Your favorite regional AALs

Then, I 'nominate' you to add a post to the Update Beer Styles thread on this topic.

I have been posting on that thread but some guy has really been 'beating me up' there.

Cheers!

 

Whatever you do, do not say out loud that name three times!!

Cheers!

 

Yep, the days of purely regional brewers has about died. You have the big boys who bought up the little guys and turned them into the same product. I grew up in an area in PA that had a slew of family owned breweries, I suppose they’re all gone. In NC right now I can’t think of one local family owned brewery that spits out AALs.

 

Funny, this is why this BA thinks adding more styles is going down a rabbit hole. Once you start when or where do you stop.

 

Straub and Yuengling survive as "family-owned". The breweries owned at the time by Schaefer, Latrobe and The Lion still operate, but obviously those 3 have different ownership. So, that's 2 out of the 13 listed ATF's 1976 ed. of "BREWERIES AUTHORIZED TO OPERATE" under PA. (Of course, not all 13 were then "family-owned" either, but most were). Two ain't many, but it's more than more that the vast majority of other US states, which have zero.

North Carolina, like many other "deep South" states (exceptions include VA, FL and LA) had no history of local brewing in the "modern" era. In the post-Repeal period up to the Craft era, there were 3 breweries in the state - all branches of larger breweries: Atlantic Co., Schlitz/Stroh and Miller.

 

Round and round she goes. Where does she stop? Nobody knows!

 

Sly Fox Brewing is family owned and they brew an 'old time' AAL of Reading Premium. IMO it is a pretty darn good AAL beer and at 10 bucks a six-pack of 16 ounce cans not too expensive.

Cheers!

 

Reading and Gibbons were my go to beers when we were first married and money was tight. Couldn’t beat those big 16 oz returnable bottles.

 

Yuengling Ale is way too hoppy for me but I still like it and have it rarely Honestly its one of my all time favorite bottle designs and the price is good.

Genesee Cream Ale is my favorite but seems to be lighter then others Like Miller. Or am I just over thinking it?

 

Hmmm... Chesterfield was once a nice classic hoppy US "golden" ale but it's been dumbed down in the past few decades. I can't find a site I trust that lists the IBU's - Yuengling's doesn't list it - but if it's above 20 these days, I'd be surprised. Except for the often underhopped cream ales, "hoppy" (25-35) often dry-hopped or spiked with hop oil, was the significant characteristic of the pre-craft era US ales.

You remember Miller Ale?

Short-lived product, was released around the same time as Lite Beer from Miller and Miller Malt Liquor* in the early 1970s.

As I recall it, it came pretty close to the then dominant US ale, Ballantine XXX Ale.

Altho' the memory of the beer is somewhat ruined by an incident in which I stopped into a dive bar around 1978 only because there was a nice BALLANTINE ALE neon in the window. Sat down, ordered a Ballantine Ale and remember the down-on-her-luck batender asking a patron near a glass door cooler "Gimme one of those Ballantine's on the bottom shelf there..." and she proceeded to snap off the crown of a bottle I couldn't see and put an approx. 4 year old bottle of Miller Ale in front of me.

"Er, no thanks..."

* Which kinda suggests that the modern belief that Philip Morris/Miller exec's were geniuses who took the moribund Meister Brau Lite and reworked it to create the "light beer" segment that now dominates the US market. They actually used a shotgun approach in the early 70s, with an ale and a malt liquor - they lucked out [mightly] when Lite his the target and the other two died quietly...

 

Oh, yeah - AB and Miller and many other brewers, both large and small - roughly in a period stretching from the mid-60s into the mid-70s (tho' a few - like Country Club, Haffenreffer Private Stock, Olde English 600/800 first came out earlier). The "red can" Miller Malt Liquor was actually their second attempt, pre-Philip Morris they also had one labeled University Club Malt Liquor (which sure suggest a Country Club influence).

AB's Budweiser Malt Liquor, or so the company claimed, was dropped after only two years on the market because they didn't have the capacity to continue it. Nice problem to have when you're the largest brewer in the country. Contrary to the standard malt liquor recipe, Budweiser Malt Liquor was all-malt.

I would imagine that depended on the market and type of retailer. Several other ML brands would be sold in 7 or 8 ounces cans (a few in small bottles, too). Paging through some reference books, there was also a Colt 45 small can as well as Bull Dog (brewed by several different companies), French 76 (National), Schlitz and Stite (Heileman).

And many more were sold in standard 12's - Big Cat (Pabst), Black Label and Carling (Carling), Brew II (Horlacher), Budweiser, Champale, Champagne Velvet, Colt 45, Coqui 900, Haff. Private Stock, Jaquar, Jet, Maximus Super (Matt), Mustang (Iron City), Mickey's... and that's only half way through the alphabet. Oregon's Blitz-Weinhard's Olde English 800 - which was even brewed under license for the east coast market by Ballantine and then by Ortlieb in Phila. After Pabst bought BW, Ortlieb continued to make what was essentially the same beer and marketing under the Coqui brand.

