Schlitz comes to Hampton Roads with a fresh brew

It's not your father's... wait, it was your father's beer. And now it can be again.

Brown bottles of Schlitz are on their way to bars and grocery stores in Hampton Roads, and people who remember the beer from the 1960s should find the taste familiar.

Pabst Brewing Co., which now owns Schlitz, conducted some beer archaeology and reconstituted the recipe for "the beer that made Milwaukee famous."

"There are so many choices out there today, you just want a real beer," said Kyle Wortham, director of marketing with Schlitz. "This isn't the real of today. This is real from when beer was beer."

The company is targeting Hampton Roads among its first markets, Wortham said, because the beer had strong sales here in the '50s and '60s.

It began appearing in cities such as Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Chicago this summer, and it sold out quickly. One store sold 80 cases in an afternoon, the company said.

Schlitz, in the 1960s, was the top beer in the country. It set itself on that path in 1871, when the Great Chicago Fire destroyed much of the city and the runoff fouled rivers, reservoirs and wells. When it became apparent that Chicago's breweries couldn't make beer, Schlitz inundated the city with its brew.

In 1912, the company invented something that modern-day craft brewers still consider essential to quality beer: a brown bottle that prevents spoilage by keeping out light. Schlitz also pioneered the "tall boy" can.

But in the early 1970s, Schlitz cut costs by using cheaper ingredients. Drinkers noticed, and over the past three decades Schlitz became a nonplayer.

When Pabst decided to try to bring Schlitz back to its glory, the brewer discovered a problem. There was no recipe. The company sent out Bob Newman, winner of two Brewmaster of the Year awards at the Great American Beer Festival, to dig around and reverse-engineer a formula.

Newman spoke with former Schlitz brew masters and drinkers and developed a concoction that the company says mimic s the taste of its heyday.

"He sort of grandma-reciped this together," Wortham said.

Schlitz sold in cans will keep the formula that came into use in the 1970s; the new-old recipe will be sold in brown bottles and, in some places, on tap.

Pabst has successfully revived an old beer before, shepherding Pabst Blue Ribbon, or PBR, a few years ago to a comeback among college students and urban hipsters. But Wortham said the company is not following that template for Schlitz.

They are aiming Schlitz at the guys who used to drink it - and maybe their kids who stole it out of their fridges.

"Same guys that made this the No. 1 brand in the nation," Wortham said. "Some people say we're conducting market suicide, because we're talking about guys who are 50 years old."

Lon Wagner, (757) 446-2341, lon.wagner@pilotonline.com