Do you remember beer's "dark days?"

It's been mentioned in several threads: Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve. I don't know the details, but my brother lived in Seattle in the early 80's and used to send it too me. Before it was bought by Olympia.

 

I was just a teenager in the late 70's, but this is when I discovered British and German imports. Bass, Watney's, Whitbread's, Courage, all better options than the US or Canadian stuff available here in the northeast. Then Spaten and Paulaner became readily available in the early 80's, as did some other import brands no longer available in these parts- Aass Bock anyone?. These are the brands that kept me interested until the first US craft beer revolution a few years later.

 

I remember the old man treating himself to a case of German imports once in a while: Dab or Elephant Beer. Then in the 90's Yuengling became the trendiest/'tastiest' beer available.

Funny, now I won't even sniff Yuengling. But the old man still does haha.

 

I remember in the the '80s when Molson (Golden and Canadien) first appeared. Huge deal...you could actually smell something when the bottle was opened and taste something when you drank. That was a revolution!

Seriously, though, completely lost interest in beer from college (mid-80s) until I woke up one day a couple of years ago and discovered this craft beer thing going on. Now, not only is there a nice selection of great beers in fine liquor stores and wine shops, but even in grocery stores. And a number of bars and restuarants in my sometimes seemingly backwards community have craft beer selections. Best of all, not a week goes by that I don't find and consume a beer I've never tried before...

 

I'll always remember my first Aass Bock; boy, that was some real top notch stuff back then. It was the fall of 1982, and I was heading up to Syracuse with a bunch of people for a conference and to hook up with some friends who recently went up there to college. The Aass was a definite impulse purchase bought for a celebratory mood, and man did it deliver- so rich, smooth, almost chocolatey. I was accustomed tosome pretty decent beer (mostly Heineken dark drafts at my local bar and Dinkelacker Pils) but that bock just knocked my socks off. I saved a bottle and everything, hoping to get some more whenever I could come across it, or just to show shopkeepers what I was talking about. I didn't know it at the time, but I crossed a line there from beer drinker to beer hunter. Good times, I remember them fondly.

 

Light struck, skunked Molson isn't what I would call revolutionary.
Also, we were seeing Molson in the northeast in the mid-70's.

 

And don't forget the Aass Christmas beer-another revelatory experience for me!

 

Most definitely. That one was mid 80s for me, when I discovered some beer bars and tried to work my way through the bottle list. Remember those beer passports you'd get stamped? The Jule was slightly spicy and malty, but not too crazy, and good for a few in a row. I guess, now that you mention it I'd call it revelatory too because I can't seem to recall having had a spiced beer before that one.

 

Olympia never bought Blitz-Wienhard. Pabst bought B-W in 1979, and then Heileman bought Pabst, kept Blitz-Winehard (and a few other breweries and brands) and spun off a new "Pabst" in 1982/3, including Olympia which Pabst had bought earlier in the year.

A complicated history, but the main point is that, despite it's image as "independent", the Henry Weinhard brand has been owned by a number of national "macro" breweries - Pabst > Heileman > Stroh > Miller - for over 3 decades and for most of it's existence (having been introduced in the mid-'70's).

 

I remember my first Tuborg beer. It was brewed under license to the Tuborg Brewery by G. Heilerman Brewery in Baltimore starting in the late 70’s. For me that beer was a ‘revelation’; much tastier than the typical AAL beers.

I remember writing to the brewery enquiring if they brewed Tuborg per the same recipe as the beers brewed in Denmark. The response was that they followed the exact same recipe (I don’t know for sure if this is true). I am sure that if I drank that same Tuborg today I would say something like: a typical weak Euro Lager. It sure was tasty at the time since it was ‘better’ than the other typical American beers.

Cheers!

 

This really brings up bad memories for me... and all the time I wasted hunting down lots of green bottled skunked imports

 

The brewed-under-license US Tuborg (later Tuborg Gold) was originally a Carling product, circa early '70's. It didn't become a Heileman brand until later in the 1970's, when they bought the merged Carling-National breweries and it's brands.

It was Carling's attempt at a premium priced beer to complete on a national level with the other big national breweries (Black Label and Red Cap Ale were "popular priced") and is best remembered for it's slogan poking a bit of fun at #1 Budweiser which went something like:

"Now, for the same price as the King of Beers you can have the Beer of Danish Kings..."

 

My fave beer way back in the late 70's/early 80's was Ballantine Ale - a rather early approximation of an English Pale Ale. Pretty good stuff, and we loved the anagram puzzles under the caps!

 

Back in the late 80's I used to frequent the Peculiar Pub on West 4th Street in NYC. They had a list of 100 or so beers. Not many on that list were from the US. I had some good ones and I had some bad ones. But it taught me that there was something other than Bud/Miller/Coors.

 

It was 1976. What else was there?

 

I fondly remember drinking Stroh Signature back in the early 80's. Old Vienna by Carling O'Keefe was also a great treat from time to time.

 

Yeah- that was one of my fave beer bars in the 80s. If any NYCers are following along and going "isn't the Peculiar on Bleeker Street?"- that's where they moved in '89-90ish. The original location is where the Slaughtered Lamb set up shop. Last time I was in there it was still kind of 'old school', meaning not too many tap handles but with more of a bottled beer list.

 

anyone remember the old coors cans with the two "buttons"?