PBR met me on earnest terms wherever and whenever I was thirsty, and my wallet was hungry. They never cluttered my feed or preached their virtues on the TV, but came to me like a neon mirage glimmering above the bar. Where other beers tried to ingratiate themselves into my life as the “the official shower beer,” PBR fell into my lap, dignified as a precious hand-me-down.
One is born a PBR drinker as they are born a New York Yankees fan or a Quaker– I adopted brand loyalty like any family tradition. My delivery room wasn’t sponsored by the Pabst Brewing Company and my family didn’t drink beer until my sister went to college. We were, in fact, consummate consumers of Woodford Reserve, much to the protest of my bank account and laude of my creditors. Nevertheless, I’ve reached a point in my life where I’ll cover my bald spot with a PBR cap, but would never deign to slap a Budweiser sticker on my water bottle.
The bottom shelf lager features in my happiest memories since I turned sixteen, when my older sister brought a case for our family vacation. Even now, my second tall-boy pressed to my brow in a Carolina summer, I can feel the weight of her ivory cream cooler-bag bulging with 20 pounds of amber grain.
We were a Blue Ribbon family.
The crack-and-hiss of this, my third can sets me swaying half naked in a hammock with the woman I loved, listening to the Glass Animals warble through a busted speaker. I looked down the mountain through straw-colored pint glasses at a world that festered like the tumor swelling slowly on her neck, confident that nothing could hurt us in a Boone spring. Whenever I buy a bomber from a gas station, its weight sinks me into an Appalachian April, watching rain glide over the mountain with my best friend before swimming down the road to the Waffle House.
I legally bought my first tall boy in Boone (N0.5 in national PBR sales) sitting next to a girl with a beautiful laugh while I made an ass of myself. Making an ass of myself because it made her laugh. She wore my tattered green cable knit, blue eyes beaming through black lashes when the photo-booth flashed and she kissed my cheek. I spilled beer all over the floor and myself, but beer-buzzed and love-drunk, I didn’t notice.
PBR’s strategy is to engage with consumers organically: merch tents at concerts, signs at the football game, a themed tap handle. My favorite bar in Boone sported a steel PBR logo by the bathrooms, its darkest corner lit by a neon can. In 2017, PBR offered to pay consumers to put advertising in their home: shower curtains, coasters, posters or tapestries could score you $125. Bar peanuts to the craft beer aficionado, but $125 buys 31 pitchers of Blue Ribbon at my corner dive.
The offering seemed to confirm what I long suspected: PBR drinkers are PBR advertisements. I take to the streets in red, white, and blue merchandise– with more loyalty to the beer than I’ve ever offered my country. PBR never asked me to die, or to sacrifice anything but my liver and a few bucks. So why shouldn’t I wrap myself like NASCAR, and be a walking tall-boy, proud of my red, white and brew?
I’m three years and 188 miles separated from that favorite Boone bar, a year going on eternity separated from the love that shaped my life. When conditions are right, brooding over these blue ribbon blues, my mouth fizzing malt and aluminum, I can nearly return to the scene; the flare of camera, the singe of her auburn coils on my neck and the pressure of her lips against my cheek. It’s a chance to lounge in her eyes for but a second longer, when it slips away, fickle as foam at the top of my glass. These physical links are the tool with which I reconstruct these perfect memories– where $2.00 at the bar puts a PBR in hand and her laughter in my ears.
Brooks Shropshire is a writer, grad student and bartender mixing malted memories and martini mysteries. He likes his horror to be gory over story, and prefers blues to bluegrass.
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