This is not just another sad story of the demise of one great regional and a handful of local breweries. As depressing as the subject matter is, the Chicago battleground provides some interesting contrasts. The author notes that Chicago was the center of "an amber rectangle" running from LaCrosse, Wisconsin down to St. Louis and then over to Detroit and back to Milwaukee. With such a large population of beer drinkers, and in the last few decades of the 20th century at least, with so few local breweries, the Chicago market drew the attention of everybody brewing in the region: Heilemann, Anheuser-Busch, Stroh, and Schlitz, Pabst and Miller. All of these companies, first as individuals, and later as parts of combines, took a whack at the Chicago market.
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The central section of the book goes into the history of the big mergers, and several merger attempts, that resulted in the ultimate death of Schlitz, then the old Pabst, then Heileman, then Stroh. The author has done his homework on this one, and he covers in great detail the problems Schlitz had (Schlitz had been the dominant out-of-town beer in Chicago for generations) first in Chicago, and then with itself.
The final part of the book is much more topical for the newer collector, as Skilnik traces the rise and fall of the first two Chicago microbreweries, Pavechevich and the Chicago Brewing Co.
Bad decisions, bad quality, bad advertising, bad management to no management; you name the possible problem, and it was visible in Chicago! Depressing? You bet, but it makes a heck of a good read for a beer fan!
The review of this Book prepared by Bob Skilnik
