OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. -- Almost inexplicably, Pabst Blue Ribbon, a beer brand dating back to the 1800s, became the brew to watch in the 2010s. “Hipster culture” embraced the 170-year-old brew, drinking it from cans in urban, dare-I-say seedy bars by the case.
And with the “normalization of hipster culture,” a phrase coined by Euromonitor, the previously passe beer made its way into the garages and living rooms of suburban parents across the United States, growing by double digits for a handful of years.
But the luster of the brand—and possibly all of what was once hipster culture—appears to be fading, according to a recent report in Fortune magazine.
“A bubble’s telltale sign is when it produces a spectacularly valued transaction. Unbelieveable at the time, in retrospect it marks the top,” the magazine noted. “Urban cool” appeal grew PBR consumption 42% in the United States in the two years leading up to 2010, according to Euromonitor, as cited by the magazine.
“That year, billionaire Dean Metropoulos bought the company for $250 million,” the magazine noted. Still the brew continued to grow, up 16% in convenience-store case sales in 2011 and 23% in 2012, according to IRI data. But during the past two years, that growth has ebbed, barely eeking out 9% case growth in 2013 in c-stores and 6% in 2014.
The sales growth has been impressive, Fortune noted, “but not as much as the growth in the brand’s value. Metropolous sold the pale, low-budget brew reportedly for nearly $750 million” in 2014.
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