Keeping Pabst Blue Ribbon Cool

On a July afternoon, Evan and Daren Metropoulos, the new owners of Pabst Brewing, showed up at the lounge on the 35th floor of the Mandarin Oriental in midtown Manhattan. They had come to discuss their plans for Pabst, which their father and co-owner, C. Dean Metropoulos, bought in May for about $250 million.

The Oriental does not serve Pabst Blue Ribbon, the company's flagship brew, so the brothers ordered a lemonade and an iced tea. A hotel like the Mandarin may seem an unlikely meeting place for the owners of a beer that has long traded on its working-class image—the Lutz Tavern, a dive in Portland, Ore., is more like it, where 16-ounce tallboys go for $1.75. But the Metropoulos brothers were very much at home. They were passing through on their way to a wedding in Rhinebeck, N.Y., of an old friend from Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where they have summered since they were boys. Evan, 29, divides his time between Miami Beach, Los Angeles, and New York City. Daren, 27, lives in Los Angeles, in Hugh Hefner's old residence, a 7,300-square-foot English manor house he recently bought for $18 million.