Your favorite regional AALs

Iron City was no better or worse than any other regional beer in the day, at .99 a sixer for 16 oz cans it was a lot of beer for the money. I bet those cans were great, they had a lot to celebrate back then too, the Pirates were pretty damn good too.

 

Narragansett does the job right. No need for another, especially since there are no contenders in NY, IMO. I like Old Style. Wish that one traveled to NY, along with Hamms.

 

It’s $5.99 for a six of pounders, and I think for an AAL it’s a bit unique as to taste. I can’t pinpoint what it is, but it’s a good thing, it’s certainly not cookie cutter.

 

If I could buy Genny Cream in pounders for $1.10, I'd be drinking even more Genny Cream, I get it in Tennessee for $12.49 a 12 pack of 12 ounce cans. I love my Genny Cream, and can blame one fellow from Binghamton, NY for this. Mr. O'Brien of McIntosh Laboratory and his McIntosh clinics. A Genny Cream was my first legal beer.

 

Lionshead

 

Damn...you can get a 30 pack of it for that price where I live (granted I live just a few miles from the brewery).

 

However, I live in Eastern Tennessee, my Genny must be shipped in.

 

Wish I could get Genny at your price for 30 Genny Cream cans or bottles. I love my Genny Cream.

 

I wish more people felt the way you did. It’s not as bad as it once was, but GCA had/has a ridiculous reputation for giving what people around here like to call the Genny Screamers (Basically scream-inducing explosive diarrhea). I think most of us know that if you drink enough of any beer, maybe more so with aals, that can happen.

 

...and it's on sale this week at Harris Teeter stores -- $4.99 for 6 pints!

 

Stroh's. Most bitter, and therefor, refreshing AAL I've had when fresh.

 

Whew.
Quite a lot to compound here.
I've been to Straub. It was on Monday, 24 October 1994. I was motoring back to Chicago (in the 1987 Chevrolet Sprint) from our opening weekend of the 1994-95 National Professional Soccer League season. We lost two games to Baltimore. One in Baltimore, MD, and the next night in Philadelphia, PA. (which was officially our home game).
I had stopped earlier that day in Harrisburg, PA., where I observed a Harrisburg practice session, and found a local warehouse where I left a 4-pack of Sprecher Root Beer with the manager there saying it was available to be ordered.
Then I shopped the place and bought a case of 16-oz Straub bottles, a case of 12-oz Yuengling Porter bottles, and cases of Neuweiler and Dock Street 12-oz non-returnable bottles. The returnable cases still exist in the basement here at the abode. {Going out of sequence - I also have an empty case of Stag 12-oz bottles which were bought in Springfield, IL. in July 1988.}
Yes, I drank from the Eternal Tap, obtained the T-Shirt proclaiming this, and bought a dark green sweatshirt in the merchandise shop. The sweatshirt makes an occasional appearance during cool weather days. Straub beers get as far west as Cleveland, OH. (Cuyahoga County).
I excerpt myself from a letter I mailed to the American Breweriana Association over one month ago.

I would buy Genesee Cream Ale if I saw it at any package stores here. It is listed as available at select Binny's stores, but was not in stock at the last one I visited (Pulaski & Diversey). I also wonder what has happened to LaCrosse Lager and some of the other AALs brewed at the former G. Heileman plant there.

 

Still available if the review dates at Untapped are to be trusted.

 

Jess, thank you. But La Crosse Lager has been available in Chicago in the last two years.
It was the sleazy beer on offer in a 12-oz. can at Beat Kitchen, a bar & music venue, on west Belmont Ave. the last time I had it.
I am not really on Untapped. It doesn't seem to appear on Beer Menus near here either.

 

I don't quite understand your original question, then.

So, you were asking what happened to the recipe/taste of it? I posted the 2007 story when City sold off the brand - which is also "what happened to it".. After that, the La Crosse Lager brand was just another brand brewed by City for another company.

I guess for the full story you'd have to dig down and find out the current situation with Ralph Morello/Beloit Beverage Co which owns the brands. Looks like the company also used this name and address:
MILWAUKEE PREMIUM BREWING COMPANY
4059 West Bradley Road
Milwaukee, WI 53209

 

What I am trying to state is that; I do not mind sleazing out and drinking the $1/$2 cheap beer (usually canned) at a venue.
But when that occurs, I'd prefer that sleazy, cheap beer to be one that is not brewed at the Miller plant in Milwaukee, WI. Currently, Miller is pushing Hamms (which it now owns again) as the nominated beer. Pabst Blue Ribbon is still being brewed there, but it is just a tenant. Pabst has announced it will shift its production to the breweries operated by the corporation which owns the breweries in La Crosse, WI., Memphis, TN., and Latrobe, PA. (and which may have some investment in the Genesee brewery in Rochester, NY.)
So there is impetus for whoever distributes the beers from the La Crosse brewery into Chicago, IL. to get back on the horse and ride again.
One of the other odd touches I learned being out here is that when in Portland, OR. in late July 2013, the sleazy, cheap beer I found at Portland venues were 16-oz. cans of Old German beer, owned by Pittsburgh Brwg., and now brewed in La Crosse. I believe Pittsburgh Brwg. is distributed in Chicago by Louis Glunz Beer Inc., at least for the venues here which proclaim to be gridiron Steelers bars. If Glunz was to push for cans of Old German to become the sleazy, cheap option here, I would definitely buy it also. (Then again, Glunz also distributes Schlitz & Pabst here. You can still get a @Schlabst [Schlitz on bottom, PBR on top] at some Chicago bars, even if it originated at the Highbury Pub in Milwaukee, WI.)

 

i dont think there are any in missouri? correct me if i am wrong. pbr is fucking delicious

 

There's no "public" connect between the two brewing companies, City and Genesee - but they do apparently "share" some contracts (all those FMB's and store brands, etc), so I'd imagine there's some co-operation.

Genesee is owned by what was called North American Breweries (created in 2009 by an investment house) and now goes by the name of its parent company, FIFCO USA (which is also the US importer of Labatt and also owns Portland, Pyramid and Magic Hat).

Briefly, when City was formed by an investment company called Platinum Holdings in 1999 (after the demise of Stroh/Heileman) they were trying to buy Genesee, too, but that deal fell through right before Platinum itself collapsed and City was purchased by a new local group made up of former Heileman execs and local business leaders.

"Again" ? Miller bought Hamm's (and Old English) from Pabst during the massive deal that saw those two companies divide up most of the Stroh/Heileman portfolio in 1999. Hamm's chronology went something like this:
1965-Heublein > 1973-Brewers Unlimited > Olympia-1975 > 1983/1984-Pabst (buys Olympia while Heileman buys and spins-off a new Pabst).

 

Thanks for this link. I totally understand the community support for a hometown beer, and I really understand Wisconsin beer enjoyment culture! Even as a lifelong subscriber to the school of thought the only bad beer is no beer, the remains of that twelve-pack of Point Special will only be consumed if there is NO other beer available...or I decide to cook with it in a recipe that will withstand its "unique" flavor...or, most likely, I feed it to some plants.