Full Circle: Time to Start Respecting AAL

Are you still able to purchase 'regular' Michelob at your local beer retailers?

I have not seen this beer in any of my local beer retailers in years. There are stacks of Michelob Ultra there.

Cheers!

 

Two responses:

I am able to find non-macro AALs in my area which do not taste "cheaply" made.

I recognize that as regards the macro (BMC) produced AAL beers there is little variation in the flavor profiles (some BAs will state either "no flavor" or "tastes like piss") but that is not the case with non-macro AAL beers.

Cheers!

 

EXACTLY. My favorites included Pabst, Tuborg US (favorite national brands by far), Schaefer, Huber Premium, National Boh. They had small variations in character that could make a difference.

 

A non-BMC AAL beer I would recommend to folks: Founders Solid Gold.

From the BA description (with emphasis in bold by me):

‘For those of you familiar with the Solid Gold we’ve featured in our taproom for years, this is not the same beer. Our Brewmaster, Jeremy, completely revamped the recipe and it now features lager yeast, corn and lemondrop hops for just the right hit of flavor. Our take on a classic, Solid Gold is a drinkable golden lager brewed with the highest quality ingredients. Challenging what a lager can be? That’s something we won’t regret.

20 IBU”

At 20 IBUs you can objectively see this is no BMC AAL beer.

I can buy a 15-pack of this beer for around 16 bucks (roughly a dollar a can).

And for your viewing pleasure:



Cheers!

 

I haven't looked at the case price myself, but the sixers are like $7-8 by me, so more than a buck a can. For an AAL I hope for a lot less- like those 30 for $20 kind of deals.

For the Euros, at that price the only time I look at dates is if I open one that's not so good- and thankfully that's pretty rare. They generally hold up well. The main thing I've learned is to really keep an eye on the hoppy ones like Bitburger .

 

Add some of the top prestige lagers that competed with Michelob: Pabst Andeker, Huber Augsburger, Schlitz Encore, Erlanger, Horlacher Perfection, National Premium. Hamms Waldech, Preferred Stock. Plus some dark lagers like Pabst Bock and draft Special Dark, Huber Bock, Augsburger Bock and Dark, Carling Heidelberg Alt Dark, as well as other packaged bocks like Genesee, Schaefer, Schell, Yuengling, General's Einbock, Stevens Point, Schmidt's (PA) . . .

 

All of the above (except maybe the initial age of reason ).

I did my time in bad beer hell from 1978 to around 1984. It's not any sort of snobbery or elitism -- I just started studying beer and realized the majority of US beers (mostly BMC AALs) were crap.

Even some of the regionals in the Midwest weren't much better -- even though I have a big soft spot for Huber, Schell, and Dubuque Star.

The Micro-Boom® hit at the right time for me -- along with Merchant du-Vin importing some great beers that made BMC look like the flavorless dreck they really were (are).

Sorry, no shame about never looking back or going "full circle."

 

Prior beer waaaay back in the day was likely not brewed with adjuncts? But I would have liked to tried that beer:

 

John, I suspect that would be the case for other (many?) BAs.

OK, I will take a crack at responding to this question but my 'answer' will be on the simplistic side and likely the 'complete answer' is more complicated.

One thing that was different between the US and Germany/England was prohibition. There was a 'disruption' in brewing for about 13 years. The lore is that after this extended time the American beer consumers 'lost their taste' for the beers like they were brewed prior to Prohibition. I suspect there were changes in the beers prior to Prohibition (e.g., circa 1900 - 1920) but the absence of beer for 13 years was likely a more impactful thing.

So, what would an American beer taste like for example 1900? It would be very different from the popular beers of today (e.g., Bud/Bud Light, MHL/Miller Lite, etc.). The Pale Lagers (AAL beers) would have been more hoppy in all three phases (bittering, flavor and aroma). And breweries such as Piels were making all-malt German style beers which needless to say would be more flavorful than contemporary popular beers.

And after Prohibition there was a continual effect of 'lightening' the popular AAL beers. A Budweiser of circa 1955 would have been more hoppy than a Budweiser of 1970 (or 2023). Did AB also increase the amount of adjuncts (i,e, rice) from post Prohibition until 1970/2023? I have no figures here but my guess is that they did since the 'evolution' (or likely de-evolution to your mind) was for beers to become every lighter in both flavor and appearance with the ultimate example being Bud Light being the top selling beer today.

Cheers!

 

Always buying AALs for Super Bowl. You can get them in many supermarkets all over Germany at this time.
My fav is Miller and I'd rather drink a beer like this than Krombacher, Bitburger, Beck's and many more.
Coors was brewed in GB and Miller in Hungary.. I don't know if they are equal to yours..

Prost!

 

As someone who has had Bitburger & Krombacher in Germany and the US, and Beck's brewed in Germany (before being hijacked), AND grew up on AALs here in the states -- I really don't understand this palate gap. Do you like the AALs just because they're different? Because I can't believe you think they actually taste better.

But I guess there's no accounting for taste -- you probably like currywurst, too.

I've heard the GB-brewed Coors is on-par with what's brewed here (crap), but Hungarian Miller could be interesting.

BTW -- if the superhype has teams I want to watch, I'll buy beers from the town whose team I want to win... not random swill available across the country (and ocean, I guess!).

 

Where was the Bud brewed? I presume England?

Cheers!

 

The Prior-branded beers, supposedly based on Czech recipes and brewed to market in the US when European imports were cut off during WWII, were all-malt but eventually were adjunct-brewed after C. Schmidt bought Adam Scheidt in Norristown. For a time in the 1960s, there were 3 Prior beers, Light (color not calories), Double Dark and Prior Preferred.

I suspect the last was still all-malt - it listed at $7.98/cs in 1964 making it one of the most expensive US beer (Michelob, probably the most expensive US beer at the time was $8.80/cs), while the Light and Dark were $5. Ballantine India Pale Ale, which was higher in alcohol and aged for 1 year in wood was only $5.58.

 

Yeah, I suspected that waaay back in the day it was an all-malt beer but later adjuncts were added to the grain bill.

Cheers!

 

Yup, I have an alternate list of such beers that includes some of those beers in my files to copy/paste when this topic comes up, but since I was replying to someone who was using the term "craft beer" to imply they were different than the subject line's "AAL" I figured I'd use my list that deleted the US premium and super-premium lagers that used adjuncts (often at a much lower percentage than the same brewer's premium flagship, but adjunct-brewed nonetheless).

 

FWIW, the first US brewed all-malt German style beer that I recall drinking was Stoudts Gold (circa 1987?) and I really enjoyed drinking that beer. I did know about beer styles then but this beer was a Munich Helles beer.

Prior to that I had tasted Lowenbrau but that was the Miller brewed version which included adjuncts I think.

Cheers!

 

Do you have data on percentage of adjunct per brand (e.g., super premium vs. premium vs. popular)? Or a reasonable guess on how much adjunct was used in year x (e.g., 1955) vs. that same brand at a later year (e.g., 1980)?

Cheers!