Goebel Brewing Company was a brewing company in Detroit, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

 from 1873 to 1964 eventually acquired late in its existence by Stroh Brewery Company

Stroh Brewery Company

The Stroh Brewery Company was a beer brewery located in Detroit, Michigan. In addition to their own Stroh's brand, they produced or bought the rights to several other brands including Goebel, Schaefer, Schlitz, Augsburger, Erlanger, Lone Star, Old Milwaukee, Red River, and Signature, as well as...

. The beer was locally popular in Detroit from the company's inception, but grew in popularity and was eventually available in many states for a brief period in the 1940s, with an ad campaign in Life magazine that featured restaurant ads from many famous eateries around the country using Goebel beer as an ingredient. The beer, billed as a "light lager", was golden in color, and was noticeably drier than most everyday beers of the era. Their longtime mascot

Mascot

The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...

 was a bantam

Bantam (chicken)

A bantam is a small variety of poultry, especially chickens. Etymologically, the name bantam is derived from the city of Bantam - currently known as "Banten Province" or previously "Banten Residency" - once a major seaport, in Indonesia...

, called Brewster Rooster, who wore attire with Goebel's logo, and the beer was a long-time sponsor of Detroit Tigers

Detroit Tigers

The Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball team located in Detroit, Michigan. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in as part of the Western League. The Tigers have won four World Series championships and have won the American League pennant...

 baseball broadcasts on radio.

In the John Bellairs

John Bellairs

John Anthony Bellairs was an American author, best known for his well-respected fantasy novel The Face in the Frost as well as many gothic mystery novels for young adults featuring Lewis Barnavelt, Anthony Monday, and Johnny Dixon.-Biography:After earning degrees at University of Notre Dame and...

 book The Trolley to Yesterday and its eventual sequel The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost, the character of Brewster (really Horus

Horus

Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...

, a god of Upper and Lower Egypt) is given his name because he bears a resemblance to Brewster Rooster.

A new production technique

In the mid 1960s, Goebel began advertising that their beer was "real" (unpasteurized) draft beer. Normally, bottled and canned beer had to be pasteurized to kill the active yeast left in the beer after brewing was completed, otherwise the buildup of gasses in the bottle would explode them on store shelves or ruin the taste of the beer even if the bottles stayed intact. This does not affect draft beer, which is kept at refrigerator temperatures from brewery to tap. Goebel's method of achieving this was a bacterium cultivated by the company's chemists that acted specifically on the yeast in the beer, then died harmlessly when the yeast was all consumed. Sales spiked, as people liked the "draft-like" flavor of the beer, but the technique was short-lived, as the bacteria became prevalent everywhere in the brewery, affecting other aspects of the brewing process negatively, and it had to be discontinued. The beer never regained its previous popularity after that point, exacerbated by the gradual changing of tastes in a new generation of beer drinkers who preferred a lighter, sweeter beer.
Comedian George Gobel

George Gobel

George Leslie Gobel was an American comedian and actor. He was best known as the star of his own weekly NBC television show, The George Gobel Show, which ran from 1954 to 1960 .-Early years:He was born George Leslie Goebel in Chicago, Illinois, His father, Hermann Goebel, was a...

 became a spokesman for Goebel Beer for obvious reasons.

Later years

Goebel was popular in its latter days in the 1970s and 1980s, as a low-priced beer, sold by the case in bottles and aluminum cans. Eventually, Pabst Brewing Company

Pabst Brewing Company

Pabst Brewing Company is an American company that dates its origins to a brewing company founded in 1844 by Jacob Best and by 1889 named after Frederick Pabst. It is currently the holding company contracting for the brewing of over two dozen brands of beer and malt liquor from defunct companies...

acquired Stroh's and their other brands (including Goebel), and discontinued the Goebel brand at the end of 2005, due to diminishing sales.