Falstaff. What was it like?

I don't know how great a packaging ideait was in retrospect since it was probably an expensive failure and contributed to the economic problems which led to them being bought out by Kalmanovitz' S&P Corporation.

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Probably the deposit wasn't enough to cover the cost of the things (they were heavy aluminum and actually had an rather large reusable internal CO2 tank inside them) and a LOT of people probably kept them rather than return them to have their deposit refunded --- because they were so damn cute on a shelf.

As for cool in the temperature sense, they were also true unpasteurized draught beer and had to be kept refrigerated from brewery through to the consumer. They also took up a lot of room in the much smaller refrigerators of the 1960's. They actually came in two different sizes - 3.875 gallons - a true "eighth" - ⅛ of a barrel - and a smaller 2.250 gallon - the equivalent of a case of beer.

A few other brewers used the kegs, too - but National's the only one I can think of right now.

 

Elvis Cole drank it, so its ok in my book.

 

Funny you mention it... a bar I frequent has a $5 special for a pint of Hamms and a shot of Jameson. I buy it, drink the shot, and give the Hamms to another random patron. It's pretty good for inspiring them to buy me a round of good beer of my choosing later in the evening.

 

Locally known to be just plain nasty rot gut . Was brewed in Ft.Wayne IN & ya they shut it down .building stood half collapsed for many years

 

Hamm's used these baby 'luminum kegs also, they were called Tapper kegs and came in a clamshell type box which was square waxed cardboard. It helped stabilize the container when stacked on shelving. They had an add-on plastic base which was actually a scale, that told you approximately how much beer you had left by weight. They were a colossal failure too.

Most people kept the kegs (by default,as there wasn't a lot of incentive to return them) and some were made into banks, rat rod gas tanks, lamps or whatever art project the consumer created.They were 2.25 gallon containers made by Reynold's aluminum in the mid 60's.

As a collector of old beer stuff in MN. I get plenty of chances to buy them,but they have as much scrap value as collectible value.Kind of a cool novelty item though...

 

Did he make Billy beer also?

 

Ah, yeah, Hamm's was another. (On the East Coast, I usually see National or Falstaff's).

I was surprised when I did some research a few years ago that, besides the 2.25 gal. Tapper, they also sold an "eighth" (⅛ of a barrel - 3.875 gallons- a true "pony" keg). Never saw one, however- the copy below is from a Texas Falstaff ad, so it could have been unique to TX or done to follow some Texas law, etc.

 

book book book lol........or is this on your website? You can self pub on lulu.com

 

Hmmm...Yeah, I think he owned Pearl when they were one of the brewers of Billy Beer (1977-78).

EDIT- Looks like Kalmanovitz/S&P's General Brewing Co. purchased Pearl in Jan. 1978, so kinda during the short-lived Billy Beer.​

Billy Beer was originally done by Falls City in Louisville, KY and then by arrangement with FC- West End (now F. X. Matt), Cold Spring and Pearl.

 

You are just to darn knowledgeable....THANKS!

 

In the late 70's my friends and I would buy Tappers of Falstaff and play a card game called "Bull Shit". If you lost you had to chug a 10 oz glass. Happy drunken memories! We looked at Falstaff like a poor mans PBR.

 

I remember that stuff. Those puzzles were really hard to figure out. I'm not sure if it was the puzzles or the beer that gave us headaches, but we eventually moved on to more premium stuff, like Keystone. No headache, no flavor, no puzzles.

 

Nah they were a fail safe mechanism. When you'd had enough beer that they made sense, it was time to quit drinking for the evening.

 

Hamms Draft was packaged in keg shaped cans back in the day. Anyone remember them?

 

In the late 60's falstaff bought out the narragansett brewery in cranston ri where they brewed falstaff, narraganset, ballantine beer and ale, and also an assortment of differnt brands.
Boh beer comes to mind also a brew called haffenraffer. Later they ran it into the abyss and was closed in 1981.

 

I think that was unfortunately their modus operandi. You could drink Falstaff, Stag, Pearl, etc... and they all tasted the same, came in the same packaging just a different name stamped on the label.

 

Falstaff was the second worst beer I ever tried to drink. Awful stuff, even at a three dollar cover, all you can drink, frat party.

 

Among the more interesting beers coming out of Cranston at that time were also Croft Cream Ale, Pickwick Ale and Haffenreffer Private Stock Malt Liquor (the latter very different from the dumbed down version Pabst was marketing until some members of the Haffenreffer family re-acquired the label a few years ago).

Falstaff continued to brew both Ballantine XXX Ale and IPA, and also expanded the line with the short-lived Ballantine Brewer's Gold Ale and Ballantine Cream Ale (as well as a Ballantine Twisted Red Ale out of Ft. Wayne - or was it Milwaukee?- after Cranston closed).

They would also put some new effort behind Narragansett Porter (new label, throw-away bottles, etc) and continued to brew the draught-only Krueger Old Surrey Porter. They were still releasing a few of their flagship's Bocks, too. In the immediate pre-craft era, that Cranston brewery was cranking out more ales and porters than any other US brewery I can think of.

Stag was never a Falstaff brand as such. It was a G-W > Carling > Carling-National > Heileman brand. Wouldn't become part of the S&P/Pabst portfolio until Pabst bought the Heileman/Stroh brands in '99, years the last Falstaff brewery in Ft. Wayne was closed.

And, yes, the S&P owned breweries (General, Falstaff, Pearl, Pabst) did brew a lot of similar tasting adjunct light lagers (as did most every other US brewery at the time) but as noted above, they also had a portfolio that included a number of notable ales and porters.

 

I love vague, inside references (though I couldn't understand his love for Falstaff).

 

I remember my dad getting a couple Falstaff mini-kegs back in the late 60s or early 70s, he and his friends thought they were the cat's ass -- and I remember it had this little rubber "balloon" (think of the squeeze pump on a blood pressure cuff) to pump air into the keg.

Funny thing is, he got one that had about one glassful in it! I guess he contacted the distro who contacted the brewery -- I remember the distro (brewery rep?) personally delivering a new keg, and an apology, to the front door. Those kegs must have been heavy on their own to not notice it wasn't full.