Schaefer Beer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Schaefer Beer is a brand of beer from the United States. Schaefer beer traces its beginnings back to 1848, when the F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company which stands for Frederick and Maximilian, the brothers who founded Schaefer. Frederick Schaefer, a native of Wetzlar, Prussia, Germany, emigrated to the U.S. in 1838, was opened in New York, NY in September, 1842[1]. This is not to be confused with Engels and Schaefer Brewing Company of Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Schaefer was, at one point during the first half of the 20th century, the world's best selling beer. By the 1970s, however, it had ceded the top spot to Budweiser.

In Puerto Rico, Schaefer was one of the top selling beers during the decades of the 1970s and 1980s. For a long time, there was a large and quite famous Schaefer beer billboard at the main entrance to the city of Bayamón. The beer, along with the Winston cigarette, was quite famous among Puerto Rican salsa fans and superstars like Frankie Ruiz, Tito Rojas, Lalo Rodríguez and others among the "salsa sensual" movement of the 1980s.

A popular advertising campaign for Schaefer was the tagline, "Schaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one." This was put to music and used as a jingle from the 1950s-70s. The music was written by Jim Jordan of BBDO, on his son's xylophone. Louis Armstrong once performed the jingle in a television advertisement campaign. Music composer Edd Kalehoff also appeared in a 1973 advertisement showing off his Moog synthesizer.

An earlier advertising campaign (about 1959) asserted, "What do you hear in the best of circles? Schaefer, all around!"

Currently, Schaefer Beer is owned by the Pabst Brewing Company. Pabst purchased the Schaefer label when it bought Stroh's Brewing Company in 1999.

[edit] Trivia

During the 1939 New York World's Fair Schaefer sponsored the Schaefer Center a restaurant with seating for 1,600. Many of the dishes used beer as an ingredient. And above the bar, the Fair's largest at 160 feet long, was a mural of the history of beer and brewing.

[edit] References and notes

  1. ^ [1] ""F. & M.", as most breweriana buffs know, stands for Frederick and Maximilian, the brothers who founded Schaefer. Frederick Schaefer, a native of Wetzlar, Prussia, Germany, emigrated to the U.S. in 1838. When he arrived in New York City on October 23rd he was 21 years old and had exactly $1.00 to his name. There is some doubt as to whether or not he had been a practicing brewer in Germany, but there is no doubt that he was soon a practicing brewer in his adopted city."

[edit] External links