Schlitz Premium is going on hiatus after Pabst Brewing Co. said Friday it could no longer absorb the rising cost of storing and shipping the beer. Wisconsin Brewing Company said it will brew the brand’s final batch later this month, closing the latest chapter for a name tied to Milwaukee for more than 175 years.

Zac Nadile said the decision came after continued increases in costs to store and ship certain products made the move unavoidable. He said brands placed on hiatus remain part of the company’s history and could return if customer demand supports it. For now, the pause ends regular production of a beer that once helped define the city it came from.

The Schlitz brand traces its roots to Milwaukee in the 1840s and was founded in 1849 as the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company after August Krug opened a tavern brewery there. Joseph Schlitz later took over the business after marrying Krug’s widow, and the beer built a national identity around the slogan “the beer that made Milwaukee famous.” It surged after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, when the brewery shipped beer to Chicago as residents struggled to get clean drinking water.

At its height, Schlitz was once the nation’s largest brewery before Anheuser-Busch overtook it in the late 1950s. Its decline deepened in the 1970s after cost-cutting recipe changes altered the beer’s flavor, and ownership shifted again when the brand was sold to Stroh Brewing in 1982 and then acquired by Pabst in 1999. The modern hiatus fits that longer slide: a historic label that never fully lost its name recognition, but did lose its place in the mainstream market.

For some drinkers, that recognition is the point. Joseph Conforti called it a nostalgia factor, and said people from out of town are often surprised that Schlitz is still made at all. Kirby Nelson said Wisconsin Brewing Company wanted the brand’s last batch to have “a proper sendoff. One with dignity and respect,” a sign that this is not just a production change but a farewell for a beer that still carries weight in Wisconsin. Pabst said it continues to look for opportunities to bring back beloved brands, but the immediate answer is clear: Schlitz Premium is being put on pause because the numbers no longer work.