GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum

Gotta love the Beavers!

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/orego...1755326020.xml

Students across nation try to crash PBR frat's party
Members of OSU's Phi Beta Rho are fielding inquiries about how they successfully landed Pabst Blue Ribbon beer as a sponsor
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
RON SOBLE

CORVALLIS -- It's no coincidence that the newest fraternity at Oregon State University is Pi Beta Rho -- PBR for short.

And it's also probably no surprise that college students from across the country hope to tap into the OSU beer action.

Ever since the campus newspaper ran a story last week on the brewer-supported fraternity, the PBR Boys, as they're known around here, have gotten a flood of questions about how they convinced Pabst to sign on to their beer-fueled brainstorm.

"I'm overwhelmed," said junior Joel Van Dyke, 21, of Forest Grove, a fish and wildlife major. "I didn't think it would catch on this big."

He and his five cohorts have gotten e-mails from students at Washington State, MIT, Purdue, North Carolina State and the University of Michigan's rugby team, among others, asking how they can start their own PBR chapter.

"They think it's really cool we did this," said junior Paul Koehnke, 21, of Hillsboro, an agricultural business major.

But the frat brothers drew the line at an inquiry from rival University of Oregon students.

"I'm a Beaver before I'm a Pabst," said Van Dyke, attired in a blue-and-red Pabst baseball cap and dark blue sweatshirt with Pi Beta Rho in red letters across his chest.

Pabst has given the unaffiliated fraternity a list of goodies, including signs, T-shirts and even a dartboard. They're all in evidence at the off-campus PBR House, a six-bedroom, faded blue clapboard home where the roommates live. On the fireplace mantel, the students have lined up about five dozen PBR bottles in two rows.

But Pabst is supplying no free beer -- that's not part of the deal and wasn't the motivation anyway, Van Dyke said. "We just wanted to decorate the house," he said.

The buddies, all at least 21, contacted Pabst about their idea via telephone and e-mail after finals last spring and won the approval of Pabst marketing gurus for what they think is the first beer brand-backing of a student group.

"It's the only one we're aware of," said Neal Stewart, senior brand manager at Pabst Brewing Co.'s San Antonio headquarters. "These are a group of guys who have adopted the brand. Like any subculture -- bike messengers, a New York underground film festival -- we support their lifestyles."

The 160-year-old beer brand with the red, white and blue label does no major advertising and so relies on creating a buzz with promotions such as these. Pabst no longer owns a brewery but pays other brewers to produce the beer.

After a long period of declining consumption, the blue-collar beer has gotten a boost in recent years from college students and other younger imbibers who are buying into its newly hip image. In 2003, PBR sales spiked 15 percent nationally, with Portland and Seattle emerging as the biggest markets, Stewart said.

So what does this relationship between a beer company and a handful of OSU students say about a university's goal to prepare young people for adulthood?

Larry Roper, OSU's vice provost for student affairs who spearheads the school's alcohol education efforts, said the Pabst Boys are on a positive track. It's entrepreneurial, he said.

"Our responsibility is not to mold (students) into a single lifestyle; it's to equip them with the tools to live a life of integrity," he said.

Give that man a PBR baseball cap.