The Room

The 33 Room is the Taproom at the former Pabst Brewery in Peoria Heights, Illinois. The 33 Room, the primary hospitality suite at the Old Pabst Peoria Heights brewery, was dedicated on March 21, 1949, along with the new modernized brew house and new administration building, in week-long celebrations led by the city and Pabst officials. It was proclaimed by then Peoria Heights Mayor Guy Yates and Peoria Mayor Carl Treibel as “Blue Ribbon Week” for the entire Peoria area.

The name The 33 Room was derived from the slogan Pabst used in the 1940’s: “33 Fine Brews Blended into One Great Beer”. Since The 33 Room’s inception, visitors from around the world that toured the brewery were followed by a warm welcome to the comfort of The 33 Room , the headquarters of the Pabst-Peoria hospitality for a tall foaming glass of blendid-spendid Pabst Blue Ribbon! The 33 Room entertained folks from around the world, tapping barrel after barrel of freshly brewed Peoria Heights Pabst Blue Ribbon for 33 years.

Today, The 33 Room, with its original backbar, has reemerged as a hospitality suite, open to the public beginning March 3, 2022, and available for private events and rentals.

The Brewery

Premier-Pabst Corp., later Pabst Brewing Co., was established in 1844 in Milwaukee. Pabst later merged with Premier Malt Products in 1933 at the end of prohibition to build a brewery in Peoria Heights.

Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer and Pabst Blue Ribbon Ale were the first products produced in the brewery. Two years later, tin cans were introduced for the first time, and in 1938, stockholders voted to rename it the Pabst Brewing Company—a nod to the original Pabst outfit.

The Heights brewery boomed in the 20-year period from 1958-78, producing as many as 18 million barrels of beer in 1977.

At its peak, the brewery employed 1,000 central Illinois residents. By the time it closed in 1982, Pabst Brewing Company was the fourth largest brewer in the country, with 700 local employees.

Since the Peoria Heights brewery closed, the building has been host to a variety of notable businesses like the OSF HealthCare and Children’s Hospital Foundations and more.

The Historian

Pabst Peoria Preservationist and Historian Kip Rodier was born 3.5 miles from Pabst’s Peoria Heights Brewery in Chillicothe, Illinois, where he was born and raised and still resides.

In the mid ‘70s, as a ten year old, Kip's older brother Mike and his neighbor Tim got him hooked on this new beer can collecting craze. As his collection grew, he eventually focused on the local Peoria breweries, with Pabst in Peoria Heights being a focus.  

In his over 40 years of collecting, Kip has amassed a rather large collection of items produced in Peoria Heights by Pabst and Premier Malt Products Co. that is currently on display at The 33 Room. Visit during regular operating hours or request a tour to see and hear the full story of Pabst in Peoria Heights and its many, many social hours at The 33 Room.

In one of his many roles as Co-Owner of The 33 Room, Kip presents a monthly history of Pabst’s presence in the Peoria area. Get in touch here to reserve your ticket.

The Drink Slinger

Dustin Crawford is a Midwesterner who has traveled the world, developing a constant hunger to taste new flavors and learn about other cultures. From Turkish Raki and Ecuadorian cuy to Peruvian pisco and Swedish surströmming, learning about flavors and perspectives foreign to his own has become his favorite indulgence. 

Aiming for challenges and disciplines to temper this hedonism, he joined the United States Marine Corps and spent five years in the intelligence community with two tours in Afghanistan. He then returned to the Midwest and pursued elevated opportunities behind the bar, diving deep into craft beer and craft cocktails. He soon fell for the art and science of cocktails as a beautiful marriage of the classics with endless opportunities to create something new and wild.

Always learning from pioneers of the craft cocktail boom in major cities around the world, Dustin is honored to bring his own flavors to the burgeoning cocktail scene in the Peoria area as Co-Owner of The 33 Room.