Badger Brew: A Lost Oshkosh Beer

Badger Brew wasn’t intended to be a memorable beer. On the contrary, it was an efficient beer for erasing memories. Badger Brew was produced fast, cheap, and without any pretense. This was a lager for those with an eye towards price and a forgiving sense of taste.

A case of Badger Brew.

The first batch of Badger Brew was released on September 4, 1954, by Effinger Brewing in Baraboo. Effinger was taking a stab at the budget beer market. The targets were mid-sized Wisconsin cities like Janesville, Manitowoc, Sheboygan, and Oshkosh.

he Effinger Brewing Company of Baraboo in the early 1960s.

Badger Brew was usually the cheapest beer on the shelf. You could get a case of it for as little as $1.98. Shockingly cheap compared to something like Hamm’s or Pabst, which sold for about $3.50 a case.

The bottle label for Effinger's Badger Brew. The beer was never packaged in cans.

There was never much of a budget for promotion. Newspaper ads would lead with played-out hokum: "Refreshingly light." Or pointless drivel: "From Baraboo's oldest industry." But the bottom line was always consistent: "Beer to meet your budget." It was all about the price.

It wasn’t enough to save Effinger Brewing. The company lost money year after year until Effinger finally failed in February 1966.

How low can you go? Cases of Badger Brew were sold-off at closeout prices after Effinger went out of business. Sheboygan Press, August 12, 1966.

Along came the Oshkosh Brewing Company. OBC agreed to purchase the Badger Brew brand in March 1966. The deal was sealed a month later. Fred Effinger packed up Badger Brew and sent it to Oshkosh, bottle caps and all.

Click to enlarge.

OBC continued pushing Badger Brew down the same path that had been cut by Effinger. Though the price had lifted slightly, Badger Brew remained the cheapest of the cheap. Had the beer changed now that it was flowing out of OBC's tanks? Probably. Did anyone care? Probably not. The flavor was never the point.

The Oshkosh version of Badger Brew listed Lakeside Brewing Company as the producer on the label. In reality, it was an OBC beer.

Badger Brew was no savior for OBC, either. The Oshkosh Brewing Company failed in October 1971. But once again, Badger Brew survived.

After OBC collapsed, its neighboring brewery came by to pick through the rubble. Peoples Brewing of Oshkosh salvaged the Badger Brew brand in early November 1971. By the end of the year Peoples was making its own version of the beer. The Badger Brew never stopped flowing.

Theodore Mack (left) of Peoples Brewing and Harold Kriz of the defunct Oshkosh Brewing Company during their announcement that the OBC brands – including Badger Brew – had been sold to Peoples. Oshkosh Daily Northwestern; November 5, 1971.

Grant Peterson worked as a delivery driver for Peoples Brewing. He recalls hauling cases of Badger Brew to country taverns around Oshkosh.

“We didn't really have a cheap seller before that. All these old farmer taverns loved it because it was so cheap. A case sold for 95 cents wholesale to the taverns. Those farmers wanted a cold bottle of beer and they didn't want to pay a lot for it. And really, you drink six of them and you're going to get just as drunk as if you drink six of these,” Peterson says hoisting a Miller High Life.

In 1972, the curse of Badger Brew struck again. Peoples Brewing Company failed. This time, nobody came to the rescue. Badger Brew was dead.

It wasn’t a sudden death. Cases of expiring Badger Brew lingered on beer depot shelves well into 1973. And the price was still $1.98 a case. Just like it was almost 20 years earlier.

End Note
I've long suspected that the Badger Brew produced by the Oshkosh Brewing Company was actually Chief Oshkosh Beer with just a different label wrapped around it. You can check into that here.