Some Pabst history this weekend, courtesy of The Journal Times and Wikipedia. From the Glad You Asked column at the Journal Times’ site:

[Pabst Blue Ribbon] was originally named Select, but people kept asking for the "Blue Ribbon" beer when Pabst brewing started tying blue-silk ribbons to the bottles in 1882. "Blue Ribbon" became part of the name in 1895.

Pabst also put beer in cans for the first time in 1934 and called it Export when sold by can. The can included a picture of a can opener on the side with instructions on how to open the can, obviously with a can opener.

Pabst painted cans olive drab in World War II, and all canned beer went to the military. Pabst wasn’t sold to civilians in cans during the war because of tin rationing.

After reading that I decided to hit up Wikipedia to what they might have. Of course, since Wikipedia is awesome, it had the details from the column I quote above and some more:

• The practice of tying the blue ribbon to the bottle lasted from 1882 to 1916.
• Pabst started using caps on bottles instead of corks in 1906.
• Not only did Pabst start canning beer in 1934 (Wikipedia lists 1935), but they were the first brewery to do so.