HAVE you ever wondered about the backstory behind one of America's favorite beers? If you're a beer drinker, you've likely tried a Pabst Blue Ribbon at least once. The sometimes unfairly maligned lager is actually one of America's oldest beers and remains one of its most popular, according to YouGov, some 170 years on. Beloved as a cheap beverage but shunned by beer snobs, it underwent something of a hipster revival in the past 20 years.
Today, around two million barrels of PBR are brewed annually, according to investor publication 24/7 Wall Street. It's all a far cry from when the Best and Company Brewery was founded in 1844 by Jacob Best as a tiny operation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin . READ MORE TRAVEL EXCLUSIVES In 1859, German immigrant and former steamship captain Frederick Pabst — commonly known as Captain Pabst — married into the Best family, becoming a partner in the brewery four years later.
Despite not knowing anything about beer - he preferred to drink wine - under Captain Pabst's steering, by 1872, Best had become the nation's second-largest brewer, producing 100,000 barrels a year. By the 1890s, Captain Pabst was the equivalent of a billionaire in today's money, owning a major hotel in Milwaukee and a summer property where he rode horses. So what ties together the iconic beverage with a creepy haunted doll, and an elevator with a tragic backstory? Most read in Travel The U.
S. Sun visited the Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to discover the surprising histo.