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"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading" Henny Youngman

Update - 12/28/07 - Update on the FAQs... This is my personal page where I get to show through words and pictures how Falstaff helped your "webguy" to get through life's trials & tribulations..  and give some needed "thank-yous" to the very good people I've met on the highway of life...(despite the various potholes I've hit). I guess you could call this the jabberin' page, I have some FAQ's on the site & Falstaff Beer and dead rock stars. The page goes on forever, so be sure to change the oil on your mouse before you start to prevent damage due to mega-scrolling. J 

The Frequently Asked Questions: 
Q: OK, so how come a guy from Milwaukee is doing a web site on a St. Louis brewery?

A: I went to college at Indiana University back in the mid 70s. It was a "21" state (you could still drink at 18/19 in other states), so it was difficult (read impossible) to find someplace to have a beer when you weren't quite of age. We found a little workin' man's joint on the west side of Bloomington called the Sunset Bar that maybe wasn't quite as careful as they ought to be about checking IDs. The bar maid, Lois, told us "Boys, if you're old enough to fight, then you're old enough to drink". ( the very elegant Sunset Bar today - now called the 11th Street Bar)

The Sunset was a rough n' tumble kind of place with outlaw country music on the jukebox (Take this Job & Shove It...) and three (count 'em) beers: 'City, 'Staff, & 'Ribbon (Falls City, Falstaff, & PBR). I was kind of a long hair back then so to reduce my chances of getting the tar beat  out of me I got a John Deere hat & would tuck my hair behind my ears. It was just great being able to drink in a real live bar at 19. I developed a real liking for this little honky-tonk and Falstaff beer though our nights out at the Sunset eventually came to an end. One night one of my friends started mouthing off a mite too much about the weight of one of the patrons & we were kindly requested by the "reglars" to move our "long haired college boy butts" outside or face a permanent rearranging of our faces. Because there was a whole lot of them and only a few of us, we did a quick calculation of the odds (knew that Statistics course would come in handy some day) and did a quick "exit stage left" which explains why I still have all of my teeth. And that was the end of that! But it started my love affair with Staff and City.

Q: Why did Pabst pull the plug on Falstaff?

A: The sales volume had gotten to the point where it was no longer viable to sell the brand. I am sure there are minimum orders on the Falstaff cans and packaging, and sales weren't enough to keep the brand in production. Pabst's management decided that Falstaff was no longer "a strategic brand" some years ago, that's why there hasn't been any promotional items like T shirts produced in a number of years.

 Q: Is the Falstaff brand for sale now that it is no longer being produced by Pabst?

A; Originally I had heard that Pabst was only offering their brands as a package. But now it appears they are considering selling or licensing the brands one by one. They have already released Augsburger and Narragansett.I heard there are a couple of groups currently in discussion with Pabst to purchase the brand. If someone does bring it back, I hope they go back to the 60s / 70s formula and packaging.

 I used to really quite carry a torch for Linda...

Q: How is the best way to view this website? Through Netscape or Internet Explorer? What resolution should I use on my monitor?

A: Actually, I would recommend drinking a few beers first (to help the site appear to look more professional) J and any one of these outstanding CDs on your turntable (note how I cleverly snuck this into the site):

Q: Why did Falstaff Brewing itself go under?

A:  It was a combination of things. The Falstaff breweries were very small, old, and inefficient. Falstaff never built any new plants, just purchased existing ones that already were probably outdated and ready to close.  The Bud plant in Houston alone had more brewing capacity than all of the Falstaff plants put together.

Second, as I mentioned above, Falstaff lost the youth market a long, long time ago. When I started drinking Falstaff in 1974, I was one of the few people my age drinking it back then. Most everyone else who drank 'Staff was at least 10 years older than I was.  Falstaff did not do the on-campus promotions to college students ( who, by the way, could not drink legally) nor come up with a cute comic book character like Spuds MacKenzie (which, like Joe Camel, was aimed at kids).  Most young people now know what beer they "like" years before they even start drinking due to the influence of advertising. Bill Coors said it was the "marketing visigoths" that destroyed our brewing industry.

Third, the purchase of the Ballantine labels and distribution organization was a very costly mistake that caused them to run out of cash. Falstaff hemorrhaged millions of dollars trying to enter the NYC beer market.

