Full Circle: Time to Start Respecting AAL

Consistency, saves time (and time is money just don't try to pay your mortgage with a clock), simpler to control process, etc. And:

Yeah, could always be the case.

There are cases of some brewers using the term "natural carbonation" for the CO2 they collected and then injected into the beer at packaging - force carbonation. I mean, the CO2 was "naturally" created but it's not the way the industry typically used the term. Two examples:


OTOH, Owades IIRC was a practitioner of kräusening - he added it to process for Samuel Adams and New Amsterdam Amber Beer. Unclear about Pete's Wicked Ale, Owades worked on that and while Slosberg defines kräusening in his book, it's not clear if they used it (after a quick scan).

Here's what he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1986.

And "secondary fermentation" (unlike "kräusening" which people still ridicule) is not that unusual a term - wine people know it because of champagne and other naturally "sparkling" wines.

 

I do get the whole "just do it right in the first place" reasoning, but the krausening did have to be seen as a safety net at one point, which would explain why some brewers were slower to move away from it.

We also do see oxygen and diacetyl reported issues on here from large brewers from time to time, so brewing that clean isn't always a given.

 

Something we can agree on.

I am not convinced of that. It seems to me that some breweries 'back in the day' conducted krausening because that is what they were taught to do (i.e., grandpa did it so I will too).

Again, oxygen at packaging is indeed a potential big issue. The solution it to implement low DO during packaging. Krausening will not 'fix' a shitty packaging process.

And just conduct fermentation properly and diacetyl will not be an issue. Using 'band aid' to fix poor brewing process is not the proper way to operate as a business. I have homebrewed about close to a hundred batches of lagers and diacetyl is not an issue in my homebrewery.

Cheers!

 

That is a great beer but I woud say the only way it compares to Bud is it has rice and is a lager.

 

In my college days it was Red White & Blue (RWBs), Knickerbocker Natural, and when we were feeling uppity, Milwaukee's Best. Don't know if they're even still around, let alone how they'd taste to my since then refined palate.

 

I’ve only read some of the replies here, but it seems that these topics always bring up strong feelings and bewilderment. How can someone hate on AAL so bad? How can anyone like an AAL?

For me this is simple. Everyone has different tastes. I truly don’t enjoy that style of beer. I’d rather drink nothing than AAL. Sure, everyone likes a buzz now and again, but by and large I drink for the flavor. I drink for what I think tastes good. If I just cared about the buzz, I’d do liquor. That isn’t also to say that I think that AAL has zero flavor, but it is to say that I don’t like the flavor, just like some on here don’t like red wine, and how I generally prefer red wine, but often not white wine, or how I think Gin tastes like mineral dick or how American Vodka tastes like chemical.

Pure and simple, I don’t like it, and I’ll gladly abstain over consuming it, even at gatherings. Yes, I will turn it down. Yes, I’ll have nothing at a celebration.

Saying, “drink what you like” is as meaningless as saying, “Love who you want”. You either understand it in your heart, or it’s just words. Either you understand that people actually dislike certain types of beer, and it tastes offensive to them (as AALs do to me), or you think everyone is full of shit.

 

I have only had a few beers that were so bad I had to pour them down the drain... none of them were AALs... Just sayin'...

 

+1 to that. I enjoy Japanese rice lagers as a hot weather/lawnmower beer.

I recently found a pack of Live Oak's Pre-War Pils (currently the #1 AAL). It's a well-executed beer (and a cool piece of brewing history), and I can respect that, but the AAL style is just not my thing.

 

I poured some AALs if they were old and rancid but poured down the drain just because they were bad and not old and rancid ? Hmmm I dont think so. I probably almost did a few times but I sucked it up. I had one craft AAL that tasted a lot like Rolling Rock and I hate Rolling Rock but I still drank it.

 

I appreciate the links and discussion regarding Krausening @jesskidden and @JackHorzempa @TongoRad

I also apologize for my two earlier posts regarding Prohibition. I try to keep things positive on the board, and failed in both instances.

 

Yeah, but it's difficult to be positive about Prohibition. (I guess historians of home brewing might have a good time with it). I sorta hate the topic myself because much of the available contemporary brewing industry publications and resources are full of news and discussion of the topic in the period of ~1900 - 1933 (and after that, recovering from it and continuing the fight against the Drys in some states) , so much so that researching other topics one gets to the point of asking, "Yeah, yeah, I get it but what else is happening!?"

I also kinda hate how the lawlessness and criminal activity of the period is seen as quaint and cool in this modern age (even by some breweries) and too many modern brewing history books concentrate too much time to the topic.

As for @moodenba comment re: "Many were idealists whose ideas didn't come out right." I kinda agree with him to a point. One could almost say, "There were good people on both sides..." but, no, I'm not going to say that. I guess I agree with your take in other ways, to say there were also evil people on both sides and they often dominated the events.

In some ways the topic is similar to several modern political debates (abortion, guns, taxes, free speech, civil rights) in that sometimes the extremists, typically the minority, take the lead and the unintended consequences are the primary result. Certainly the history of both the Wets and the Drys in the US is a "strange bedfellows" one.

