Koch's Golden Anniversary Beer
Genesee Brewing Co. / Dundee Brewing Co.

I dont know how any of you can rate this as the original produced cinema Dunkirk NY ceased in 1989. Genesee used their name for a few years but NEVER put actual koch's in that can. I'd be willing to bet that few of these ratings were accurate or actually had tasted Fred Koch's Golden Anniversary. I had 100s and 100s of them and miss it dearly. The bad rating on this come from people that would have NEVER even tried it. Sad...

This was our lowest common denominator beer. Somehow available in NH while I was a college student at RIT, I successfully encouraged friends to drink this abysmal swill. It was saving us nickles for sure vs Bud, and got the job done. The hangovers from stuff like this and Old Milwaukee or Milwaukee's Best are thankfully a thing of youth, pollution only a youthful body could withstand!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poured into pint glass.

A: pale straw color, fizzy white head.

S: smells like corn and rice. And a bit of alcohol.

T: a little citrus flavor and typical macro flavors. It's a mix between being tasteless and having better taste than your other crappy light beers.

M: fizzy watery, light body.

O: not the worst macro, but not too great either.

I had never seen this one before but what the heck right I might as well give it a shot. Served cold and poured into a pint glass, it was consumed on 10/28/2009.
 
The pour was about what I would have expected. Golden hay colored with a big white head of foam on top that really fizzled out quite quickly. Lots of carbonation bubbling up from the surface throughout the session as well. Aroma of light corn, light grain, and light all around, in fact I found myself searching for anything at all really after just but a few minutes. Flavor was about the same, muted hops if any at all loaded on top of a lot of corn and grain flavor. Quick hitting with no aftertaste and a light and non existent body. Drinkable but falls into the you can do better category. Overall I have had much better and much worse.

Poured from a 16 oz. can. Has a very pale yellow color with a 1/2 inch head. Smell is mild, some hints of corn. Taste is missing for the most part. Crisp but flavorless. Feels light in the mouth and has decent drinkability. Overall the only redeeming quality here is the cheap price tag.

I never saw this brand before, but at $3.49 for a 6-er, I figured what the hey.

A) light straw colored, like watered-down lemonade with HUGE mounds of sudsy white head even with a gentle pour.

S) Very mild. Wheat/citrus.

T) Watery corn/bread with a slight metallic edge and a bit of sweetness. Honestly better than I thought it would be.

MF) Well carbonated and thin.

D) High. While not super tasty or exciting to drink, it's better than B/M/C as far as American lagers go. For something cheap, refreshing, and low on alcohol (4.4%) you could do worse. But don't go seeking this out.

Poured from a 12oz can into a US tumbler pint glass.

A: The beer is a pale yellow color with a short white head that fades very quickly and leaves a thin lace on the glass.

S: The aroma is very faint but contains light malts, adjuncts and a touch of hops.

T: The taste starts out just like any other beer in the style with an adjunct and light malt sweetness and the breadiness of grain and barley. The hops presence is very mild even for the style. The after-taste is slightly sweet.

M: Crisp and kind of smooth, light body, heavy carbonation, clean finish.

D: Not very flavorful, goes down easily since there isn't much to it, not too filling, in a style where I find it difficult to distinguish one beer from the next I suppose this beer is as good or bad as any other in it. Overall, it's not a beer I would pick unless I were looking for something inexpensive and didn't have very many options.

To quote a previous reviewer, "this beer is a turd."

Clear, dehydrated, first piss of the morning yellow with a decent head (for a macro lager).

Smells and tastes like Red Bull. With hints of Papa Gino's spaghetti and meatballs thrown in. Really.

At $3.29 a six pack I was curious. That this beer won a medal at The Great American Beer Festival is proof that every beer has won some award at some point. This was a suitable beer for a canoe trip down the Saco. That's about it.

Sampled this beer as part of a tasting panel.

The beer begins with a fair enough pour, light in straw color, and with average head formation and retention with very little lacing. Pretty standard of American Lagers.

Faint aromas of pilsner malts, cereal grains, and light sulfers of corn and matches. Hop character is light but does bring about a light floral note, maybe from Noble hops. Not bad, just light.

Flavors are a pretty direct reflection of the aroma. Again, very lightly flavored and display a balance of malt-grains. With such slight maltiness, the yeasty sulfers come through a bit more strongly than I prefer. The corn and match stick sulfurs interfere with the otherwise clean taste a little to much.

Perhaps the mouthfeel sacrifices the most. the beer is very thin and crosses the line into watery textures. The malt character quickly falls away and leaves the grain textures (along with a light husk astringency) to carry the weight of the beer late and into the finish. Hop bitterness tries to mask the astringency but only has little success.

Ultimately not a bad beer. It's certainly preferable over other lightly flavored beers (ex. Michelob Ultra and Budweiser Select). It has a light fruitiness that flows into and out of the floral hop which I find quite nice. I can see me throwing back a few of these while tending the lawn or relaxing on a hot summer's day.

