The End of Schlitz

 Pabst Brewing, which now owns the Schlitz beer brand, announced that it is suspending production of Schlitz beer.

It is a sad ending for a brand which was, at one point in the 1950s, the largest selling beer in the U.S. and remained so until the mid-1970s.

What happened?  According to the most reasonable story, Schlitz reformulated the product. From Wikipedia:

By 1967, the company's president and chairman was August Uihlein's grandson, Robert Uihlein Jr. Faced with a desire to meet large volume demands while also cutting the cost of production, the brewing process for Schlitz's flagship Schlitz beer was changed in the early 1970s. .... The reformulated product resulted in a beer that not only lost much of the flavor and consistency of the traditional formula, but also spoiled more quickly, rapidly losing public appeal.

But wait -- there's more to this fiasco.

In 1976, concern was growing that the Food and Drug Administration would require all ingredients to be labeled on their bottles and cans. To prevent having to disclose the artificial additive of the silica gel, Uihlein switched to an agent called "Chill-garde" which would be filtered out at the end of production, so it would be considered nondisclosable. The agent reacted badly with a foam stabilizer that was used and Schlitz recalled 10 million bottles of beer, costing it $1.4 million.

Why not go back to the old formula?

During the reformulating period of the early 1970s, the original Schlitz beer formula was lost and never included in any of the subsequent sales of the company.

(Pabst eventually thought they recovered the formula and reintroduced it -- in 2008.)

Compare this to New Coke

The introduction of "New Coke" in the mid-1980s is often cited as a marketing fiasco by the Coca-Cola Company.  I think that's wrong. It is an example of digging your way out of a hole and staying on top.

Once it was clear that -- although New Coke tested better in marketing research studies -- Coke drinkers didn't like it, the company rapidly pivoted and introduced Coke Classic, the previous formula.  Eventually New Coke was discontinued and Coke Classic once again became Coke.

By responding quickly, they saved the brand and Coke is still the #1 soft drink in the U.S.  

Frankly, I'll take either Coke or Pepsi and can't really tell the difference, but that's just me, not millions of Coke loyalists.