Oldies But Goodies - a Classics Appreciation Thread (2023)

JW Lees to my mind enters another category in beer making. You know, je ne sais quoi!

 

Still a damn fine beer, but that copy was actually outdated even back when it was written. -
Signed,
Long Time Bigfoot Fan

 

Because all of the American were of Irish descent!?!

Sláinte!

 

Time for a DNA test!?!

Cheers, Prost and Santé!

 

My Irish Great-Grandmother was born on Meath Street, and was baptized at the formerly Catholic (now Anglican) St. Catherine's Church. This occurred within a few blocks of the Guinness Storehouse and Brewery.

I mention this because I am stoked that barring the City of Chicago fucking things up and delaying the opening, Guinness is scheduled to open their second American brewery on the West Side of Chicago in two weeks. It will not be as close for me as Great Grandmother Bessie was to where she was born, baptized and raised (though all within 15.2 miles for me). Assuming I can get in, I plan on having a few proper pints poured in person on Saint Patrick's Day, 2023!

https://dublingrid.com/en/news/arti...second-us-taproom-in-illinois-later-this-year

Also graduated from Saint Patrick High School, founded in 1861 but displaced and relocated to the NW Side when the Kennedy / Interstate Highways were built. Old Saint Patrick's Parish remains on Des Plaines and Adams downtown, just to the east of the downtown interchange.

 

I still semi regularly get Guinness Extra and Foreign Extra, and they never disappoint. I just happen to have a can on deck for tonight

Slainte!

 

Thanks! This will be documented live as usual in WBAYDN. I'll either be enjoying the thrill of victory (entering and drinking), or the agony of defeat (turned away due to overcrowding, Guinness not being opened due to city licensing delays). The only certainty is barring death, I will be enjoying a Guinness or three somewhere, though really hoping to on 375 N. Morgan.

ChicagoJ, Spanning the globe, to bring you a constant variety of beers....

 

Yeah, though the modern beer geekery likes to believe the 4 pack was invented recently to rip them off, but they've been around for decades - in the case of imports, probably to lessen the sticker shock compared to domestic prices. Guinness Extra Stout in the 1970s-1980s in the US was sold in 4 packs, even the nip bottles. Before that, the 11.5/12 oz. bottles came in 3 packs () even back when the only Guinness stout exported to the US was Foreign Extra Stout.

There's been no rhyme or reason of where or when the Canadian-brewed (Labatt and Moosehead) Guinness ES is sold in the US. I've traced it back to the mid-1970s, but it can vary greatly. At one point 20 years ago or so, I'd see Canadian 12 oz. bottles and Irish 22 oz. bottles on the same shelf.

But the fine print was always there:

even though many ignored it - maybe turning the bottle sideways to read it was the problem? Especially if the crown had already been removed?

 

In almost all cases at the time, there wasn't a difference (other than Canadian labels had to list ABV and US labels, by law, could not). BUT, Guinness Extra Stout was an exception - the Labatt-brewed-under-license Guinness for their domestic market was 5% (like most Canadian beers of the era) while the Guinness Extra Stout they brewed for the US market was usually said to be 5.5%-6%.

 

Well, that was the myth, certainly. It mostly had to do with the different ways the two countries' regulators measured alcohol. In the US, when required by state law, it was "alcohol by weight", in Canada, the beer labels listed "alcohol by volume". Since alcohol is lighter than water, they are different. ABW-ABV

Often when US beers' alcohol content was listed, the fact that they were in ABW was not even mentioned, like here in 1980 from AB:

Canadian flagship beers of the era were typically 5% abv, while most US lager beers as shown were often slightly under that. But everything I've ever read, the Canadian breweries exported the same beers sold in Canada to the US and since the US BATF-approved labels on the imported Canadian brands could not list alcohol content, not sure how people would know that if that was not the case.

As noted above, the myth dates back to the US Prohibition period, when Canadian beers often were labeled in the even-higher method of "Proof Spirits".

Immediately after Repeal, some US brewers used "Proof Spirits" alcohol content on labels until it was prohibited by the newly-enacted Federal Alcohol Administration Act's labeling rules a few years later.