It was the beer that made Milwaukee famous, but after 177 years of history, it is last call for Schlitz. On Saturday, a special batch of Schlitz beer will be brewed at the Wisconsin Brewing Company plant in Verona, Wisconsin. The final run will use a recipe that duplicates the beer's flavor from its mid-20th century prime, when the brew was one of the most popular beer brands in the United States.
The Rise and Fall of a Beer Giant
At the peak of its popularity, Schlitz was the largest beer producer in the US, competing against giants like Budweiser and Pabst for market dominance. The brand was embedded in American pop culture with ads that saturated magazine pages, baseball stadiums, and TV screens. However, aggressive cost-cutting and recipe changes in the 1970s ruined the beer's reputation, leading to multiple sales that whittled it down to nothing.
Today, the collapse in demand for alcoholic beverages has taken down yet another famous brand. 'Unfortunately, we have seen continued increases in our costs to store and ship certain products and have had to make the tough choice to place Schlitz Premium on hiatus,' Pabst head of brand strategy Zac Nadile told Milwaukee Magazine. According to Wisconsin Brewing Company, mass production had already stopped months ago after demand for the beer fell below minimum requirements.
Schlitz's Historical Significance
Schlitz was founded in Milwaukee in 1849, and for its first century, the brand was a major part of the industrial city's identity. The beer's blue-and-gold logo could be found everywhere across the city and the Midwest, from neighborhood taverns and corner bars to bowling alleys and ballgames. In the first decades of the 20th century, Schlitz reigned supreme as the largest brewery in the US, with a dominant hold on the beer business. Historians note that Schlitz was a pioneer in using brown glass beer bottles to preserve shelf stability.
After the passage of the 18th amendment, which ushered in Prohibition and banned nearly all alcohol production in the US, Schlitz pivoted to making 'near beer' with less than 0.5 percent alcohol and non-alcoholic products like soda, candy, and baked goods. By the late 1950s, Budweiser had surpassed Schlitz in national sales, and after recipe changes and cost-cutting in the 1970s eroded its popularity, the original brewery closed and the assets were sold to Stroh Brewing in 1982. Stroh sold off the Milwaukee brewery complex, which was converted into an office development known as Schlitz Park. In 1999, Pabst Brewing bought Stroh's assets, including Schlitz, and began contract brewing the beer. By the beginning of the 21st century, Schlitz was producing and selling less than 1 percent of its 1970s peak volumes.
Broader Decline in Alcohol Consumption
The Schlitz news comes amid reports that Americans are drinking less, as members of Gen Z in particular grow more concerned about health risks from alcohol. According to an August 2025 Gallup survey, only 54 percent of US adults drink alcohol, a record low in 90 years of data. Gallup's findings marked a big decline from the 62 percent of Americans who said they drank alcohol in 2023, and the deeper data shows that 53 percent of people see even moderate drinking as harmful.
Just last week, there were reports that beer demand was dropping precipitously nationwide, with sales data from Nielsen showing annual beer sales down 6.3 percent in the four weeks to May 2. The data showed that sagging sales at convenience store chains like 7-Eleven and gas stations were a big part of the decline, thanks to expensive gasoline denting demand for beer purchases. In February, global brewing giant Heineken reported a 1.2 percent decline in total sales volumes in 2025, while AB InBev reported that Bud Light and Budweiser continue to post double-digit volume declines.
