Regional Beer Slang

Packie seems to have faded out a bit. It was widely used when I was a bit younger but I don't hear it much now.

 

Brewski - frat boy region

 

It was being used by the late 1980s by retailers - this snip from an Osco Drug store ad in a New Mexico newspaper. (Probably not un-coincidentally, the other print ad usages I've seen are also from the Southwest).



I might be confusing it with another beer and slang term, but I thought that eventually Beck's even used the "Bomber" term on the neck labels?

Note they're listed as 21 oz. bottles - since the imported bottles were probably originally 650 ml. - so not quite 22 full ounces. (Japanese and Australian imports also came in that size bottle in that period.) Anderson Valley claims they were the first US brewer to use the size, but, of course, they had been used previously in the 30s and 40s in the US by numerous west coast breweries.

 

Late to the thread but as a lifelong masshole, the term package store became synonymous with liquor store.
Going on a packi run usually meant you were getting beer, whereas saying you wee going to a liquor store meant you were getting something other than beer.

 

I've called them bombers for as long as I can remember. Didn't think it was unique to New Mexico though.

 

A lot of frat boys I know call 24 or 30 packs of cans "racks." Like "Hey bro, are you gonna pitch in on this 30 rack?"

There's lots of slang in Spanish for beers that has creeped into the English language as you may have heard someone talking of "pisto" or "chelas" or "frias."

Christian Bale in the movie where he goes nuts in LA says pisto about 100 times throughout the movie.

 

I still see a fair number of Japanese imports, at least, coming with 650ml labelling. FWIW.

 

We call them "bricks" in my neck of the woods.

 

Could be but since I'm new to the country it's unusual to hear.

 

In Massachusetts, there aren't many chain liquor stores due to a law that prohibits a chain (including grocery stores) from holding too many liquor licenses, so much of the beer is sold in small or independent liquor/convenience stores. So there was more of a need to come up with a term for going somewhere to grab beer that was generic.

 

I had never heard "rack" used (in the beer sense, deer and breasts, certainly) until I moved to the PNW. Then, oddly enough, folks only seem to use for 12-packs, as in "pull into the mini-mart, I wanna grab a half-rack". I'm yet to hear someone refer to a full case as a rack, they call it either a case or a suitcase.

 

That there is my language!

 

Maybe I'm old school, I just refer to my beer store as my beer store. Yet, I still call gas stations Filling Stations.

 

I've heard that from my Canadian friends. In fact, they get their two-fours at the beer store. In fact, the official name of the store is The Beer Store. I like that, that way you know what the sell before you walk in the door.

Eh.

 

"Package store" is also fairly prevalent across KY/IN - particularly when you get outside of the larger cities/towns (assuming you're in a "wet" county).

Also, I second the use of "rack" for referring to a 30pack - heard this quite frequently in college, even at a tiny private school in the middle of nowhere, Indiana. There was even a local drugstore that advertised 30packs as "racks" in their print ad. Go figure.

(Also heard it pretty frequently in grad school at the Univ. of Kentucky, so I assumed it was ubiquitous).

 

"Beer Distributor" … a location that can only sell beer, and only in cases / kegs.

"Liquor Store" … a state run store ("Wine and Spirits") that can't sell beer.

That's western PA for you.

 

In rural arkansas, "beer" is slang for Busch Light

 

I havent heard of anything that wasn't tck ithe norm for us, i.e. bomber, 750, sixer, case.

 

I have a slightly less traditional word I use for beer..."dessert".