Goodbye, Michelob Original Lager.

Don't have them on me but they were just slightly out of date...April something of 2023

 

Some of the so called super premiums from my early legal beer drinking days were Michelob, Andecher, Erlanger, Lowenbrau (the American version, tonight let it be Lowenbrau), Augsburger, and Miller Special Reserve. This was a long time ago, mid 80's, but I think Michelob was my favorite, although I liked all of them. They were all very easy drinking beers, and there's something to be said for that.

 

Erlanger was my choice back in the day.

 

Erlinger was Schlitz right....saw a lot of Andeker signs in South Milwaukee/Cudahy area when I was a kid...always been intrigued by Andeker...

 

I had Andeker, Herman Joseph's, Michelob, the Augsburger and I found that the Erlanger fit my palate the best. This was back when New Albion first started up.

 

Andeker draft was common in Chicago in the 70s. Andeker was one of my favorite superpremiums (tie with Augsburger) then. In about '76-77 my wife and I lived on the west side about a half a block from a neighborhood corner bar with draft Andeker. Just about 10 bar stools and a couple of tables. Andeker's recipe and packaging changed (to my horror) in the early 80s. Pabst produced a throwback Andeker draft a few years ago. I'm not clear what recipe they tried to revive (and I never tasted it).

 

Yeah, Pabst could never settle on a bottle/label or a recipe for Andeker. First bottled in 1964 (IIRC) below is probably only a 25-30-ish year history.

Although those first bottles make obvious their inspiration...

 

Also Hamm's Waldech.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=hamms+waldech+bottle#imgrc=gBA37ODaqHX-UM
I thought Waldech was better than the inspiration, and Andeker much better (at least the beer in in the copycat bottle #2).

 

You got me on Waldech...never knew Hamm's made that one...

 

And you are from Minnesota! You are too young, maybe? Waldech might have disappeared about when Oly took over Hamms in '76.

 

My favorite quotes about Waldech, one from Walter Gillies, long time official in SF's
Brewers, Malsters* and Yeast Workers, Local 893 (Teamsters) who started in the industry at General Brewing right after Repeal. The SF Examiner did a interview with a number of area brewery workers and officials after the closing of Burgermeister, which was then owned - briefly - by Meister Brau.

* Yeah, that was the preferred way to spell "Maltster" in the industry at one time.

Yeah, that'd be my guess. Olympia had a short-lived entry in the Superpremium segment, too, right? Can't recall the name...
Oh, yeah - Medallion Special Beer. (As the label's shape suggests, it was in a Michelob-ish bottle).

 

I don't remember seeing Medallion, despite living in their west coast distribution area until 1975. Nor did I see it in Chicago in 76-77 when I lived there. Shades of ZAP, not knowing about Waldech. Another obscure Hamm's brand for ZAP: Hamm's Preferred Stock was a beer I saw in early '76 in the midwest.

 

Yeast Workers Local?

 

Yeah, never saw it myself, either - looks to have been a circa 1980 product and not sure it ever got beyond the PNW - so, no wonder you didn't see it. I guess the company was too involved with trying to expand as they merged itself with Hamm and Lone Star into a national brewer (#6, 7 or 8 US brewer, with ~6M bbl. during the last half of the '70s).

 

Having been in Munich in 1970 I detested the Miller version of Lowenbrau. Andeker was rich and malty but still dry. and very good. No one seems to remember the Schlitz entry Encore. It was lighter, dry and really good. Augsburger Dark was delicious. Still, at $5.99 Ringnes out of Norway was head and shoulders the best value going. I drank a million Michelob cans.

 

I remember this one, too -- and it was novel because it was from Norway... but it always tasted like Heineken to me.

Aas beers were more intriguing to my palate.

 

Well, as the old brewmasters used to say "I only make wort, it's the yeast who make the beer," so it's only fair that the little buggers have union representation, benefits and a good retirement package.

Yeah, can't say I can recall a brewery local with that designation before. Typically, the old United Brewery Workers international would have 4 locals in big cities - Brewers, Bottlers, Drivers and Soft Drink workers. That union, pretty left-wing and organized industrially (unusual in the old AFL) and also they believed in all the brewery workers in a city belong to the same locals, not divided up by employer. They wanted workers loyal to the union not to the so-called "Brewery Capitalists" (aka "owners" ).

After Prohibition when the jurisdictional dispute between the UBW and the Teamsters heated up (the Teamsters claimed the drivers and, eventually, the inside workers, too - resulting in the infamous Beer Wars of the PNW and PA in particular) and many local switched from the Independent>CIO UBW to the AFL Teamsters, most locals kept their same jurisdiction, just changed Local numbers.

 

Same here,,,,,,,

 

I toured Olympia Tumwater in around '80 and remember the tour guide discussing only Hamm's and Oly beers. They provided some information about the differing recipes. They used a different composition for malt as well as the adjuncts, They used both corn grits and rice. I do remember large plastic bins in the brewhouse filled with whole hops ready to be dumped into the kettles. The hops looked and smelled great -- not like the gray compressed hops we used for homebrew then. It seemed like they had fairly high standards.

 

I've got an old time beer can collection from when I was a kid (that's what we did as 12 year olds back then) and I do NOT have Hamm's Preferred Stock...but it does sound familiar.