For the first time in 20 years, the Pabst beer sign has been lighted outside the old Methodist church the brewery bought in the 1890s, reports Milwaukee TV station WISN. The sign is a sign Pabst is coming home to Milwaukee, albeit in a small way.
Pabst's relatively new owner and CEO Eugene Kashper on July 15 said the company will build a micro-brewery and tasting room on the ground floor and a restaurant on the second floor of the church, which Pabst acquired to use as an employee training center. The building is the second-oldest on the former Pabst campus, which Milwaukee hopes will be redeveloped.
"We need to start making some of these amazing recipes that we have in our archives, and there's definitely no better place to do it than right here at the Pabst Brewery," Kashper said in a press conference with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. The facility should be operating by the summer of 2016.
Kashper's comments seem to confirm speculation that Pabst will resurrect former recipes that currently are out of production, such as bock and perhaps superpremium Andeker.
Pabst began in Milwaukee in 1844 … about the same time as Schlitz. That brand also is owned by Kashper's holding company now, as well as Old Milwaukee, Stroh's, Lone Star, Rainier, Ballantine IPA, Old Style, National Bohemian, Stag and others.
Pabst went through several ownership changes starting in the 1990s, which coincided with the shutdown of all Milwaukee operations. Kashper bought the company from Dean Metropoulos in September 2014. Once nearly dead, the brand is being revived by millennials.
