Most “Historical-Tasting” AAL?

I got that Hamm's keg can in my beer can collection (from when I was 12) now on display in my basement. I'd post a photo if I knew how to do photos here.

 

Can’t go back. So, 2021 versions Hamm’s > Schiltz. I drink both, enjoy both. I would like to try Hamm’s out of a bottle, I access only cans. And only bottles for Schiltz in my world.
Why Hamm’s? Less sweet and more crisp. Schiltz has a more carbonated mouth feel to me.

 

I’d like to find a Schlitz, been years since I’ve seen it, the king of AAL stores here is Total Wine and they don’t carry it. Wonder why?

 

Imgur is so easy I can do it, forget photo bucket.

 

Are you sure you're not mixing high-fructose corn syrup up with [regular] corn syrup? Because they are different products. The former is basically "pure sugar extracted from corn" to use your words; only the latter is used in brewing* and has been around since 1812. I'm not sure if even professional beer tasters could tell the difference between an AAL brewed with corn syrup vs flaked corn in a blind test.

* - except for brewers who use jelly beans, gummi bears, kids breakfast cereals, milk duds, etc. (which typically have HFCS), but those brewers are "craft" and "innovators" so it's all good.

 

How about "fresh-brewed chock?" Always been curious about that... but not * too* curious.

(see The Outlaw Josey Wales for reference)

 

Why? Lots of commercial breweries existed in the west during that period. In 1880 for example: CO-27, MT-19, UT-14, NV-33,WY-6 even 14 in the territories of AZ and NM. Just paging through a reference like 100 Years of Brewing, the brewers tended to be either European-trained (as was common in the breweries in the east and mid-west) or trained in eastern breweries or brewing schools.

 

Yeah, but what about the travel to the far-flung taverns on the frontier and the tavern owners who took such care of the product?

How about breweries between 1865 and 1880?

I've also read a few stories about tavern owners attempts at "home brewing" that turned out some pretty rugged results.

https://www.notesfromthefrontier.com/post/beer-in-the-old-west

 

That's the situation that eventually led to the development of refrigerated rail cars in the 1870s.

 

And the railroads themselves, but it didn't happen overnight.

Tombstone didn't have a direct rail line in 1881 during the Earp days.

 

Your comment reminded me of a tv program I saw on History or the like. The point of the show was that beer was implicated as the driver of most of human invention. The need for grain drove farming practices, geometry, engineering, etc. Brewing led to modern medicine, etc.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ny...sunday/how-beer-gave-us-civilization.amp.html

 

Yeah, I'm sure it took quite a while to institute but the interesting part to me is how beer was the driving force for the development of new technologies.

 

How was the beer in the Old West? From the Notes from the Frontier article it can likely be summarized as: “It depended on where you were.”

I would also add: it depended on when you were as well.

Some ‘indicators’ from the article (with some emphasis in bold by me:

“Beer was not bottled widely until 1873. Up to that point it was mostly kept in kegs, sometimes stored in barrels the patrons would sit upon. About that same time, cold beer began to be served. Up until that time, beer was served at room temperature in the European tradition. Though the beer had a head, it wasn’t sudsy as it is today. Patrons had to knock back the beer in a hurry before it got too warm or flat.”

There was no specific mention of pasteurization in that above paragraph so:

“Even Louis Pasteur liked a good beer. His original work that resulted in a process that keeps us all safe from getting sick on bad milk was initially a study on spoilage prevention for beer (and wine). In 1864 he discovered that when beer or wine is heated it killed spoilage causing microorganisms and prolonged the shelf life. He subsequently applied this finding to milk for which he is now famous. As a side note, following his initial beer pasteurization studies he also came up with a design for a controlled atmosphere wort boil process (US Patent # 135245, January 28, 1873).”

https://cbp.goodnature.com/beer-pasteurization-history-methods-equipment

So, the beers prior to circa 1870 would not have been stored cold and would not have been pasteurized. I suppose some of the beers of that time would have been less than ideal.

And as regards the aspect of where:

“The first commercial, or "industrial", refrigeration of beer began in the United States in 1870 at the Liebmann's Sons Brewing Company in Brooklyn, NY. It would have been fermented cold, shipped cold, and eventually stored and served cold. Anheuser-Busch soon followed suit, as well as other major breweries.”

So, those towns which were located along rail lines and had their beer delivered in ice refrigerated rail cars would likely have received beers in pretty good condition due to cold storage (and perhaps pasteurization as well?).

I personally would have preferred to drink a beer in a saloon that had the beer delivered via an Ice refrigerated railcar.

Cheers!

 

I'd imagine that those saloons just didn't sell kegged beer, rather than sell a spoiled/defective product.

Well, lots of questionable info on that website. That "10 Oldest Beers in America" confuses the founding dates of the breweries (at least one of which, Schaefer, is long defunct and the current Frankenmuth is not the original) with the currently marketed brands. Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, for instance, dates from the 1900, the new name of a beer previously called Select, first released in 1882.

Anheuser did not buy the St. Louis brewery until 1865, and AB's oldest brand, Budweiser, was first released in 1876, and (despite the date on that photo of the Miller beer wagon) High Life dates from 1903.

Nonsense. Yuengling is merely the oldest existing US brewing company (a title it's held only since the mid-1950s, when the Boston Beer Co. founded in 1828 shut down). There were many breweries in the US and earlier in Colonial America before David Yuengling came along.

Well, many steam beer breweries, too.

And what does this mean?

 

JK, I am familiar with the history of Steam Beer (California Common) as being a beer brewed with lager yeast but at warmer than traditional lager fermentation temperature in the San Francisco area in the 1800's. Is there history of non-Californian breweries brewing this sort of beer in the 1800's? For example, did any breweries in Colorado or Nevada brew this style of beer?

Cheers!

 

Oh, yeah. There were steam beer breweries in all 3 Pacific coast states, as well as Nevada and Idaho.

 

Beers perishable, how did they keep the beer from spoiling in say the 1860-70 on the frontier towns? No electricity, no ice, how did they keep the lines clean, bottles clean without infections everything? Listers theory of germs and bacteria wasn’t evolved yet, simple alcohol a disinfectant of choice? Whisky easy, beer not so much. Curious how they pulled it off.

 

You were kidding, right?

I wasn't reading it for it's expertise on beer history, just for their Old West knowledge. I have "other sources" I trust for beer history, but I wouldn't turn to them for cultural or period information. They just want to talk about hops and corn syrup.

 

I thought Moosehead tasted like what a perfect beer historically should taste like when I first had it, probably in the 70s or 80s and living in Cleveland. Maybe it was a fresh bottle at the time, and that helped. I'm guessing that the last time that I had a Moosehead was 5 years ago, and it was quite different from my memory of the first one. No longer would I put Moosehead down as a historical-tasting beer.