USA: Pabst Brewing Co. has discontinued selling Falstaff beer

Pabst Brewing Co. of San Antonio, TX, USA has discontinued selling Falstaff beer, which once was an icon in the St. Louis area's rich brewing history, St. Louis Post-Dispatch communicated on June 3.

Pabst, which owns the Falstaff brand, decided to stop selling the beer because of decrease in sales, said Allen Hwang, Pabst's marketing director. Pabst only sold 1,468 barrels of Falstaff nationwide last year, and that figure was falling, he said. "It's now at such a low rate that we couldn't sustain any type of minimum (production) run on the product," Hwang said. Last month, Pabst shipped the last cases of Falstaff beer to wholesalers.

The brewer hasn't yet decided what to do with the brand, such as selling it to another company. "Right now we're evaluating what we're going to do," Hwang said. Paul Smith, co-owner and bar manager at St. Louis restaurant Mangia Italiano is sorry to see Falstaff disappear. "We sell more Falstaff (locally) than anyone," he said. "It's a St. Louis staple."

Needing a low-priced American beer to fill out his menu, Smith added Falstaff because of nostalgia and the St. Louis connection.

Production of Falstaff left St. Louis in 1977, when the flagship brewery was closed, but many local residents remember the 102-year-old beer and Falstaff Brewing Corp. before its demise.

The famous William J. Lemp Brewing Co. of St. Louis created Falstaff in 1903. When Prohibition forced the closure of the Lemp brewery, local brewer Joseph Griesedieck purchased the Falstaff name in 1920 and changed his company's name to Falstaff Corp., eventually to be renamed Falstaff Brewing.

Falstaff was the country's third-largest brewer from 1957 to 1960, according to beer industry consultant Robert Weinberg. Its production peaked at 7 million barrels in 1966. As the beer industry steadily consolidated under pressure from Anheuser-Busch Cos., Falstaff saw its position decline to 10th place by 1975.

That year, Falstaff sold a controlling interest to Paul Kalmanovitz, a reclusive immigrant whose brewing investments had made him one of the wealthiest men in the United States.

Within a few months after Kalmanovitz bought control of Falstaff, he had dismissed dozens of company managers and moved the headquarters to San Francisco. Falstaff closed its last St. Louis brewery in 1977.

The Falstaff brand eventually came under Pabst after Kalmanovitz acquired the brewer in 1983. Pabst doesn't own any breweries, contracting other brewers to make its products.

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