatz!
https://www.realnothings.com/famous%20jokes/miltfamyjoke.htm
"Schlitz — The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous" was so ubiquitous that it created a permanent engram in my brain.
The slogan was in giant animated brightly lighted letters on the tallest building in downtown Milwaukee.
Hasenpfeffer is a yiddish dish, here is a video familiar to some older generations of someone who wants to eat some Hasenpfeffer
https://youtube.com/watch?v=OdXm-cb2cjQ
Why is it Hasenpfeffer Incorporated in the jump rope rhyme they are singing as they skip down the street?
Probably because at least one of the characters is supposed to be Jewish, can't remember which one, they also sing Schlemiel, Schlamazel - unsure of spelling, which are both Yiddish words, although only Schlemiel is somewhat familiar to the public.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasenpfeffer
Shleimiel and Shlmazal are yiddish, via Hebrew.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9E%D7%9...
and
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9E%D7%9...
I just thought it was a dish that was popular in yiddish speaking communities based specifically on the song, and stuff like the Freleng cartoons, which obviously no idea if Freleng spoke Yiddish although it seems reasonably likely that he had some familiarity.
Hassenpfeffer sounds like a play on Harnischfegger, a maker of heavy construction equipment in Milwaukee.
Trivia: One of Henry Harnischfeger’s customers was Pabst Brewing Co.
Harnischfeger ran itself into the ground in the 90s. I worked in their headquarters for more than a decade. That building is prime real estate and became an FBI office.
Also see Fritz Freleng's work in 1962's "Shishkabugs": https://youtu.be/SK-cmtYrVuo?si=s4sI84cbb25J9K7F