Hamm’s Appreciation Thread (2024)

Hamm’s FTW!

 

Oh man a whole Hamm’s thread I didn’t even know was going on!



My Hamm’s sign is the centerpiece of my beer-sign wall in the dining room. Sadly it’s a reproduction, not a real antique, but it makes me happy nonetheless!



My Hamm’s story is that when I used to meet up with one of my oldest friends after work for beers a couple times a week, no matter what tasty craft beer I had, I always finished the night with a “Hamm’s in a can” … for years. So when I first signed up for BeerAdvocate 15 years ago, I picked the Hamm’s bear for my avatar. #hammsfan #hammsstan

 

You might as well act on that passion and run out to Meijer or a Spartan Store and grab a 30 rack and join in the fun! Come to think of it, I just might do that myself! Protip. Make sure to dig in the back of the cooler for the newest (farthest out BB dated) 30s!

 

I used to buy Hamms, in Central NY, all the time. But I haven't seen it for about 2 or 3 years. I miss it

 

Vice Chairman of Hamms Appreciation @miwestcoaster has instructed me to report that Hamms is available in the Capital region NY, Albany and therabouts. I found some at Price Chopper market 32 via the beer finder from the Hamms website. I enjoy have some in stock for when the Hamms fever hits, which is multiple times per year.

This is the @tolar111 pour btw

 

Double down is @tolar111 style for sure. Stacking up gives me the @nicholas2121 vibe!

 

I always wanted a beer cave to display the 70s bottle and can collection, some glassware, my Cartwright poster, and a few other doodads. My son bought a house with the perfect setup, but isn't too interested in cluttering it up with my junk. I noticed the nice OLY poster to the right of the Hamm's. It looks 60s or earlier. When Oly entered the Minnesota market, they killed Grain Belt and bought Hamm's for themselves. Ironic that Grain Belt and Hamm's brands still exist, but Oly is gone.

 

Bootleg Hamm’s Warning!!!!!
True Hamm’s is only brewed in Milwaukee ,WI, USA
Not Rochester, NY


found out the hard way while grilling with @DavetotheB
Very embarrassing

 

Thanks for disproving my earlier post!

 

Yeah … like my parents’ generation used to say about Oly “It’s The Water … and not much else”

Those signs are just replicas but I do have quite a few tin tackers out in the garage. Love me some tin tackers!

 

@nicholas2121 is my hero!

 

I really appreciate this info. Thanks!

 

Passion ? Not sure I'd use that word to describe all the posts. Lots of fiction, too.

Well, I realize this is some sort of joke post but, for the record, Molson Coors, current owner of the Hamm's Beer label, brews it at their regional breweries around the country - the TTB application for the brand, in fact, lists ALL of the Molson Coors breweries, even smaller ones like the two Leinenkugel plants and the Blue Moon facility in Denver, were they could brew it if necessary.

As noted above, you've got to check the code to find out where it was brewed and canned or as the TTB itself requires "EACH CONTAINER MUST BE CODED TO INDICATE ACTUAL PLACE OF BOTTLING".

Not sure "passion" is the correct word for all the posts. Some are fiction, too.

 

Well, with any business failure, it's hard to put the blame on one factor - it is usually a case of the final straw being too much. Yeah, Olympia moving into MN in mid-1974 didn't help either Grain Belt or Hamm's and Heileman-owned Schmidt but early in 1975 was when that the notorious Irwin Jacobs (whom Fortune magazine has called "the quintessential corporate raider", who would later also compete with Heileman to take over Pabst in the early 1980s) started buying into Grain Belt and by December of the next year he was in talks with Heileman to buy the brand (purchase of which was completed in 1976).

Local industry sources put the MN market as looking like this soon after Olympia's entry into the state:

So, in just 3 years GB lost nearly 8 points but the other MN brands Hamm lost around 5 and Schmidt lost ~4%*, with Olympia, Schlitz & AB each gaining share, totaling 15%. (*Remember that by 74 Schmidt was a Heileman brand, having purchased the brewery and brand from Associated in 1972, so they were down, too, since the '71 total was 23.8%).

As to how did the Grain Belt brand under Heileman ownership continue to lose share in the 1970-1980s, some quotes from the 1990s from Grain Belt distributors:
"Heileman is totally responsible for the near-demise of Grain Belt. They dropped all of the advertising support..."
"You always felt like an outsider even though all the beer (Schmidt and Grain Belt) was coming out of the same plant (Heileman's Schmidt brewery in St. Paul)."
"Heileman just put any old beer in a can and called it Grain Belt and didn't back it. There was no support behind the brand."

Grain Belt, during it's last full year (1974) brewed 950,000 bbl. and by the late 1980s-early 1990s, is was down to around 22k-30k some years.

Yeah, Olympia had announced their plans to construct a new 1.5M bbl. brewery in Wisconsin near Beloit (est. cost to be $40M) early in 1974 only to cancel them by the end of the year, citing high interest rates and construction costs. A few months later they were able to buy the Theo. Hamm Brewing Co. early in 1975 for less (undisclosed at the time) than they expected to spend in Wisconsin and included the 3.5M bbl brewery plus Hamm's malt house and a can manufacturing plant.

The next year, Olympia bought Lone Star and they would wind up the #6 brewer in the US in 1977, ahead (temporarily) of two other soon-to-be national Big 6 brewers of the 1980s, Stroh and Heileman.

 

It very drinkable and the cheapest beer I’ve seen in any stores over last decade. A few AALs and Mexican pages I prefer over it, but it’s a good bulk summer-time purchase.

 

When I saw this thread it brought back memories of this thread:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...america-3-craft-brewers-taste-test-16.525752/

Looks like the article it links to is long gone, at least when I tried reading it, but anyway the highest rated beer by a good margin the brewers picked was ... Hamm's.

That's what made me go out and buy some Hamm's for the first time in many many years. And you know what, it hit the spot then and still does on the occasions when I purchase it.

 

A useful trick at some WFs as well as I did some digging yesterday and found a 2 months fresher six pack of North Coast Red Seal Ale. One month in the bottle and delicious.

 

@jesskidden Interesting. I can't decipher the brewing location on the printed information on the bottom of a recent purchase.

APR0824 49
E1000041733

Do I need to look somewhere else?

 

Well, it was 3 brewers, from Half Acre, Revolution and Pollyanna, and Hamm's win wasn't exactly "by a good margin".

The results from the original Chicago Tribune article:

 

Hmmm... Damn, didn't notice that they never updated their own pdf with the new brewery codes, which are now (incomplete list):
Golden - 1000
Milwaukee - 1010
Trenton - 1020
Ft Worth - 1030
Shenandoah (VA) – 1040
Albany GA __?_
Tenth Ave. (Leinenkugel) _?_
Chippewa Falls (Leinenkugel) - 5000
So, it looks like you're getting Hamm's brewed at the Coors brewery in Golden (makes geographical sense, now that Irwindale is a City/Pabst facility).

Take note brother @57md

Somebody should call Molson Coors and bitch about the outdated info on their HOW TO READ CODES pdf. 800-645-5376 or Contract Us.