Your favorite regional AALs

Having grown up in California, I’m not sure we have a “regional” AAL?

 

Unfortunately there isn’t a local adjunct here in LA/OC. Before I became a BA I drank tons of Pabst, and still enjoy one every now and then today. Looking at my AAL list, I like Narragansett, Hamm’s, Stoh’s, and Founders Solid Gold. If anyone wants to send me their local AAL to review, have at it! (I’d love to try Schlitz original recipe, Lone Star, Stag, and Olympia!)

 

Well, Lucky Lager is back... they haven't put the billboards back up?

(like so many of the above, another Pabst-owned brand*). It was the best selling beer in California in the 40s through the 50s - had around 20-25% of the market.

Before that, Acme was the biggest - a label currently owned by North Coast but they don't brew it as an AAL. Eastside, Burgermeister and Rainier (brewed in SF, not the Seattle brewing company) were also pre-WWII big CA brands. After the War into the mid-50s, big eastern brewers moved into the state buying or building breweries - Pabst, Schlitz, AB, Goebel, Hamm, Rheingold... even Lucky Lager's General Brewing Co. was about 50% owned by Labatt.

*Although, the company that evolved into the modern Pabst Brewing Co. has owned the Lucky Lager brand longer than the Pabst Blue Ribbon brand. Paul Kalmanovitz of the S&P Corp and owner of L.A.'s Maier Brewing Co. (Brew 102) bought Lucky Lager/General Brewing Co. in the 1960s, then Falstaff and Pearl in the 1970s and finally Pabst in the 1980s.

 

Old Milwaukee, Grain Belt and Blatz

 

Tough when SN is your equivalent , it’s fairly priced, and it’s available everywhere and fresh.

 

Didn’t hurt that my Aunt worked at the brewery when I was growing up either!

Every party and family get together was always SN. It lived in our fridge. Still does.

 

Founder's Solid Gold is the best I've had at least here in the Midwest. Theirs is darn near the best in terms of adjunct lagers.

 

Not a "legacy brand" like most of those previously mentioned, but definitely regional... any time I was in MD or VA this summer I enjoyed Social Lager from Oliver Brewing. It was a perfect, crisp, clean, yet flavorful beer. I have no idea if it was an AAL or not... Could have easily been all malt, but I can't even find any mention of it on the brewers web site.

 

I'm the one who mentioned inconsistency. My first review in 2017 noted no off flavors or flaws. I've had a few samples since that were definitely off and tasted of incomplete fermentation. If I can find some fresh, without the two hour drive, I'll pick it up. I'm afraid that they can or bottle when the schedule says, instead of when it's ready, but that's only a theory.

 

I seek out Yuengling every time I go back east. Love it!!!!

 

PBR, Hamm's, occasionally High Life. Lately I've been enjoying Coors Banquet.

 

Wow, just that mention of the Brewer's Outlet in Woodlyn brings back so many memories. That was my fathers favorite store, and I went there on a regular basis growing up. I was 13 when the older brother of one of my friends starting getting beer for us there. The $4 per case that I remember was Gibbons beer. Damn, it kind of sucked, but we could afford it. We moved on to much better $6 cases after that.

 

Lone Star

 

Reading, Valley Forge and Gibbons? You guys (or your surrogates) should have been shopping the B.O.'s other aisles - I seldom even took my handtruck down the 16 oz'er row. Granted I had a job and was shopping for stuff I couldn't score at home, not for "bang for my buck" - after all the gasoline I burned to get there had jumped to over 50¢/gallon and that toll bridge on Rt. 1 might have been a quarter.

This was the beer menu of the Brewers Outlet a couple of miles over the Delaware from Trenton that I frequented. (Looks like the jpeg was previously edited to highlight the ales and dark beers available in the 1970s - hey, looks like I missed Old Chicago Dark when I did it. Tasty stuff that only last a few years after Huber re-opened Chicago's Meister Brau brewery under the old name of "Peter Hand". Miller had bought their primary labels when they closed.).

 

That's one I've wanted to try. I passed through the panhandle a couple years ago on my way to Arizona. Stopped in a convenience mart and looked for it with no luck.

 

Narragansett is a brewery I have always wanted try, but the are not in the trade forum (ever).

New Oberpfalz is a small German themed lager forward brewery. Their Helles Lager and Oktoberfest are special.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/40185/

For being lager forward, I was surprised to learn that they don’t do an AAL.

 

The current AAL Narragansett Lager is contract-brewed by Genesee in their multi-million barrel capacity facility and is distributed to much of the east coast (much further than the original Narrangasett brewery probably ever did, even though the original company was much larger than the reborn version).

While the beer may never show up as trade bait in a Trade thread, I suspect an "ISO" request would likely get you more beer than you can reasonably consume. Pretty sure I've seen 30 packs for around $25.

 

I grew up in Langhorne and moved to Morrisville in 1972, and at the ripe age of 16 we lived in the Trenton bars. Most places had Bud and Schaefer on tap, the odd one maybe Schlitz or Michelob. I didn’t do too much take out though, mainly bought at Deons in Levittown definitely in the hard case 16 oz Aisle. It was always a bit of a game to see how low you could go in terms or price vs quality. I don’t remember any light beer being a thing until maybe 74/75.

 

I was just thinking the same thing.
I did live in Hawaii for 20 years and Primo was undrinkable ... even as an 18-year-old.

 

Is Lionshead still around in PA? Used to drinking cases of that.


And although I don't enjoy the flavor, American Light will always have a special place in my memories of high school.