So, yeah, there were some Progressives in the Dry movement - often of the religious based or nanny-state sort, and even some so-called "right wing socialists" (aka "sewer socialists") except, understandably most of the ones in Wisconsin.

Even the labor movement saw some pro-Pro believers - like Terrance Powderly head of the Knights of Labor. (It's why most locals of the United Brewery Workmen would leave the Knights for the AFL, even as the latter was less sympathetic to the UBW's industrial organization model). The relatively conservative Railroad Brotherhoods also leaned Dry.

The very left-wing United Brewery Workmen of the pre-Prohibition period soon found themselves allied with the dreaded Brewery Capitalists ( the term used for brewery owners by Hermann Schulter in his 1910 history of the organization,The Brewing Industry and the Brewery Workers' Movement in America). And it did not help that both groups were predominantly German (even the union publications were often in German or bi-lingual) since the final move to full Prohibition was happening during WWI. Without Prohibition, the Brewery Workers might have been able to survive their near-century long battle with the (conservative/corrupt? - take your pick) Teamsters.

But, along with the racism and the anti-immigrant xenophobia you mentioned, throw in other "hot" topics of the era like the Federal Income Tax and Women Suffrage and the entire topic becomes a !@#$ mess.

Yeah, me, too (even if some people don't always get the joke, despite my screen name. ) And I try to stay on-topic, but sometimes I go the other way when one of my "hot topics" is brought up - it becomes inevitable.

 

I consistently get craft adjunct lagers that are better than than the macro AALs. Yes they are more expensive for what they are so you still can't pound them down like you could gas station beers.

There's nothing wrong with adjuncts if they are used correctly. Same could be said for any other style that's being adjunct'd. Imo most macro AAL breweries are to heavy handed with adjuncts/extracts.

@JackHorzempa I'm a big fan of Solid Gold and those 15 packs. Wish we'd see some fresher. I normally bust those types of beers out spring/summer time. Best kinda beer to drink in the Texas heat. If I could only get my hands on some Live Oak beers.

 

I hate AAL. I hate them so much that I quit drinking beer entirely for a few decades because that's basically all there was. I have no desire to start drinking them again just because craft breweries make them now.

Last night, I ordered an Evil Twin Pink Pineapple at dinner. Tasted like a version of Bud Light Lime. Took two sips, left the rest of the can on the table and drank water instead.

 

As I was reading your post I was thinking "he should be drinking Live Oak Pre-War but you 'answered' my thought.

It is a bummer that Live Oak is unavailable to you.

Cheers!

 

So Live Oak isn't widely distributed in TX? I figured it was. That's a shame. I've never had anything from them either but they had a good rep even over here in GA.

 

According to the brewery, ETPP is a "7% Pink Sour IPA". You may hate AAL's but that sure wasn't one.

 

A very good perspective on prohibition! In addition to the anti-German and anti-socialist factions, I would add the Women's movement of the early 20th century. Women were struggling to gain power and the vote, and their organizations were often, understandably, anti-drink. Oddly, prohibition and speakeasys seemed to eventually lead the way to equal opportunity drinking, giving women more freedom to attend bars and clubs, but not complete freedom. McSorley's in New York City remained men-only throught the 60s. In NYC one afternoon in the 80s, my wife and I sat down at the bar at a nearly empty saloon to have a drink, but were shooed to a table by the bartender "No women at the bar!"
Corrupt alcohol production and distribution, and corrruption of law enforcement, were big negative aspects of prohibition, and lasted well after repeal. The mob-connected Chicago-based Manhattan/Canadian Ace brewery lasted into the late 60s, the brand enduring into the 70s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Brewing_Company_of_Chicago
In the mid 70s, MacTrail and I talked to Mr. Hasterlik, the last owner of the Chicago Best Brewery in his old brewery office. He told us his brewery, after prohibition, specialized in private label contracts in order to avoid the continuing strong-armed tactics of local brewers and bar owners.

 

It TASTED like one. It sure AF isn't an IPA.

 

Oh, no - I mentioned that (but no more than a mention).

...so, yeah, some of the Wet groups opposed Women's Suffrage because they thought those were votes for Prohibition. (I just posted a pic of some of my anti-Prohibition pinbacks in the Breweriana forum and almost didn't include the Personal Liberty League one for that reason.)

Wasn't it the 1970s? Nope, just checked - 1970 - so, we're both correct. Took awhile longer for them to add a women's restroom.

Were you on the BTA of Reading, PA? There was a bar on it that didn't allow women at the bar, but the female members of the group en masse broke that rule...

Maybe even the 80s-90s, when the infamous Eastern Brewing Corp. of Hammonton NJ finally gave up. (It was still listed as their brand in industry publication in 1990 when they gave up their brewing license.). In the 70s, that was one scary looking bottle of beer, but it was cheap:


I remember seeing one sitting at the register in the bright sunlight in South Jersey liquor store.
"Uh, no thanks, that's the opposite of an impulse purchase."