Grandpa Brews

I think you will find that many of the "nostalgia" brands are just that... brands, and not the same beer, same brewer, same brewery, etc., at all.

The following beers you name are (I believe) actually brands of the Pabst Brewing Company:

• Blatz
• Schlitz
• Schmidt
• Stag
• Ballantine

@jesskidden?

 

Agree...the only one I can think of that should be the same is Yuengling??? and I am not sure on this either.

 

Don't know where you live but you should be able to find Budweiser and Miller High Life!

 

We also have Hamm's in MI.

 

Can get Stag in Illinois still (at least in Central Illinois).

 

Yeah, as noted by other posters above, most of them are owned by Pabst, brewed for them by MillerCoors. Pabst bought most of them when Stroh (which also owned the Heileman brands) shutdown in 1999. At that time, Miller bought the Olde English 800 and Hamm's brands from Pabst, and also bought the Henry Weinhard brand from Stroh/Heileman.

A few years ago the Pabst portfolio page looked like this:

(Since the above, they gave up the Piels rights and McSorley's seems to have disappeared. They dropped Ballantine from their page, but it's still marketed - well, an inferior version is).

A few other non-Pabst pre-craft brands still around are Shiner, Genesee, Utica Club, Straub, Yuengling, Grain Belt, Schell's, Point Special, Huber, Stegmaier... (and, at this point, countless have been "resurrected" as local brews, following the lead of Narragansett.)

Yes. The last available Ballantine is the Ballantine XXX Ale (mostly in the Northeast) and like Schmidt and Stag, Pabst brands. Genesee is still available (along with Genesee Beer and Ice), brewed in the original brewery in Rochester, NY.

Depends on how old "Grandpa" is (was?). The flagship Yuengling Traditional Lager only dates from 1987. Previous to that, their primary brand was Yuengling Premium, a standard AAL.

 

Grain Belt is now an August Schell brand.

 

Since you live in Michigan I would recommend the new/old Stroh’s Bohemian Pilsner to you. I discussed the background of this beer in a New Beer Sunday thread:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-sunday-week-620.480991/#post-5210609

Cheers!

 

And Iron City, Old German and American Beer are all still available from what is left of the old Pittsburgh Brewing Co., as is a resurrected Stoney's Beer from new owners of Jones Brewing Co. All the beers (like Duquesne) brewed at the old home brewery of Rolling Rock, in Latrobe, PS (now owned by City Brewing Co.)

 

Which "it" did you try? Yuengling produces multiple brands of beer. Have you tried Lord Chesterfield for example?

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-sunday-week-703.584344/#post-6134900

Cheers!

 

I would recommend Genesee Bock.

Cheers!

 

My grandpa was a Burger Beer lover https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/431/5748/. Per recent reviews here on BA, it still exists as part of the Schoenling family of beers along with Hudepohl https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/431/62327/, which also exists here on BA with recent reviews, thus still available. Both were brewed in Cincinnati way back when, but I don't know about nowadays. If either/both is/are available throughout Ohio, maybe you can cross the border to Toledo and find them. I think Schoenling was also a beer brand name itself, but no current listing exists for it here on BA. The Schoenling beer family includes Burger and Hudepohl in addition to Little Kings and the Christian Moerlain brand of craft beers.

Speaking of Toledo, Maumee Bay Brewing in Toledo brews Buckeye Beer which I believe goes back to Grandpa's era. You can easily get that one in Toledo.

Not mentioned above yet is Wiedemann https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/410/11336/, which I also though was a Cincinnati beer, but here on BA the beer is listed as brewed by Pittsburgh Brewing Company. (I'm not so sure but I think that brewery is a marketing brewery that has beers contract brewed.)

 

HAMM’S

 

Grandpa beers were gooder when they were brewed by their respective original brewers than what we have today. I reckon that goes without saying but I said it anyway.

 

I'd like to add Rheingold into the mix....it's not a Pabst-owned brand IIRC and they did attempt (unsuccessfully) to bring the back the brand. I'd love to see it again. Rheingold was a family tradition (or so I've been told...that half of the family left Newark in the 60's) and I've never been able to try the beer, even if it's a shadow of its former self

how DARE you leave Haffenreffer's Private Stock out of this?!

Great work, as always.

 

I would say that is true. Even Budweiser is dumbed down from what it was in the 60's and 70's.

 

Schoenling and Hudepohl were the last two Cincinnati breweries. Hudepohl revived the pre-Pro Christian Moerlein brand in the 1980s, and previously had bought Burger when they closed in the '70s. Then Schoenling and Hudepohl merged in the mid-80s, sold their last brewery to Boston Beer Co. in the late '90s and eventually sold off their beer brands, too. All were reunited under the ownership of a new "Christian Moerlein" brewing company, which, confusingly, does use a variety of 'dba' brewery names.

Wiedemann came from across the Ohio River in Newport, KY.

A couple of times - the final time they actually brewed it in Mexico - I think by then it was owned by the same marketing company that made Trump Vodka and a Willie Nelson-branded whiskey called Drinks Americas. The original "revivalists" who bought the brand from Stroh (again, via Heileman) contained one of the original Liebmann family members.

Not my fault. The group (among which was a relative of the Haffenreffer family) that got the trademark back from Pabst gave up on it a few years later, created Spiked Seltzer instead, and then sold it to Anheuser Busch.