Founders Porter recipe change?

Maybe not a fan of the song?

Cheers!

 

Maybe @DarkDragon999 doesn't get distribution of Great Lakes? Last summer, Great Lakes returned to my area (only about 75 miles from RI as the crow flies), but I've only seen Dort Gold and Oktoberfest so far. The last time I saw their beers was 5+ years ago, and I was sad to see the beers leave. Local distribution depends on what local distributors want to carry as well as whether the brewery wants to distribute to the hinterlands.

 

We just got Great Lakes around 2 years ago. I only had the Edmund Fitzgerald 1 time and that was it. Even though Great Lakes beer is here now you dont really see them in every store prominently displayed. Their availability is spotty at best. I think they came here way too late. If they came here well over a decade ago they would be everywhere I think. Coming in when craft beer is being pushed off the shelves in favor of non beer hasnt helped them any IMO.

 

Say it ain't so. Founders Porter is my favorite standard abv-no adjunct porter. After reading through this thread, I'm hoping it was just a bad batch.

 

I have Founders porter in my beer fridge currently and it tastes great as always. Perhaps you got an improperly stored batch but my question is why would anyone cut a porter with San pelligrino?

 

John, given your 'bias' against beers brewed with adjuncts there is little doubt that the Yuengling beers, including the Porter, would not be in your 'sweet spot'.

One aspect to keep in mind that Yuengling Porter is an economically priced beer and in the context nowhere in the league of Porters such as Founders, Great Lakes, Deschutes, etc. I can buy a 12-pack of Yuengling Porter for $16.99 at my local Wegmans supermarket; less than a buck-50 per beer.

FWIW my personal preference when it comes to drinking Porters is my homebrewed version of Hill Farmstead Everett.

Cheers!

 

I thought their Bock that they brought back a few years ago wasnt too bad. Granted there's not a lot of widely available American made Bocks out there but the issue with them is more that they dont put easily legible dates on their packaging. Its always some code that I cant read.

 

Yeah, they use a Julian date type code:

“11-Digit Code (Cans & Bottles):

YYDDD: First 2 digits are the Year, next 3 are the Day of the Year (e.g., 032 is Feb 1st).

B: Brewery code (e.g., 1 for Pottsville, PA).

L: Production Line.

HHMM: Military time of packaging.

Example: 2403211200 = Packaged on the 32nd day of 2024 (Feb 1st) at Pottsville Brewery, Line 1, at 12:00 PM.”

You really just need to pay attention to the first 5 digits, year and day of the year.

Cheers!

 

Yuengling Lager is distributed widely, but Porter and Chesterfield aren't readily available in much of the distribution. I see no outlets for porter in NYC or Long Island, and John_M is probably 2000 miles from distribution of even the Lager. As for price, I'd prefer Deschutes Costco Helles to Yuengling Lager, and the price is competitive. Even so, I'll pay the higher price for Great Lakes Dort Gold as long as it's available.

 

Yep, sucks for you.

 

That's not a problem. Yuengling porter and Chesterfield were better in the 80's when I had regular access here, and most of the alternatives weren't very good.

 

Pff…don’t act like your above a FouPor Spritz…

 

I tried it with San Pellegrino as well and agree it tasted like shite.

Tried again with Perrier, same result.

We should boycott the brewer.

 

We didn't get those two beers when Yuengling entered Michigan in early summer of last year.

 

The “plastic wrap / vinyl” note someone mentioned fits into the same general bucket as oxidation and sulfur expression, especially once carbonation drops.

Without dates or batch info, the most likely contributors are oxygen exposure over time, warm storage, and CO₂ loss. As beers age, oxidative aldehydes, lipid-derived compounds, and sulfur-adjacent aromatics can combine in ways that people describe as oily, vegetal, or even plastic-like — even in the absence of true chlorophenols.

True chlorophenolic off-flavors (band-aid, electrical tape) are typically process or water-treatment related, but aged dark beers can present similarly just from oxidation and muted freshness. Perception shifts as brighter malt and hop aromatics fade.

The San Pellegrino addition also tracks from a chemistry standpoint. Being highly carbonated and mineral-forward (not neutral water), San Pellegrino adds CO₂ to lift aromatics, sulfate to sharpen bitterness perception, and bicarbonate to soften roast edges. It can reduce the impact of sulfur and “plastic-adjacent” notes, but it’s really a masking strategy rather than a fix.

 

Try with Gerolsteiner, Saratoga, or Mountain Valley before you completely write them off.

 

Sometimes you have to appreciate the forest for the trees. Yuengling Porter is the oldest continuously brewed porter in the world. While their beers aren't the types of things that we tend to look for on this site, if you settle in at almost any bar in eastern PA and ask for a "lager", you get a Yuengling. Probably further west as well, I remember Yuengs and wings being a weeknight deal at sports bars in Pittsburgh 20 years ago.

Also, adjuncts and flavorings aren't the same thing.