Beer of Obnoxious Hipsters Comes to Los Angeles

Black-clad indie-rock hipsters in Hollywood, Los Feliz, and Silver Lake, put down your imported Sonic Youth B-sides and raise a PBR tall boy to the sky: the LA Times reports today that Illinois-based brewer Pabst is relocating its corporate headquarters to Los Angeles.

This decision comes with no comment as to why the company is moving here; the sons of new owner C. Dean Metropoulos live in LA and run the company with their father, but your guess is as good as ours. It's an odd move, of course, given that California is generally viewed as an awful place for business. It's entirely possible that the city or the state offered the company some financial incentive, but no one is confirming that. Given its recent fortunes, Pabst will probably fit right in with other private businesses in Los Angeles; in 2009, the company shipped only 5.8 million barrels of beer, a drop of almost 80% from 1995. This reflects a general trend among makers of thin, watery beer, who have lost market share in recent years to manufacturers of craft beer, wine, and spirits.

Pabst beer is brewed by MillerCoors out in Irwindale, so no new brewing jobs are expected, and the company offered no thoughts on how many corporate jobs might be created. But in the meantime, LA's hipster crowd will be able to pretend that they're connoisseurs of local beers, in addition to pretending to be working-class.