Not your father's beer: your grandfather's

SOMERVILLE -- At Downtown Wine & Spirits in Davis Square on a recent Friday evening, among the professionals in business suits stopping to pick up a bottle of wine or a microbrew on the way home, you're likely to see a stream of 20-somethings buying six-packs -- even 30-packs -- of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

In a trend that came barreling out of the West Coast three years ago, but took a while to roll into Boston, a young demographic that includes bike messengers, snowboarders, artists, and musicians has adopted PBR as its beverage of choice. For now.

We didn't even carry it a year ago," says Downtown's general manager, Alan O'Campbell. "Now every week I'm ordering 75 to 100 cases, and we sell more kegs of PBR than of Bud." Other managers see the same astounding numbers. At Blanchard's liquor store in Allston, a part of town heavily populated with students and young musicians and artists, beer department manager Jeff Dolin says he began ordering PBR twice a week about a year and a half ago to keep up with demand. Sales of PBR have doubled, while Dolin says sales of craft beers have suffered. "There was a switch," Dolin says. "People decided to go for cheaper beers."

Longtime bartender Irene Davis of Allston's Silhouette Lounge explains its appeal this way: "It's cheap, it's cold, and it's tall," she says, referring to the 16-ounce cans of PBR at the popular hangout.

Nancy Walter, 29, standing in line at Downtown with a 16-ounce can of PBR, mentioned that her younger brother also thinks it's cool. Erich Tisch, who works at Downtown and whose beer of choice is PBR, says that in addition to its affordability -- about $16 for a 30-pack -- musicians in the punk scene like to drink the beer because "it has the reputation of being union-made."

A comeback like this always draws the industry's attention. In the case of PBR, sales are due partly to nostalgia and partly to a concerted effort by the beer company to underwrite events where future buyers might be. It has been subtle marketing at its best.

All of this was playing to an audience fascinated with retro style. "[People are] looking to older brands like Schlitz or Pabst. Instead of going mainstream, they're going for an American classic," O'Campbell says. PBR has become "the hot rod of beers."

"It started with the bike
delivery guys out here," says Jack Joyce, the Oregon-based owner
of Rogue Ales, which includes a craft brewery and 14 brewpubs. "It wasn't anybody's father's beer. Their fathers all drank Red Hook, Widmer, Bud, or Coors. They felt kind of like they discovered
PBR."

Pabst Blue Ribbon is brewed by Pabst Brewing Company, which also makes 28 other beers, including Schlitz, Ballantine, Lone Star, and Champale. After years of declining sales dating to the late '70s, PBR brand manager Neal Stewart says that in 2001, there was a spike in sales of the 160-year-old Blue Ribbon brand in the Portland, Ore., area. The company found that the subcultures that were drinking PBR were drawn to the "blue-collar, Americana" notion of the beer, Stewart says. "The beer didn't have a modern-day image," he explains, because PBR has not done any TV advertising and very little print advertising since the '70s.

"It started organically," Stewart says, "and we've tried to maintain that feel for the brand." The company still does very little traditional advertising, preferring instead to buy space in alternative weeklies to promote local artists and bands. "It doesn't have to be rock bands," Stewart says. "We just did a promotion with a polka band."

This under-the-radar strategy seems to be working. Sales of PBR were up 5 percent in 2002, 15 percent in 2003, and are on track to be up 15 percent again in 2004, Stewart says.

These days, with everything from the '70s cool again -- from bell bottoms to ponchos -- PBR itself seems to have become a fashion accessory. Pabst has created a closetful of promotional merchandise to appeal to new devotees, including PBR T-shirts, baseball caps, snowboards, and "beer goggles" for snowboarders and skiers. Even PBR cans are a wardrobe accouterment. At a Fashion Week show in New York last September put on by Vice magazine, which chronicles an edgy youth culture, models came down the runway holding the classic red-white-and-blue cans.

Vice cofounder Gavin McInnes says PBR is perfect for young drinkers because "it's cheap and flavorless, and it mimics the working class."

While Joyce says that at his West Coast brewpubs -- which serve PBR and other beers in addition to Rogue -- demand is ebbing a bit, PBR's Stewart says Portland and Seattle are still PBR's biggest markets.

PBR sales are still strong in the Boston area, too, say Downtown's O'Campbell and Blanchard's Dolin. And it's not just the bike messengers anymore. Celebrity caterer Holly Safford says that some of her Catered Affair clients have begun to request PBR and other "retro beers." And they're drinking PBR from the cans.