In addition, Falstaff was a "popular priced" brand beer so generated less revenue & income per barrel sold than "premium" brands like Bud or Miller. As their brand image continued to decline in the market due to a lack of advertising, they had to reduce their selling price even further to maintain volume. This put a major squeeze on margins which made them easy pickings for an asset stripper like Kalmanovitz. Could you imagine how much money you could make if you could take over Bud, and cut the selling and advertising budget (0ver $300 million last year) to zero? All those bucks would go straight into your pocket. When the volume declined too much we could just close the brewery, take the depreciation as a write off, and then sell the equipment to thirsty Chinese. That's what Mr. Paul did. It made him $400 million. (hey, I used to be a product manager so know this stuff)

Finally, most Americans just really do not like the taste of beer. Not convinced? Try a Warsteiner, Pilsener Urquell, Kilkenny's, Boddington's or any other European or even Asian beer before you have a MGD or Bud Lite. Falstaff had a bitter finish (Carling even more so) well into the mid 1980s, which caught them out of step with the changing tastes of Joe Six Pack. The largest selling beer in the country now is Bud Light, which qualifies as a 3.2 beer. (Hmmm....so you have to drink more cans of beer to get the same buzz as before, this sounds like a sneaky way to increase sales.) I think it's interesting to note the THC content of marijuana (the chemical that makes you "high") has been increasing over the years, while the alcohol content of beer has been decreasing.  Guess beer drinkers enjoy visiting the rest room....   

Q: So wasn't Falstaff kind of a "redneck" beer?

A: When I was living in Indiana, Falstaff was the Outlaw Beer. The kind of folks who drank it were the guys you see getting busted on "Cops"; that never wear shirts and have implements of destruction tucked in their waistbands. If you ordered Falstaff in a bar people pretty much left you alone 'cause they figured you'd done time in prison.J But I remember when I was working in south Louisiana in the 1970s and ordered Falstaff in a bar just outside of Baton Rouge. One of the other patrons said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear : "Don't it just kinda go to figure that a dadgumb Yankee would order a Falstaff....". At that time Schlitz and Dixie were the "white" beers and Falstaff and Jax shared the "black" market. I was lucky I didn't end up swinging from a cypress tree! Since everyone now drinks either Bud or Miller, I guess those kinds of color lines don't exist any more.   

Q: So why the heck don't you just drink Bud like everyone else? (sometimes asked in a menacing tone in a bar)J

A: To me the local / regional foods and drinks were an important part of the rich fabric that once made up this country. In my younger days we used to pile in the car and take these massive road trips to see America and drink some grog with the locals. I have happy memories of havin' a Hudy at Riverfront Stadium on opening day, washing down that green chili cheeseburger at the Owl Bar in New Mexico with an A-1, having a cold Dixie with my crawfish etouffe in New Iberia, driving 75 MPH through Brown County, Indiana with my buddy Hank in his 351 Mustang and heaving the empty Falstaffs out the window (but this is not a good life style strategy to reach middle age & beyond...), having a Lone Star long neck at Gilley's in Pasadena, TX and tippling a Gansett with my "steamah's" in central Mass.

I got to drink all night for free one night in 1976 at Mother Maybell's Saloon in Paris, IL just because we ordered Sterling, and some old guy at the bar liked the fact we were drinkin' his beer too. What are folks going to remember now? Sitting in some faceless sports bar, just like any one of 1000s of other sports bar in the country, watching 20 TV screens of women's basketball & drinking a Corona? Yuck. And since Mr. Busch made something like $9,065,000 per year in salary & stock options last year, I don't think he will be losin' any sleep if I decline to drink his beer. I think he's already got just about all the money he'll need in this life.

Q: Do you have a My Space profile?

A:  Yes, funny should ask. Go here.

 My favorite singer ever - mega-babe Sandi Saraya of the band Saraya - thanks  for "Back to the Bullet", "Make Me Believe" & "St. Christopher Medal" - perhaps the greatest live band  & living proof that talent alone is not enough to make it in the music biz..   Sandi dropped out of the music scene in the early 90s & is MIA for her fans. Life does go by much too fast...

SPECIAL MEGA THANKS!!!!!

