There used to be a large textile industry in Mikwaukee. In textiles manufacture, there’s always some level of waste between defective products, remnant cut-offs, etc. There were still used for some of these remnants. Some could be recycled into pulp and dyed a darker color. Some was used for stuffing, some as fire fuel, etc.
But ribbons were hard to deal with. The material didn’t recycle well into other fabric, take well to dying, soften enough to use as filler, or burn clean enough to be used as fill.
Then a factory manager named HR Pabst came up with an idea. He’d render it to a pulp, dry it, and use that as a filter to remove the odor from aged horse urine, and that’s how we got PBR.
That’s not quite accurate.
There used to be a large textile industry in Mikwaukee. In textiles manufacture, there’s always some level of waste between defective products, remnant cut-offs, etc. There were still used for some of these remnants. Some could be recycled into pulp and dyed a darker color. Some was used for stuffing, some as fire fuel, etc.
But ribbons were hard to deal with. The material didn’t recycle well into other fabric, take well to dying, soften enough to use as filler, or burn clean enough to be used as fill.
Then a factory manager named HR Pabst came up with an idea. He’d render it to a pulp, dry it, and use that as a filter to remove the odor from aged horse urine, and that’s how we got PBR.
That doesn’t sound right but I don’t know enough about beer to dispute it.