Most “Historical-Tasting” AAL?

I personally do not know any macro brewers.

The commercial brewer I was referencing earlier was a craft brewer.

Cheers!

P.S. Solely based upon my tour of the AB brewery in Williamsburg, VA macro breweries are very highly automated. In contrast the majority of the craft breweries I have toured have quite a bit of manual control to them. I would not doubt that some of the larger craft breweries have a fair bit of automation to them.

 

Dale, I would be with you if it was the 1960's Formula Schlitz beer. A number of years ago I bought a case of that beer and I thoroughly enjoyed drinking it.Then a short while later that specific beer disappeared from my local beer retailers' shelves.

Cheers!

 

Does @Peter_Wolfe come around these parts any more? Considering his background with AB I feel like he might have an idea what a historical AAL would be like and what modern beers might be representative, if any.

 

Disappeared in West Michigan as well. The Schiltz beer locator just spins for Grand Rapids zip code.
http://schlitzbrewing.com/

I asked my local party store if he could get it last week. He didn’t say no, but he did say he brought few cases in several years ago and the beer didn’t move. He said he had to price it at $9.80 a six pack, similar to Bell’s, Founders, etc. He said it was too high for an aal. I took home a six of Old Style for $5.99.

 

Not to my knowledge. His last post on BA was October 2019.

Peter was kind enough to provide some feedback when I wrote my article about brewing a reconstruction of the original Michelob beer of 1896. He was more helpful in providing input on AB brewing practices (e.g., contemporary lager yeast strain, brewing water, etc.). He did not provide a whole lot in terms of historical brewing input (but he did confirm that the AB brewing logbooks of that era are lost).

Cheers!

 

Yep, I thought it was pretty damn good too.

 

But that's what Pabst does, through their contract brewer(all brewed by Miller -Coors?)get you hooked and then they drop it. Schlitz, Old Tankard, Ballantine IPA, Olympia 95%Malt. (Not sure if they were all brewed at the same brewery)

 

Like most things it’s probably about the money.

 

Well, I personally saw all of them fly off the shelves. Except the Ballantine cuz it wasn't available locally.

 

I don’t know, I think a lot of these major brewers put most of their efforts into the Bud Lights and MiIller Lites of the world. I like AALs, its been a while since I’ve bought a six, but I’d guess I probably drink more than most on the site. Loyal to none and I rotate as the whim hits me, but a. s blitz sounds good. I get nostalgic in my old age.

 

Nostalgia. Where everything old is new again.
My poor imitation of Yogi Berra.

 

Firstly, I agree with your statement here.

In past BA threads I have posted a number of times my frustrations that Pabst did little to nothing to promote these beers (I often used Ballantine IPA as an example). Just like any product if you do nothing to promote a 'new' brand people will likely spend their money on competing products instead.

Pabst now owns a brewery (formerly a Miller-Coors brewery) in Irwindale, CA. The sale was completed in November, 2020. I have not read a thing about Pabst actually brewing product at this newly acquired brewing. It has been three months now. Why the heck would they buy this brewery if they did not intend to commence brewing there?

Cheers!

@jesskidden

 

“We have given notice to Molson Coors of our intention to purchase the Irwindale Brewery property,” Pabst CEO and Chairman Eugene Kashper said in a statement. “We continue to evaluate this opportunity and are committed to choosing a path forward that is in the best interest of all our stakeholders.”

"The future of the brewery still isn’t clear. Adam Sher, president of Irwindale Brew Yard, said in a press release that the company is conducting a feasibility study to determine whether it will reopen the brewery."

Quote I saw while googling, so who knows what the future of the Irwindale location will be.

