One Last Case Of Peoples Beer

Last week a posting  went up on the Milwaukee Craigslist from someone trying to sell a case of Peoples beer. The seller says they found the case of 7 oz bottles in “an old bowling alley building that I purchased years ago.” I contacted the seller and she told me the bowling alley was located on King Drive in Milwaukee. Incredible. Almost forty years after the brewery closed, their beer is still being sold... sort of.

It’s ironic that this would show up on the Milwaukee Craigslist. In the brewery's final years, Peoples’ owner Theodore Mack, who came to Oshkosh from Milwaukee, tried desperately to establish a foothold in the Milwaukee market. It was an irreverent strategy for a regional brewery. While other regionals were fighting tooth and nail to preserve their local markets in the face of overwhelming competition from the likes of Miller, Pabst and Schlitz; Peoples took the unique approach of fighting the behemoths on their home turf. Unfortunately, Peoples didn’t fare any better than most of the other small Wisconsin breweries. In 1972 Peoples brewed their final batch and shut down. Now, the last place you can get it is Milwaukee. I’ll bet Theodore Mack would have appreciated that.

Here's a Link to the Craigslist posting.
Here's a Link for more on the Theodore Mack years at Peoples Brewing.