I.U. '75 (left) Thanks to regular consumption of Falstaff "tall boys" (can on the right) Max actually became a M.D. (really!) (Right) I.U. Halloween '77- Me and Joe Mangan in Briscoe Quad try to see who really has the fewest muscles - I am the guy with the Falls City Beer Gimme Hat and "Joe Cocker" style muttonchop sideburns and long hair pulled back ...This outfit worked pretty well at disguising the fact I was in fact a useless college student when I went drinking at "The Sunset"

Besides 'Staff I enjoyed A-1 from Arizona and Rainier Ale from the great Northwest. Much better than the glorified soda pop that passes for beer now a days. If you are as old as I am you will remember the funny Colt 45 Malt Liquor ads from the 1970s as well....For more info check out the Carling page. 

Juarez, Mexico 1983 - Most cross border smuggling is bringing all kinds of stuff from Mexico in the States.  I tried smuggling Falstaff into Mexico but somehow didn't get rich with this scheme...It was in fact illegal to bring American beer into Mexico at this time (pre-NAFTA). So it looks like I can't run for President either now that I confessed...(right)

    This is what life is all about - sharin' a Ft. Wayne Falstaff with my Dad 1985 (this time I've got a Sierra Nevada jersey on....) right -Texas 1985: When I was able to convince the wife we didn't need furniture if we had beer, guitars, & LPs, I was sure I was going to be a success in sales....that's my 1974 Les Paul on the floor, just like Duane Allman had..

   (left) Calne, Wiltshire, England 1987: My buddy J.R. takes me out for a pint at the Jolly Miller pub. I find out the next morning that drinking 6 pints of 6X was a little different than drinking a 6 of Falstaff. The only way I can see straight is to keep one eye closed (middle)1994 Me having a cold Halida by a lake with my rep Mr. Buu on a very, very hot day in the center of Hanoi while on a business trip, We were one of the first American companies to establish an office there, I found out later that this lake is where Sen. John McCain (unfortunately) parachuted into before he was captured.. ...(right)1999: worried about reports of potential rioting in the streets of Milwaukee during a Y2K meltdown, we stocked up on essentials to survive....If nothing else I figured that once the screaming hordes reached my house I could invite them over for a 'Staff...

10/2000 Hearing that Falstaff was no longer available in Milwaukee, Robert down in Texas City, TX came to our rescue sending us this Emergency Stress Relief Kit via UPS.....me and Mikey sure did appreciate it! (and who said the Internet was only good for one thing!) (right) 4/2001 Now a "big time" (yeah, right) international business executive, I relax with a Falstaff in my hotel room in Tokyo Bay, Japan which looks exactly like just about any other hotel room anyplace else but costs $250 / night...,(so I had to try and save some money by bringing in my own beer....) 

Me at July 4th, 2001 savoring the very last can of Falstaff NA ....(since it is out of production now)

    

Making the mother of all beer runs, 8/2003. The Staff is from Illinois, the Ballantine and Dixie from Georgia.....  

I have seen some excellent concerts over the years including MSG (2), The Outlaws (3), Maria Muldaur, Thin Lizzy (3), Joe Satriani, Pat Travers Band, Stevie Nicks, Deep Purple (3), ELP,  Rod & the Faces, Ides of March (I'm your vehicle,  baby...)(4), Blue Oyster Cult (4), Ten Years After, Wishbone Ash (4), the Who, Kansas (3), Great White (5), Charlie Daniels (2), Mahavishnu Orchestra, Frank Zappa & the Muthas, America, Spock's Beard (3), Dream Theater(2), CSN & Y, Eric Johnson, Weather Report, Nazareth, Randy California & Spirit, Billy Cobham, Marshall Tucker (3), Climax Blues Band, Queen, Shakti, Bob Seegar, Quiet Riot, Michael Murphy, Linda Ronstadt (2), Van Halen, Yes, Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush (3), Michael Schenker (2), 38 Special, Jerry Jeff Walker,  even Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, wow, the are just the ones I can still remember...

A final toast of the mug to Mr. John Rumming & his "lurvely" wife Roz for introducing me to some really serious "get ya drunk pronto" beer in the UK and sharing a few Jerry Jeff Walker tunes on the radio. Y'all have made it a lot of fun.