 

EmperorBatman (initial post) wants to know what a pre-pro. American lager tasted like. He said:
I’ve especially been curious about this lately as I’ve been getting into the video game Red Dead Redemption, and like to have a few authentic beers while role playing a cowboy in the American West at the turn of the century. I normally drink Anchor Steam, Yuengling Traditional, Shiner Bock, or, sometimes, Pilsner Urquell, but I’m looking to expand my selection and learn more while doing so.
Although it's not 100% a lager, I'd think that Anchor Steam is a good place to start for a pre-pro lager. The brewery hadn't changed style in many years when Maytag bought it. Maytag did improve quality and use better ingredients, but didn't try to change the basic style. Also, Yuengling Lager probably comes close too. Brooklyn Lager also was aimed to evoke the pre-pro lager. These beers won't taste exactly like a 1900 lager (they probably varied a lot then). But a lager like those, with about 5% Alcohol, amber, with a modest adjunct load (maybe up to 20%) gives a reasonable start.
Following the changes after prohibition is another matter. You can watch the drop in bitterness. Through the 50's, beer ads often tout their new lighter flavor. More recently analytical bitterness tracks downward. Likely adjunct contents were increasing as bitterness decreased. It's probably possible to recreate an approximate generic beer from a particular era. But we can't answer, "what did Bud taste like in 1950? "

 

Bud has gotten lighter in probably all ways so gradually that it seems close to 70's taste to me. That's 50 years. Does that count as historical?

 

50 years does count. An analysis of European Pilsners https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jib.188 over almost 40 years shows an average 10% reduction (from30 to 27 IBU) over that time -- not a really big deal.
Pilsner Urquell claims that it is like the 19th century product https://www.prazdroj.cz/en/591-scientists-pilsner-urquell-has-tasted-the-same-since-the-19th-century. I had some recently and was not impressed. In the 70s in Chicago, the draft Urquell I remember from the Golden Ox seemed much more complex than the Urquell I had this year.
So I just don't know. Are my taste buds changing? Is the beer different? Or is it all my imagination about the exotic distant past?

 

For a while there, Pabst was contracting with smaller breweries for those newly-revived beers (most, as you note, now defunct - again).

The Ballantine-branded ales (IPA, Burton, Brewers Gold) were done at the Cold Spring brewery in MN, Pabst Old Tankard Ale was initially brewed at the Wisconsin Brewing Co. of Verona with the more widely distributed cans were out of City - Lacrosse.

Those newer Stroh branded beers, "Detroit Lager" and "Bohemian-Style Pilsner", were done at the Brew Detroit - as is some of the current Old Milwaukee "Easyrider" and even that short-lived Rainier PCT Ale (only ~2000 miles away fro the Pacific Coast Trail). The Rainier Pale Mt. Ale was done at the now-closed Red Hook Woodinville brewery (which Pabst even had a contract to purchase, but back out off). The draught Primo for the local Hawaiian market was brewed by by Keoki Brewing of Kauai.

Probably numerous other examples...

 

Well, there's a lot of evidence that it is not. Take this quote from Joseph Owades ("inventor" of the light beer process, briefly an AB employee but from before he helped develop Samuel Adams Boston Lager and numerous other early "craft beers") in the New York Times (May 12, 1982):

Owades also claimed (in other places) that Budweiser in 1970s had 17 IBUs and more recent sources put it at half that, such as the Alcoholic Beverage Testing News in 2012 putting it a 7- 8.

Statistics in 1983 from what was then called J. E. Siebel Sons' Co. noted that the average IBU's of American beers went from 17.8 (1965) to 13.2 in less than two decades.

And that continued, as shown in the oft-cited 2006 Wall Street Journal article "After Making Beer Ever Lighter, Anheuser Faces a New Palate" which quoted AB's then VP of Operations, Douglas Muhleman, admitting:

In the same article then AB president August Busch III defined "drinkability" somewhat differently that Owades did:

Well, that depends on one's age around here but it sure ain't the OP's "pre Prohibition".

 

Stroh’s Pilsner and Detroit Lager are excellent beers and superior to Founders Solid Gold or Bell’s Lager o the Lakes (for example). I drink Detroit Lager on the regular and it’s priced right at $7.99 a six pack. I have not seen or had the Pilsner in 3 years, so that one seems moth balled as well.

 

That beer is still available from retailers. One example:

https://www.woodswholesalewine.com/products/6pk-strohs-bohemian-style-pilsner-beer-michigan-usa-12oz

I discussed the Stroh's Bohemian style Pilsner in past NBS threads. I think it is a very tasty beer. I wish it was distributed to my area.



Cheers!