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Join this channel to get access to perks: Want to learn more about Periscope Film and get access to exclusive swag? Join us on Patreon. Visit Visit our website “The Brand of A Champion” (1939) is a b&w promo film (with a short color sequence at the end) made for the Pabst Brewing Co. Narrated by Alois Havrilla, this film takes the viewer on a tour of the brewery, offering an intimate portrait of the science, engineering, and passion that goes into making the “quintessentially American Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer“. In this era the brand was strongly associated with athletics and winning in general. No wonder: the Pabst “Blue Ribbon“ brand won “America's Best“ at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Sped up archival footage sports games featuring commentator Bill Slater: football, ice hockey, basketball, golf, tennis, diving, baseball (0:30). Slow motion pitcher winds up, batter makes contact (1:45). Crowd cheers during football game (2:34). Woman prepares for dive from springboard (3:00). Figure skater transitions from sit spin to standing spin (3:10). Swimmers jump in unison from diving blocks (3:22). View down curve ramp for ski jumping (3:38). Horse and foals run in pen, dust flies horses race down derby track (4:03). Fred Pabst stands proudly with thoroughbred horse on farm, Holstein cattle graze field, National Dairy Show Jonah Bell Trophy and Pabst trophy room (4:44). Bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon, montage accolades and awards i.e. certificate from 1893 International Exhibition Chicago (5:51). Historic Pabst Brewery from 1844-1900 (6:50). Brewery buildings across Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Peoria, Illinois (7:07). Various production roles: Men clock in for work, coal miners, scientists work to refine gasoline and oil, industrial machines (7:47). Employee receives medical screening from onsite nurse (9:00). Portraits cheerful looking brewery employees in various capacities (9:17). Pabst Brewery visitors center, guest book open on pedestal, tour group gets up to follow guide (9:47). Laboratory: Dr. Albert J. Shedler, chemists check for impurities and carry out experiments across different labs (10:27). Barley field, scenes of farmers processing bales of barley using tractors, plows and packing grain into burlap sacks (11:19). Expert in white lab coat inspects kernels, rejected batch and accepted batch placed side by side for comparison (12:32). Grain elevators (13:12). Malt house steep room; grain pours into vats of aerated water; montage of dials and knobs used to control precision (13:36). Germination room, coils hang from ceiling with powerful fans that control temperature, water curtains, employee checks thermometer to ensure temperature control, closeup slow moving plows sifting grain (14:59). Sprouted roots on germinated kernels, kernels heated and roots removed, close-up machine inspecting shape and size of malted barley (16:27). Grain is milled, interior of mash tub where grain water and barley smoothed into mash (18:02). Machine of pressurized mesh filters, white cloth placed over filter by employees, extracted liquid flows out (18:57). Aerial view down 3-story brewing chambers, copper vats glisten in sunlight, stained glass of King Gambrinus (19:56). Steam fogs camera lens inside kettle, barrel of beer hops loaded into kettle (20:57). Hop field, leafy greens grow up hanging strings (21:37). White foam forms on top of liquid, samples extracted from kettle (22:00). Liquid flows over tall wall of cooler coils (22:33). Worker uses stick to stir fermenting yeast in large vats; view of yeast sample on petri dish under microscope, animation of how pure culture retrieved followed by live-action footage of scientist cultivating pure culture in lab (23:15). Suction hose attached to spigot, yeast flows to fermentation tanks (26:12). 8-story exterior fermentation building (25:24). Storage building, steel-lined aging tanks (27:05). Workers set up sterile pure pads of cellulose for final filtration (28:23). Pipelines carrying beer from cellar to packaging house (30:03). Mechanized bottling equipment, water curtain for pasteurization, packaged into cartons (31:02). Beer kegs (33:15). Map of world with export paths (33:49). Cairo Mamluk-era mosque, London Tower Bridge, Eiffel Tower (34:53). People enjoying beers at Santa Anita Race Track, Miami’s Roney Plaza, Hollywood’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub Ambassador Hotel, Normandy Luxury Liner, New York’s Saint Regis Hotel, Waldorf Astoria, Waikiki’s Royal Hawaiian (35:10). The film ends with a color segment (37:45) extolling the Pabst brand. This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit
