Goodbye, Michelob Original Lager.

Came across a list from 1899 of the richest men in the world and "Brewer Anton Dreher, Austria" is on there, tied for something like 13th place (with a half dozen or so others) at $50 million. Most everyone above him is a Lord, a Duke, an Archduke, a Prince or a Baron--- or an Astor, Rockefeller, Carnegie or Rothschild.

 

Do you think 10 mil was a typical price to start a brewery in 1898? Let alone 300 mil today?

 

Yup. I even remember the first Guinness Extra I ever had, which was a buyback from an Irish bartender who said something along the lines of "now I'm going to show you boys a real dark beer" .

 

Depends. Was there gonna be a taproom and a souvenir shop with cool "Anton - Makin' Milwaukee Even More Famous" T-shirts and embossed Dreher shoe hook/bottle opener combination pieces for the ladies?

Yeah, sounds high to me. Could explain why it never materialized - might have even been 19th century style Fake News!

 

Same here! Michelob was the high class beer (along with Henry Weinhard's) that we drank when we weren't drinking Bud, Mickey's Big Mouth, or Schilitz Talls.

 

In the late 70s here in the Midwest we were lucky to have Augsburger and Berghoff Dark (granted, they were probably the same beer), and seasonals like Huber and Rhinelander Bock (granted, they were probably the same beer).

I remember my first Guinness was an Extra Stout from a mixed six-pack of imports offered at one of the local retailers. I imagine six-packs were available, but I rarely looked for them then.

Between 1978 and 1980, or so, I was lucky to have a source at the local distro for Beck's and almost always got the dark. A friend was always drinking Heineken Dark too -- I think we thought the darker beers had more flavor.

Beck's Dark was also available on tap at a local pizza joint in the mid-70s -- my dad wasn't a big beer drinker, so he'd get a mug of Beck's for "himself" and a mug of root beer for "me." Funny how the mugs always got mixed up at the table.

 

Below is courtesy of @jesskidden:

“Yeah, as ubiquitous as Guinness Draught is on tap in the US these days, in the 1970s it was pretty unusual to find it and would likely not be found in "dive" bars that were outside of major urban areas. Guinness Draught first hit the US market in the mid-60s when the US was a tiny market for Guinness. As late as 1979, the US accounted for only about 1% of all Guinness (draught, and bottled ES) sales and half of all Guinness sold in the US was in NYC (!). At that time, there were only 33 bars in all of the city with Guinness on tap, more than half of them (18) in Manhattan alone according to a New York magazine article quoting a Guinness USA VP.”

https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...istory-of-u-s-beer.630078/page-3#post-6745410

So, the New York City folks had some Guinness available to them ‘back in the day’ but it sure was not like it is today.

Cheers!

 

I can't speak to the 70s, but did have my first Guinness Extra in 1981. The bottled product wasn't all that hard to find at that time; in fact it was pretty ubiquitous at outer borough bodegas and such.

For the draught you had to specifically go to certain Irish pubs with the intention of having a pint. And that started to change after the mid 80s, I'd say, when it became more common everywhere.

 

I’m certainly not questioning you, but I’m curious how you know/remember that your first Guinness Extra was in 1981? I couldn’t even tell you when I had my first xyz anything. Cheers to you.

 

My first draught Guinness was in 1981 or 82 at The Kiber Pass Pub in philly. The draught didn't show up in Saratoga till the mid 80's and that was at a dedicated Irish bar.

Speaking of dark beers, where would Prior Double Dark fit in?

 

I can't speak for Tongo, but my memories lock on to certain specifics by occasion. The Guinness I mentioned in the mix-pack was a Christmas gift in my freshman year at college. I kept the bottle until the next St. Pat's day and the empty for a long while.

But don't ask me what the other beers in the pack were! ;-)

 

Yeah, I use certain occasions as mental benchmarks. I graduated high school in June 1982 and remember drinking Guinness at some of the parties afterwards, so we were well into it by then. And for a while we weren't even drinking it straight, but blended with Heineken or something like that. So it's a pretty good estimate that it all started back in November or December of 1981.

 

Prior was a brand that was first brewed, by Norristown PA brewery, Adam Scheidt, for the Pilsner Urquell importer, Atlantis Imports, during WWII when the supply of the Czech beer was cut off. Scheidt continued to brew the beer Prior Light and Prior Double Dark, after the war, as did C. Schmidt's & Sons after they purchased the Scheidt brewery and brands in the mid-60s (for a time, there were actually 3 Prior beers Light, Dark and Preferred) . They were some of the rare all-malt beers in the US post-Repeal, but eventually Schmidt (maybe Scheidt before them?) began using corn adjunct in PDD, at least.

But Double Dark itself didn't really gain a following and overshadow the Light until --- ah, I'd say the 1970s. After Heileman bought Schmidts (late '80s) the beer was brewed by Matts, but only as a draught product - apparently the successors to Atlantis still owned the rights.

Based on ads, etc., the two original brewers usually stressed the Prior Light before the '70s. (Eventually the Light was dropped all together, probably when Schmidt revamped the packaging (above) and doubled the price circa 1980 or so). Some info from Scheidt's brewmaster, Phillip Berkes, and the beer about 1/3 of the way down on my Pilsner Urquell page (stop at Berkes "Pilsen's Six Miles of Cellars" article).

(After posting this I said to myself, "Gee, I really oughta put together a PRIOR webpage...." Looked around my Google accounts, and goddam, looks like I already did! (Not a whole lotta info but...).

 

I had the Schmidt's bowling pin bottles on several occasions. I've read about the Saranac Black Forest conection, but would you be inclined to lable Double Dark as a
schwarzbier?

 

Well, that's somewhat exaggerated. Matt himself (forget which one) has stated they were similar beers, but not the same recipe. I think BF was all-malt while the PDD recipe they brewed was still a corn adjunct recipe.

Me? Oh, I don't get too deep into those sorts of debates. Schmidt called it a "Muenchener-type" IIRC at one point (kinda ignoring it's Bohemian origins but likely they ignored a lot of other stuff, too), a term used by a few other US lager brewers for their "Dark Beer" - that's good enough for me. US brewers of that era weren't too worried about "beer styles" and felt free to use (or not use) any old term and any ingredients they wanted. IIRC, in the end Schmidt was hopping it with Cascades.

 

A slight hijack if you will.

You all need to read and bookmark:

https://sites.google.com/site/jesskidden/

 

Frank Sinatra commercial. Check!!! Fisher HiFi Console from 1966. Check!!! Michelob, if I can find some, I'll buy some. I like it for a macrobrew. One of the few A-B/Inbev domestics I like. A good all malt lager. I'll try to find a 12 pack, buy it, and enjoy it while Frank Sinatra plays.

 

I’m much younger in my 20s, but I’m a historian and have been following the posts by especially @jesskidden and @JackHorzempa and others. One thing for sure, Guinness is nearly ubiquitous now whereas Heineken Dark is extinct over here.

I also suspect that because Guinness was the first introduction to dark beer, most dark lagers labeled as Dunkel, Schwarzbier, or Czech Dark Lager in the US tend to be quite roasty - more roasty anyway than the German or Czech examples. That’s not to say that Old World examples can’t be roasted, as many provincial varieties are (as I learned last summer firsthand) also indeed like that. Yet I suspect when Stout gives a young aspiring brewer their first taste of what a dark beer is, that idea stays with them, even where it’s not entirely fitting to style.

 

I haven't drank Amber Bock or any other beer associated with Budweiser/ABInbev in about 15 years but back before I got into craft Amber Bock was a revelation for me. It was the first "expensive" beer that I started drinking for special occasions or just when I wanted something better than the swilliest of swill beers I drank back then (typically Milwaukee's Best). Amber Bock was also one of the last beers I shared with my dad. He was a Stroh's man and that was typically all he drank but he loved it. I'd probably drink more of it if only it was not a Budweiser brand but I just can't bring myself to do it now. It has some good memories associated with it though.