A: pale yellow with a few strands of straw. Lots of bubbles with a light slobbering of lacing

S: grains, corns, light hops of floral and grass whiffs

T: a few husks of corn and a handful of barley malt. Keeps a clean profile with no real skunk or powerful adjunct sourness. Otherwise it has the usual macro/adjunct flavors in a tasteful manner. No hops on the palate...

M: light, clean, with some favorable flavors. Has a good mouthfeel, not all that bad

D: good drinking adjunct

Golden Anny was the beer of choice my sophmore year in college, largely because you could get a case for under $10. I cannot give an accurate count of how many of these bad boys I managed to drink that year, but it was a number that was much higher than my GPA.

I always saw this for what it was, really cheap swill that you could drink all night without leaving you with a hung over so bad you couldn't do it again the next night and the next. This is fraternity hazing beer, pure and simple.

I feel bad for someone that still has to drink this, it would mean that they're still in college in Western MA and they are entering year 19 of college.

here we go, thanks again Scott.

A- Transparent yellow with a monster of a white head.

S- Good 'ol macro lager nose...blech

T- Gym socks, metallic funkiness, some lemon/citrus, weak malts and no hops detected.

M- thin body, weak levels of carbonation.

D- Well i pounded my glass just so i could get up and grab a new beer to put in it. I must say i've had worse 'cheep' beers but i dont see myself buying this brew anytime soon...

Thin white head on a light golden body--utterly forgettable, and the best part of a very bad beer. The smell is of mild malt, no other discernible flavors. Watery, bland taste is among the worst around. Tepid, sour, quick to flatten out. This beer is a disaster.

Mule piss, nothing short. It's astounding that this beer is actually made. Why, I'll never know. It's irredeemable.

I just picked up up a sixer of these gems. Nice brew, looks like a nice pils just poured one in a pilsner glass.The aroma is light, the taste is filled with grain and corn. Not a bad thing., Overall not a bad cheap brew.
This is a nice brew on a hot summer day,

This is not a refined quality beer but sometimes you need a "chug a lug" lager to quench a thirst. What do you expect for $2.75 a 6 pack? I do not like the unnatural foam head that has a chemical quality to it. I still think this is a surprising value.

Poured a crystal clear light straw hue with a three finger foamy white head. There was good retention and good sticky lacing.

The smell featured a light and mildly sweet husky adjunct grain with a slight grassy hop.

The taste was light but mildly flavorful. Some boiled corn flavor, but otherwise a decent grain profile. Light hops freshen the taste up.

The mouthfeel was clean and very light. A mild creaminess as well.

Overall a very drinkable lower tier macro. Pretty good for what it is.

I remember stealing a case of this beer, with 3 friends, from my neighbor's back yard when I was 16. He had about 7 cases stacked by the back porch and I figured he wouldn't know one was gone...

We all got drunk and then ate White Castle's till we puked.

I saw this a few months ago at a grocery store and bought a 6 pack for $2.99...

it's still the same swill and I didn't feel any younger by drinking this beer.

I did manage to drink the whole 6 pack over 2 nights and suffered no ill effects

it's crap beer for old men on a Social Security Income.

Pours a nice deep straw with nice white head
Smell is like any other macro, not much of anything
Taste is a wee bit nutty, but mostly corny and bland
Not bad for a night of drinking, just its not fun the next morning on the toilet
but for 8.99 a case, not bad at all. Only better cheapo is lionshead.

Serving type: 40 oz bottle, obtained for $1.50. In the interest of science, beer was poured into neither a glass nor onto the ground for fallen homies.

Appearance: within the brown glass, a fizzy yellow beverage was contained.

Aroma was grainy... Cheerios, with a bit of a peppery note.

Taste: Not bad for an ultra-cheap macro lager. More grain, oats and corn maybe. Just malty enough to be passable. Most surprisingly, however, there were light but unmistakable hops. Fairly nondescript but unexpected in such a cheap beer.
I also detected a mild flavor something like vanilla.

What looks like Schweppes, smells like a livestock feed store, and tastes like liquified corn flakes? Koch's Golden Anniversary.

Don't approach this brew expecting new heights of flavor, or anything even remotely resembling character. It's just a step or two above Coors Light in this regard. You won't find much to keep you coming back.

That said, at about $5 a 12-pack (thank you, Shaws), it's far cheaper swill than the Silver Bullet. If you must have a cheap, unassuming "lawnmower" beer, this is much more cost-effective than the macros.

Whatever else may be said about High Falls, it is a brewery that marches to the beat of a different drummer. Unlike the BMC big three, it does not have entries in the established market brackets; indeed, it’s pricing strategy is most definitely its own, and as such is a welcome boon to the Rumpole exchequer.