.

 

I’ve only had Lord Chesterfield once and I didn’t like it at all. I remember thinking dirty ashtray kinda taste. Can’t even remember the year but I’m guessing 1980 or so. Had it in the Poconos at a little bar at Pecks Pond.

 

Did the barmaid grab that bottle from the bottom of the shelf!?!

Cheers!

P.S. And maybe next time drink it from a glass vs. an ashtray?

 

That was the problem with the retunable/refillable bottles, of course. Lots of barflies used them as mini-garbage cans and ashtrays so the brewers really had to pay close attention to how clean they came out the bottle washing machines.

I recall once snapping the crown off a Chesterfield and there was a little spec floating on the foam. "What's this, a flake off a hop?" Nope, a piece of rust, off the spring that was sitting on the bottom of the bottle. (I assume it was part of the Dumore...).

As for cigarettes... One time I had timed a homebrew wrong and needed two cases of bottles, quick. Went to my local bar, handed over two bucks and he gave me two cases of Schlitz empties (I checked for butts before I took them). Got home, soaked them to remove the labels as the first step in cleaning them and - man, did that water REEK of cigarettes just from the smoke being absorbed by the paper labels.

 

What is that supposed mean?

 

Never thought of that, a bit disgusting, never thought of that, but that was back in the day of returnable bottles. I suppose they’re gone.

 

Well, I was being a bit facetious - sure, some "bad" bottles did get through (but, IIRC, DFH's TV show featured the workers searching for a lost part running brand new bottles) but likely an ashtray taste/or cigarette butt wouldn't be something that would make it very far into the extensive cleaning systems.

And, as I always asked people who found the idea of cleaning and reusing bottles (combined with the American habit of drinking direct from the bottle) back in that period:

"Ever eat in a "sitdown" restaurant - you know, the kind with metal utensils? Someone had that fork and spoon (heck, maybe the knife, too) IN THEIR MOUTH!"
"Or ever go to a bar that served drinks in glasses? Someone had their LIPS right in that same spot you're drinking from!
"Drinking a German import from the bottle? See those white wear marks at the top and bottom of the bottle? That bottles been used before! Maybe a German (unlikely) or an American tourist once drank out of that same bottle!"

As for other opinions of Lord Chesterfield Ale in the 1970s-1980s (I got curious after discussing it in another thread with @Ranbot):

"...a lively, sweetish and well-hopped... ale called Lord Chesterfield..."
(MJ - World Guide to Beer 1977)

"Lord Chesterfield Ale - yellow gold, good sweet malty aroma that faded quickly, perfumy sweet and bitter ale taste, plenty of body, lingering aftertaste. Good value for its type; priced quite reasonably in returnable bottles..."
(The Great American Beer Book, Robertson, 1978)

"At a similar strength (as Pottsville Porter), Yuengling produces the dry-hopped U.S.-style Chesterfield Ale. This is a clean, dry, floral beer with an agreeably rounded finish." (MJ - Pocket Guide to Beer, 1984)

"The brewery...also had Lord Chesterfield Ale. English-sounding but American in style, with a flowery hop aroma and a golden color."
(MJ - S&S Pocket Guide to Beer, 1986)

 

Huh?
Have you seen this post of mine from elsewhere in this forum?

In North Carolina, you have a limited perspective. Go back to 1984. In "The Great Beer Trek", author Stephen Morris described the states from Virginia to Texas as "the wasteland" {"We did not pick up in our van to drink beer in the local Pizza Hut."}.
Here in Chicago, we still get beers from Rochester, NY.; Monroe, WI. {the 2nd oldest brewery in the U.S.A. ~ helpful to win some bar bets (if they ever return)}; La Crosse, WI.; Stevens Point, WI.; and Cold Spring, MN. {August Schell distributes to central Illinois.}
{But I would be remiss if I did not mention the night in September 2007 when I went into Billy Barew's Beer Bar in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan and, while the bar played Aerosmith in the background, cans of Saranac beers from Utica, NY. were on special offer! I remarked to myself, "I can't find this beer in Chicago, which is a lot closer to Utica than Tokyo."}
The most amazing discovery for me when I visited Portland, OR. in July 2013 was practically all the craft beer bars had Old German in 16-oz. cans as their cheap & sleazy offering. This beer was sent to Portland all the way from La Crosse. I had not glimpsed Old German in any Chicago beer bars!
If it was to supplant PBR or Hamms tomorrow as the cheap & sleazy offering in Chicago, I would absolutely have it.