Full Circle: Time to Start Respecting AAL

Already do.
/end thread.

 

I 'champion' Fosters Lager frequently I feel like. I can get x2 of the big 25oz cans for under $4 from the grocery store typically.

When I need a 'beery beer', some yellow fizz, etc they hit the spot for me. Enough so that there are always a couple in the house.

I'll rotate them with PBR, Coors Banquet and Hamm's or Moosehead, but Fosters just does it for me.

Cheers!

 

The elitism I’ve found around craft beer to “macro” has really been something I’ve only seen to exist online honestly. Me and most of my friends appreciate cold AAL as much as we appreciate craft. Sometimes more so. Every puzzle piece has its place in the real world. Do people really turn down draft beer at a wedding because “it’s not craft beer”? Or are you just a weirdo bringing in your own beer because you can’t bring yourself to enjoy a couple pints of “normal” beer even during a celebration or gathering?

All things considered, I’ve found myself buying and enjoying craft lagers quite a bit too. I still want to to support local breweries despite the hop burnout I’ve recently experienced.

Cheers.

 

Despite a few respectable craft beer options, I order a bottle of Miller Lite at my Thursday night bowling league, because I need to focus on bowling not the beer, it’s a lot cheaper, and I’m usually driving.

 

I feel that I "did my time" with AAL before going 100% craft, 45 years worth starting at 12. I don't hate on them, but with tastier yet still bland craft lagers, I don't see the point in AAL for me. Maybe if I drank in the volume that many AAL consumers do, then it would make fiscal sense.

 

My avatar reflects my opinion of AAL's. Back in the 70's and early 80's, craft beers were non existent and we thought drinking a Canadian import was a sign of taste and culture. Like others have said, drink what you enjoy.

 

I see your point here. If only drinking small amounts, unless you really like AAL’s, I could see why you might opt for a more full flavored beer.

 

In the past 18 months, Miller High Life has become my go to beer. I still enjoy exploring the world of craft beer, but there is something about the simplicity of drinking a MHL.

 

Honestly, I think AALs get tons of respect in the craft community. The style gets praised as one that takes much precision to do right and the macro companies themselves are defended by BA members and craft brewers alike as pioneers and people who excel at what they do.

Personally, I like a good AAL but I don’t think big macro brewers make a good a one. Even if they did, I wouldn’t buy it. They work hard to stomp out small craft brewers and I think that sucks. Yeah, I know, it’s business, I get it. I still don’t like it.

I had a Japanese rice lager from Treehouse and it was absolutely phenomenal, 1,000 times better than a Bud. I’d gladly pay multiple times more for that treehouse offering than the Bud. If that makes me ab elitist, so be it.

 

From a strictly consumer price standpoint you are correct. It doesn't make much sense to pay $12/4 pk. for something you can get $10/12 pk. In general, your craft beer drinker is a different animal than your mass-produced beer (MPB) drinker. I've found the local breweries to be producing a good quality AAL. The reality is the small brewery is going to charge more because of the economies of scale advantage the larger breweries have (how much more, I admittedly have no real idea). I don't drink a lot of AAL anyway. Speaking only for myself, the main reason I reach for and pay more for the craft brewery product vs the MPB product is simple - I want to support a local business. It still has to be a good quality beer, but I'll pay more for it. If the only criteria I used was price/quantity, then yes, it'd be a MPB every time.

 

If I'm at a party and I'm given one sure I drink and they aren't disgusting. But I struggle with more than one and I don't ever buy them . I used to buy an occasional 24 oz can just to have around but I stopped doing that even. Life is too short to drink beer I don't love

 

At a bar

in 2012: Boo they only have lagers

in 2023: boo they only have ipas

the circle of beer life!

 

My emphasis was always on being anti-Oligopoly within the US brewing industry. Like my bumperstickers once read:

So, in the pre-craft era, I consumed many AAL's from small and regional breweries, but they (and the non-AAL's they brewed - see sample list below) were disappearing fast during that period as AB and Miller (and eventually Coors, as they went national) continued to grow market share for the next quarter century or so.

1971 - AB 19%, Miller (only #6) 4%, Coors (#4) 6.6%
1997 - AB 44%, Miller 23%, Coors 11%

I'd probably still buy AAL beers like Utica Club (or Matt's Premium), Straub's, Schell's Deer Brand & Grain Belt and Point Special if they were on the NJ shelves. And unfortunately, the few non-BMC AAL's that do make it (Narragansett, Genesee, Yuengling Premium) are often only available in large (12 - 30 pk) quantity packaging.

Well, if one defines "craft beer" broadly as non-AAL's, there were beers like Anchor Steam Beer and Porter, Liberty Ale, Ballantine XXX Ale, Ballantine India Pale Ale, Ballantine Brewers Gold Ale, Ballantine Porter (also marketed as Krueger Old Surrey Porter), McSorley’s Cream Ale, Lord Chesterfield Ale, Black Horse Ale (Trenton and Koch), Rainier Ale, Pickwick Ale, Croft Ale, Genesee 12 Horse Ale and Cream Ale, Utica Club Cream Ale, Narrangansett Ale, Cream Ale and Porter, Schaefer Cream Ale, Schoenling Cream Ale (Little Kings), Carling Red Cap Ale, Pabst’s Old Tankard Ale, Liebotschaner Cream Ale, Kodiak Cream Ale, Tiger Head Ale, Neuweiler Ale, Yuengling Porter, Stegmaier Porter…

And in the first half of the 1980s (say, pre-BBC) craft breweries like New Albion, Boulder, DeBakker, Cartwright, River City, Wm. Newman, Sierra Nevada, New Amsterdam, Yakima Brewing & Malting, Thousand Oaks, Real Ale, Redhook Ale Brewery, Hale's Ales, Buffalo Bill’s, Mendocino, Chesapeake Bay, Manhattan, Columbia River, Hart, Kuefnerbrau, Riley-Lyon, Snake River, Widmer and Stanislaus.

 

Fwiw, for as decent as 'Gansett is, I'm usually surprised by how 'non-cheap' it is. Same with Stella.

For a much better bargain when I want easy drinking pale lagers I generally get what I call Euro-cheapies. $6 for a pack of 500ml cans.

 

Oh, yeah? Their standard AAL? I've seen 16 sixpacks but can't recall the price but I thought it was at least competitive with Pabst and the other Pabst-owned AALs. I mostly see those giant 30 packs of Narragansett (damn, my surgeon told me not to pick up anything heavier than a gallon of milk, so I avoid them "cubes" of beer). No idea the sticker price of those. Ditto for Genesee Beer. Plus, I can never remember their date code (Genesee still brews the standard 'Gansett, right?) and you bet I want as fresh as possible if I'm buying 30 of 'em.

Yeah, well, despite the owner and the breweries it comes from, that's still in the "Import" price segment as far AB's marketing department is concerned.

Yeah, if I found them more often and fresher I'd buy more of them, too. I mean, c'mon, some of them are given 18 month shelf life periods. Call me picky, but in February 2023, I'm not buying a beer canned in 2021.

 

I think the NA volumes are that small you almost could call all of them craft. The cheap ones are good, for variety I'm prepared to pay some more.

 

I've tasted American- and Japanese-style rice lagers from Crooked Run, Widowmaker, and Great Divide -- all of them very good, substantially more flavorful and interesting than Budweiser and other macro efforts.