Most “Historical-Tasting” AAL?

Yeah, many in San Francisco and the Bay area but also in other parts of central and northern California. Lots of current "Steam Beer" info, for obvious promotional reasons, claim that there was only one post-Repeal steam beer - that also doesn't appear to be the full story. Other Post-Repeal Steam Beers

Well, at the risk of "beating a dead...uh... moose" - for me, at least, (who like @PapaGoose03, hasn't had one since circa 1980, when it was something like the #5 import in the US - not that I ever though, "Gee, I bet this is what that beer Miss Kitty told Sam to pour for Marshall Dillon and Chester tasted like!") that still isn't clear.
https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/canadian-macro-lagers.636579/#post-6843941
https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/canadian-macro-lagers.636579/#post-6844000
...but I do agree with this, too.

I came across something interesting the other day, re: AB's "refrigerator cars" in the 1952 official history of the company Making Friends is Our Business - 100 Years of Anheuser-Busch. Like anyone else who has done any US brewing history research or even just picked up an AB promo booklet, I always read about those rail cars and thought, "Yeah, yeah - aren't you great. Refrigeration..." and moved on, never thinking much about it. But, apparently there was more to it that just a "reefer" unit like a modern trailer.

So, likely in bigger towns where AB had an "agent" or a company-owned "branch" where bars could buy the AB kegs they could also buy ice, too.

Well, the Miller Brewing Co. wasn't really in the position to complain about trademark violations*:

* Not to mention the fact that Coos Bay's High Life Steam Beer predated Fred Miller's...

And what's in-between Alaska and the Pacific coast states' steam beer breweries? Why, British Columbia and the Yukon.

 

Maybe Oklahoma's Choc Beer? (Don't know the film well enough...)

Well, as you pointed out, the "Old West" era was pretty long - basically post-Civil War to the turn of the century (aka from "Pa, Adam, Hoss and Little Joe on the Ponderosa" through to "Matt, Kitty, Doc and Chester in Dodge at the Long Branch Saloon" *). The immediate post-Civil War period was pretty much the start of the spread out of the northeast cities and German immigrant locations and popularity of "lager beer". According to stats in The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition, in 1865 per capita (over 15 y.o.) consumption of alcoholic beverages was 3.5 gallons of spirits to 5.8 gallons of beer, but, in terms of absolute alcohol consumed, that meant 1.6 gallons to 0.3 gallons. So, to me, it's not unbelievable that some saloon keepers in distant and isolated locations would simply not bother with kegged beer (or relatively expensive bottled beer), given the difficulty of procuring and transporting it and then keeping it in a drinkable condition. Much easier and more profitable to haul in kegs or bottles of high proof alcohol than 4% lager beer. I mean, sure, I don't doubt that some beer was consumed in less than ideal condition but, why bother?

One of the earliest California breweries (circa 1855) was started by brothers Samuel (a cooper) and Frank Kaiser in Auburn, described as a gold mining camp. Their beer was brewed in a makeshift brew house (wooden planks for a mash tun, wooden box with a tin bottom for a kettle) and, according to One Hundred Years of Brewing:

So, no beer but enough whisky that the empty barrels were around for the taking .

Of course, by 1900 those Spirits:Beer stats were dramatically changed.

Spirits: 1.8 gallons/absolute alcohol - 0.8 gallons
Beer: 23.6 gallons/absolute alcohol - 1.2 gallons

* Wasn't there a short-lived TV western that actually featured some early automobiles being driven in the town? Maybe a James Gardner program?

 

Wait! I thought I just heard a bellow - that moose ain't dead yet!

From Moosehead Brewing Co's Facebook page (abridged + "You must log in to continue" - sorry, just make somethin' up...):

 

The Judge Roy Bean Saloon advertised in big letters outside the building “ICE BEER” which I presume means cold beer. I would have preferred those beers.

Jeff, thanks for that link. I enjoyed looking at all of those photos.

Cheers!

