Pabst Takes The Blue Ribbon

“Life is art. Art is passion. Passion tastes like PBR.”

Since 2007, Pabst Blue Ribbon has run an annual art contest. Artists find creative and colorful ways to display the Past brand name in a piece of original artwork.  The highly acclaimed artist who is dubbed the winner of the contest receives a year's worth of PBR...on the house, so to speak.

In recent years, Pabst has struggled to compete with small microbreweries who seem to have popped up almost overnight all over the United States. Many have successfully created a certain mystique about their brands and their beers. As beer connoisseurs rallied to sample Indian ales, bohemian pilsners, and American lagers with kitschy names like Devil's Wit, Elliot Ness, Wreck the Halls, In-Heat Wheat, Stagecoach Smoked Porter, and Yellow Snow, Pabst Blue Ribbon fell to the wayside ... being viewed as yesterday's beer.

The Pabst Art Contest Gallery has effectively pulled all eyes back on the Pabst Blue Ribbon brand. What a terrific way to put the panache back in PBR ... and to simultaneously get consumers to participate in your brand in a lively, intriguing way. 

Here is a collection of some of my favorite pieces of PBR artwork!