Valentin Blatz Brewing Company

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Building detail from the brewery complex

Blatz redirects here. For the punk band, see Blatz (band).

The Valentin Blatz Brewing Company was an American brewery based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It produced Blatz Beer from 1851 until 1959 when the label was sold to Pabst Brewing Company.

Johann Braun opened the City Brewery in 1846. Valentin Blatz established a brewery next door to City Brewery in 1850 and merged both breweries upon Braun's death in 1852. The brewery produced Milwaukee's first individually bottled beer in 1874. It incorporated as the Valentin Blatz Brewing Company in 1889 and by the 1900s was the city's third largest brewer.

During Prohibition, Blatz producted non-alcoholic beverages, from 1920-1933. In 1933, Blatz was issued U-Permit No. WIS-U-712 for permission to resume brewing beer.

In 1958, Pabst Brewing Company, then the nation's tenth largest brewer, acquired Blatz, the eighteenth largest. In 1959, the federal government brought an action charging that the acquisition violated Section 7 of the Clayton Act as amended by the Celler-Kefauver Anti-Merger amendment. The sale was voided in 1959 and Blatz closed that same year. In 1960, the assets of Blatz, including its labels, were sold to Pabst.

While the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company was "the beer that made Milwaukee famous," Blatz Brewing Company was, in fact, the first to take its product national. Two famous Blatz beer marketing slogans were "Blatz--Milwaukee's Finest Beer" and "Blatz--Milwaukee's Favorite Premium Beer."

The Blatz Brewery Complex and Valentin Blatz Brewing Company Office Building in downtown Milwaukee are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The brewing company's office building has been converted into condominiums. The former Blatz bottling facility is now the Campus Center Building for the Milwaukee School of Engineering. The office building has been converted into the school's Alumni Partnership Center.[1]

The "Blatz" beer label currently is produced by the Miller Brewing Company of Milwaukee, under contract for Pabst Brewing Company.