 

Langtry TX is still remote. Back then any ice would be seasonal, or brought in by rail. US 90 runs just north of the town, and it parallels the UP railroad. That is a possibility. Many old west towns were not on a railroad, so getting ice would be a problem.

I was on a long drive day when I went by Langtry. With more time I would stop at the Judge Roy Bean Museum.

 

Pictures from late 19th early 20th century.

Photographers probably afraid to go into saloons earlier than that.

 

Too dark and if they used that flash powder set-up, they were afraid the whole joint might go up due to the flammability of the rot gut whisky spilled on the bar and floor?

 

More likely the flash would go off and startle 20 itchy (soused) trigger fingers.

Funny thing, Tombstone was built of mostly wood and nearly burned down a couple times because there was no real fire-fighting plan. Yet, I know they had at least one photography studio in the late 1880s.

 

And get an ICE BEER?

Cheers!

 

Gunfight at the OK Corral was in 1881. Rail came to Tombstone in 1903.

It was 25 miles to the Benson Az station. Another line hot closer later.

 

Langtry looked like a gohst town. Looked it uppopulation is 12.

Del Rio has a few places, 45 miles away.

 

Best I can research, yeah -- this is the "stuff." Not a huge part of the movie, just one scene that mentions it and since it was an odd term it stuck.

Another scene in the movie is when Wales and his group reach the near-ghost town that was their destination, the saloon keeper talks about, "First the beer run out, then the whiskey, then the people." Paraphrasing because I don't remember exactly.

There are other historians who place the start before the Civil War.

Because they wanted something other than whiskey and it was all they knew. No *********s in the Old West.

Nichols. Yeah, early 20th century setting.

 

From the article that Jeff linked:

“Alcohol was cheap, with beer often costing a nickel and two drinks of hard liquor only costing a quarter. To stretch their profits, saloon owners would cut good whiskey with ammonia, gunpowder or cayenne.”

It very well could be economics that ‘encouraged’ folks to order a beer(s) since it was only a nickel,

Plus, if I knew my local saloon was adulterating the whiskey (ammonia, gunpowder or cayenne) that would further motivate me to order a beer instead.

Cheers!

 

Eliminate anything not in a brown bottle

So they were way ahead on the barrel aged craze?

 

Yeah, I'd agree with 'em, too. "Start", in retrospect, probably the wrong word for what I was trying to say. "Accelerate", maybe?

And thus we get the expression, originally voiced by some of the bartenders to their more rambunctious repeat customers as they entered those swingin' doors:
"Don't come in here shootin' your mouth off again, Tex!"

 

Shall I quote George S. Patton here? When a reporter asked about his "pearl" handled revolvers he replied, "They're ivory handles. Only a New Orleans pimp would carry a pistol with pearl handled."

Directed at "Cos-play cowboy" above.

 

Only seen "The Revenant" once (sort of that pre-civil war west), and I don't remember any mention of beer. Maybe just hot buttered rum.

 

Handles. Thumbs too big, need a pad, not a phone.

 

Speaking of American beer around the turn of the century the Belgian Jules Vuylsteke, who visited the United States, writes in his book published in 1893:

75% apparent attenuation of a 12% wort would come out to about 4.81% abv, the same number for a 13% and 14% wort comes out to about 5.26% and 5.66% abv respectively. 200ccm is the same as 20cl, or 6.76 ounces.

Later in the book it is noted that:

"Per hectoliter beer about 200-300 gram of hops are used." so about 0.51-0.77 lbs of hops per barrel.

Concerning the volume of beer sold the Austrian envoy Schwackhöfer in the same time period (at the time of the Chicago World's Fair where he was sent, his book published in 1894) writes:

I'm guessing the volume served could differ depending on the clientele, with larger (and thus cheaper) servings found in saloons catering to lower income individuals.

 

American Exceptionalism at its finest!
That's called ... "Freedom" !
(For whom? Well, that's a different question).

What? You ordered a "pint" of beer and you expected to be served a glass that holds a full 16 US ounces of beer, with room for a nice head of foam?
You know who also expected that?
Karl Marx.

The Slippery Sloop towards Socialism is lubricated by spilled beer.