In price, Koch’s Golden Anniversary, a brew acquired by High Falls in the 80’s, is a small step up from their big entry-level brand, Genesee. Since Genesee is about as cheap as can be found, that makes Koch’s still very cheap, virtually the second-cheapest available, in fact. In glamorous Worcester, MA, Genesee is only available in 30-packs for about $12; you can get the six-pack for about $2.60 if you insist, but at this level, it’s nearly pointless to go to the expense of other packaging options. The Koch’s is markedly not available in 30-packs, presumably to distinguish the name; you can get it in six, twelve, and twenty-four packs. The twelve pack I got was a whopping $5.99, and as far as I know, no other twelve pack costs this little.

Koch’s Golden Anniversary is all about first impressions. The gold cans are exactly as pictured above. This must be nearly identical to the pre-High Falls look, which can’t have changed since the 60’s or maybe the 50’s. This is no bad thing, as this simple old fashioned can could be used as an archetypal example of the old-time beer label. It doesn’t look like a can of shave gel and it isn’t trying to look like it’s whizzing through the air. It is a can of beer, plain and simple. The favorable first impression continues after the can is opened too; the Golden Anniversary pours into the glass a beautiful rich gold with a thick white head. Coors Extra Gold might be more rich and vibrant, but otherwise Koch’s has a lot of more expensive competition beat in the looks department.

Aside from the gold look, the scent may well be the best thing about this brew; no strange sweetness, no off-putting sourness, just a very pleasing and inviting old-fashioned beer smell. The flavor isn’t bad either, but it is very simple; just a plain straightforward middle of the road maltiness aimed right at the middle of the palate, without anything else to complicate matters. No rich bottom note, no complex top note, and no hidden surprises. High Falls’ solution to making potable brews at this price is to keep them absolutely as simple as possible; the result is a competent but narrow flavor profile for its mass-market brews. As a consequence, the first few are enjoyable simply because it’s so astonishing they did this well at all; after that, the monotone taste, though competently done, nevertheless may get repetitive, and one might start to long for something with a bit more complexity, even if it’s of an inferior sort.

On the whole though, such limitations at this price are more than forgivable; so much was done right, at such a bargain. If you spot it, give it a try; this one will surprise you.

A step above the typical mass made macro lager. Poured out to a clear golden color with a short lived head of foam. Some notes of lace. Medium high level of carbonation. Aromas are light and grassy, hinting at malt and adjunct additives. Taste is suprisingly nice; very refreshing clean malts, some sweet grain, a touch of corn. Nothing great, but not offensive or undesireable. Mouthfeel was watery, and the carbonation didn't carry over well to the palate. Better than normal drinkability when it comes to macro lagers. Worth a try. I like the retro can. Simple, classic, devoid of flashy graphics or photos. Special thanks to conneticut poet for securing the specimen.

Pours a almost orangey yellow. Fizzy head that diminishes to a speckled white cap.

The smell is faint but a distinct, corn-like grainy aroma is present. Some muffled hops as well.

Taste is mildly malty. Hops are also present but aren't bold or otherwise assertive. It is crisp though.

Not the worst damn thing in the world, but not good by any means. Pretty boring.

12 oz can with a REALLY ugly outdated design. This was 4.49 at wegmans.
This poured a nice clear as hell straw with a gigantic fluff carbonation head.The aroma is nice and grainy w/light hop smell. The taste is similar with some nice sharp hoppage there and afteratst of grain. Not much malt going on here. Try finding something else this cheap and good. Besides PBR you are out of luck.A nice cheap lager, quite drinkable.

Saw this in the singles section at my local beer joint and thought "why not"? Poured into the glass with an actually decent white head that soon collapsed over clear pale yellow liquid. The nose is of adjuncts (corn, rice or both, I'm not sure) and weak watery malt with a very brief hop aroma that's soon overcome by said adjuncts. The taste was as expected, weak, watery, and nothing spectacular at all...just fizzy blandness. Finishes up blah and uninspiring to say the least. Pass on it.

Now, I am not a major fan of macro lagers... I drink them, but am not thrilled by them. However, this one surprised me. Now, that being said, I will grade this against the style... so it will have scores higher than if I graded it against my own personal tastes.

This one was an average yellow brew, but it had a four finger, white head in my pint glass. AMAZING for a macro lager, if short-lived.

Aroma was primarily of malt. Also a surprise. Grains were there, but hid in the background. And was that a hint of hops? Noticeable hops in a macro, and not skunky? Wow!

Taste was a little fruity and a little malty. Grains were present, and the light hops were still there. Much better than a standard macro.

Mouthfeel was average... not too thin, but not bold either.

Drinkability... hell, a 1 pint can for 80 cents? Cheap, and better than many macros. Yeah, I'll give it good marks.

poured a pale yellow color with large white puffy head. Smell is a bit sweet with maybe a hint of malt, but little else. Taste is mild and not offensive and quenches the thirst. A good beer for a hot summer afternoon or as a spacer. Cheapest beer that I've seen