Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co.

Schlitz Memories

Updated 11/08/2007

In May of 1970 I had a near death drowning experience at Lake 'O the Pines in East Texas. The two men that saved my life worked at the Schlitz Brewery in Longview, Texas. I remember they came to my house with a photographer and took pictures for the Schlitz Brewery newsletter.... we were to be mailed a copy and never were. I would love to find out who these men were and if possible, get a copy of the newsletter. I have NO idea where to go...... found your website and thought I would start here. If you have any ideas, I would appreciate hearing from you.

Look forward to hearing from someone.

Julie Bailey

Date:  Sat, 23 Sep 2000 18:53:39 EDT

Subject:  Remembering My Schlitz Days

I started at Schlitz in 1972  working in their Quality control Department at  
the Milwaukee Brewery.	I was still a college student at the local Unversity  
(UWM). I remember the first days as a young guy of 20 working with older men  
and women. 
 
I remember the older guys I worked with were so professional (all employees  
in the lab wore shirt/ties with lab coats).  These guys helped me greatly to  
feel comfortable 
those first few months. 
 
Plus, at the time Schlitz and Anheuser Busch were the big players in the  
brewing industry and both paid their employees well.  I started out making  
more money and my Mom/Dad.  I was able to help my mother financially until I  
marriage. 
 
It was sad to see Schlitz go down-hill.  When the Milwaukee Brewery closed in  
1981, 
I transferred to Memphis and remained through the Stroh transition until 1990  
(transferred to Tampa in 1988). 
 
I presently work for Anheuser Busch in Williamsburg, VA and am grateful to  
remain in the brewing industry working for the greatest of all Breweries.   
I'm also grateful for the fine women and men I worked with all the years with  
Schlitz. 
 
Chuck Lee 

Subj: Schlitz in Winston-Salem
Date: 04/24/2000 6:42:48 PM Central Daylight Time
From: ddedwylr@email.uncc.edu  (Daniel A. Deadwyler)

Dear Mike Reilly:

Thanks for your interesting history of Joseph Schlitz. I was a loyal Schlitz drinker from the time I turned eighteen until the middle seventies, when the taste changed and drove me to Budweiser, and later to Coors. I had been drinking Schlitz Draft in quart-size screw top bottles. I believe it promoted moderation because you could have a small glass and save the rest without being committed to drinking a whole twelve or sixteen ounces. One day the taste changed. It wasn't a subtle change either - it went from good beer to dish water (or Miller High Life.) Schlitz was already showing distribution problems, some dealers didn't want to stock it, and my friends and I thought that someone had just decided to drop the quality to improve profits. 

Around nineteen seventy or seventy-one I went to the Winston-Salem brewery to install some quality control instrumentation. About ten in the morning someone brought me a beer. It was the custom for the workers in that department to drink beer throughout the day. I felt I must have died and gone to heaven. I spent a couple of weeks there, (a little longer than the installation usually took, but I wanted to do it right for "my" beer) and never saw anyone even slightly impaired. Oddly, the favorite among the staff was Old Milwaukee! They all said that the quality was just as high as the flagship brand. 

I made friends with the brewmaster, a young German about my age, and he showed me a lot about brewing and judging beer. At some point in the process the beer was heated, and he said that that was the time to evaluate it, because the heat accentuated the smell and taste. He also said that one of the biggest problems in brewing for the South was in keeping the beer from going cloudy at excessively cold storage temperatures.

When it was time for me to leave, everyone shook my hand and the manager broadly hinted that I could have a job maintaining the instrumentation, but shortly afterward I got an offer from the University here in Charlotte and I've been in the Chemistry Department ever since.

Thanks again for your interesting history. It's obviously worth getting into hard copy, but the publishing business is very strange these days. 

-dan

Daniel A. Deadwyler
Department of Chemistry
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Charlotte, NC 28223

(704) 547-4437

ddedwylr@email.uncc.edu

Subj:    Murray K From:    Coppy183 : My dad worked for Schlitz for 35 years in the bottling plant in Brooklyn. Thinking back to when I was a child, the first thing that comes to mind is the Schlitz family Christmas party. It was held in the "Brown Derby" and all the children were given very nice gifts and our family was given a turkey every year.

Something else that stands out in my mind is the year that my dad organized a tour of the brewery plant for my Boy Scout troop. Besides the fact that it was very interesting, it got me to have even more compassion for my dad after hearing what it sounds like when thousands of bottles are clanging together on a production line.

And one other thing for now that remains in my mind is having my dad bring home a handful of bottle caps before they were put on to a bottle and I ended up being special in my neighborhood when it came to playing an old "Brooklyn" game called skelly, which required a bottle cap to play and in those days there were no screw tops so most bottle caps were bent from the bottle opener and here I had flat tops.

(Note: We are not affiliated with the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. or endorsed by them. Any Schlitz trademarks displayed, or brands mentioned are the sole ownership of the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co.)

CHIPTIN.COM Copyright 2004-2008 (Formerly Antiqibles.com Copyright 1997 - 2008) of Transitions Lifestyle Complete, LLC. Transitions Lifestyle System™, Isotonix®, OPC-3™,  Timeless Prescription™, Motives™, Royal Spa®, and logo are Copyright © 2008 Market America Inc. All rights reserved. Website Design and content Copyright Transitions Lifestyle Complete, LLC.  TLSC.UnFranchise.com and/or www.marketamerica.com/tlsc/ ,  http://www.tlscllc.com/home.html are websites of Transitions Lifestyle Complete, LLC., "TLSC ™," is a trademark of the Transitions Lifestyle Complete, LLC. corporation entity, and under the copyright protection of the United States of America.. Home Disclaimer http://www.marketamericafacts.com/ "May your Ailments be Less, Your Commission Checks be More, And Nothing but Residual Income, Come through your Door." Mike Reilly, October 23, 2006