Oh, Schlitz: How a Historic Ad Campaign Helped Kill America’s Biggest Beer Brand

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Oh, Schlitz: How a Historic Ad Campaign Helped Kill America’s Biggest Beer Brand


Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the Milwaukee-based Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company held the gold crown as America’s largest brewer. Its flagship beer, Schlitz, known as “the beer that made Milwaukee famous,” was a beloved and iconic American-style lager.

Then a series of business decisions, including a disastrous ad campaign, dubbed the “Drink Schlitz or I’ll kill you” campaign, precipitated the downfall of America’s biggest beer brand. It became known as the “Schlitz mistake.”

By the late 1950s, Schlitz lost its top title to another quintessential American beer brand: Anheuser-Busch. Although it still held its own as the nation’s second-largest-producing brewery, its drop in ranking would be a sign of things to come.


During the 1970s, in an attempt to cut production costs and keep up with growing demands, Schlitz’s owners decided to shorten the beer’s brewing time by implementing a process called “accelerated batch fermentation.” They also opted to replace its malted barley with a cheaper ingredient, corn syrup, and began experimenting with the use of a silica gel to prevent haze once the beer was chilled. (It was obviously a very different time.)

Soon Schlitz’s slogan as the “most carefully brewed beer in the world” was no longer applicable. Sales dropped as Schlitz’s customers grew frustrated with the brand and started returning cases of beer. In 1976, Schlitz recalled more than 10 million cans and bottles of beer, costing the company over $1.4 million in losses. In 2020, that’s the equivalent of $6.3 million.

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