Do you remember beer's "dark days?"

I still have one of them.

 

A bit different on this side of the pond, the dark days weren't about quality but about choice.
Basically the local pubs belonged to one of three regional breweries which brewed exceptionally good beer but just a session mild and bitter each.The odd place had Bass which in those days was dry hopped and vastly better than it is now.Stout was tied up by Guinness and Mackeson but by then Mackeson was in bottle or can and Guinness was keg rather than cask.Everything else was bottled-Brown Ale , Barley Wine etc so we rarely drank any.The keg revolution of the 60s rather passed our little backwater by as the regionals were slow to introduce keg and when they did it was more of a token gesture.One even delivered by tanker and the beer was stored in the pub in a giant vessel.

 

Lol, it is a lot nicer now and I'm speaking of starting to drink @ the dawn of the 90's. Even in NE Ohio where we had great micro/craft starting w/Great Lakes and the lesser Crooked River & Western Reserve brewing most places around town had what I remember as the import trio, Corona, Heineken & something canadian, Molson or Labatt maybe the odd Guinness...I always took a shine to Molson over the others incl Labatt which was best IMO on draft but really lost a LOT along the way as it became bigger where as Molson seemed to retain more of it's original character just before the Coors merger. I fondly remember buying Miller's version of Lowenbrau & Lowenbrau Dark for $3.99 a six many, many times for band practices and party's with friends or when the most exotic beer in a place was the original Michelob. Things really have come along way, even beyond the original micro craze which has now morphed into craft beer. I realize that the 70's & 80's was the point but I thought I'd point out that even in a lil over 20 years options and choices have grown by leaps and bounds...and I do find myself spending a crazy amount of time in beer stores like I once did in record stores, remember those kids!!

 

*no sarcasm alert* Sir, you are a wealth of beer knowledge that one can only hope to aspire to...or spend endless nights of research on this here Al Gore invented internets

 

My oldie in great 8 pack packaging: Sir Edward Stout... a Cincy brewer... Burger, Hudepohl, Schoenling?

 

It was a Schoenling brand.

(So, was it "stout" as in a dark beer, or "stout" as in "strong/above 3.2 abw").

 

Good questions.
Now to rev up my swayback machine to remember the 70s....
i do not know for a fact the alcohol level.
Going to say higher alcohol because We shared 8 packs and never needed a 12. do not believe they could they have gotten the nickname "fat eddies" for only the squatty bottle??
Do remember a dark beer from keg at graduation party that was fat Eddie.

 

There was good beer just about everywhere when I was at university in the 1970's. Then again, I was living in Yorkshire.

 

I remember it well. We had to walk ten miles in the snow just to get one can of BMC corn lager. It cost a nickel and you had to open it with a rusty nail. In those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Kids today have it easy. Now get offa my lawn!

 

Oh yeah, Tuborg gold on tap at the best dive bars on the Jersey shore in the 70s and 80s. It tasted like a prototype for softsoap.

 

Ah, when skunky beer was desired.... it was the signature flavor profile green bottled imports - and we just didn't know any better and thought that's just how imported beer was supposed to taste.

Molson Golden was the cheapest green bottle import - and it tasted just like the more expensive ones - skunked - until they switched to the twist off caps, then it just seemed too clean.... And Molson Broador was always the legendary holy grail in upstate NY because of the extra strength (until ice beers came around - "they're like twice the alcohol of regular beer dude") - and the first thing you would ask your friends about if they mentioned going across the boarder to Canada. Lots of Molson got drank in my time - golden, canadian, export...

Don't forget all the dark beer variations too like Beck's dark - ooh so exotic.... and Moosehead, St. Pauli Girl (which I will still drink today).

 

As a Nottinghamshire man you will know that Shipstone's, Home and Hardy's and Hansons kept the good beer flag flying here as well.They dominated the scene locally and keg beer wasn't the threat it was elsewhere.

 

Funny, in my late teens/early 20's I drank a bunch of Molson Golden and it actually took a couple of years before I got a skunked one. But once I did I never found another good one.

I remember Beck's and Beck's Dark was regularly $11.99 a case. That was my everyday drinker in the early 80's.

 

Aah, Nottingham in the 1970's. You had to look really, really hard to find shit beer. If you were daft enough to want to drink it. I don't think I ever had a bad pint of Shippo's until Greenall came along. The bastards. Nor a bad pint of Home Ales until they built that damned new brewhouse.

 

Had an amazing brewery visit at Shippo's......we were given the tour and then handed a pint glass and told to help ourselves from the cellar for as long as we wanted. The tables were groaning with food and all this at no charge.I got lost on the way home and had to be rescued

 

In 1976 I think Miller came out with 7 oz ponies-little bitty bottles that came in 8 packs. Nasty, vile stuff but it didn't get warm since there were really only 2 swallows per bottle. Nobody would have even considered pouring that shite in a glass. But by 1977 I was drinking Weinhard and European imports so my years of really god awful beer were short and sweet

 

My Dad drank ponies back in the 60's, so I'm guessing they were introduced prior to '76.
Where's JessKidden? Drop some knowledge on us, son!

In fact, I'm sure my first sip of beer as a lad was from a pony of some kind.

 

Those "dark days" that you refer to make me feel extra hip, since I've been drinking exports since the 70s. Not that I was trying to be cool, I just loved to try different beers. I was definitely on my own for the most part.

 

Do you remember all of the different McEwans Ales that were out there back then? Not many have survived over the years.

 

I took rocdoc1's comment to mean specifically when those Miller High Life "teardrop" shaped bottles hit the market (not sure when that was) rather than any 6/7/8 oz. nip - pony - split bottles. Certainly, post-Repeal, the small bottle (often marketed as containing "one full glass of beer" since in most markets in the US that was the typical draft serving size) was pretty common - especially post-WWII.

Ballantine used them for their long-aged IPA and Brown Stout and even some of the first bottlings of Burton Ale in the late 1930's and a few other brewers used them for other high alcohol/strong styles. Goebel with their "Bantam" bottle claimed to be the first and eventually best selling small bottle of regular beer by the early '50's but dozens if not hundreds of brands (including most every national and regional flagship beer) would eventually be sold in that size, primarily in returnable/reusable deposit bottles.