Beer back then vs now

I didn't live in the National Brg. distribution, but I was able to get a couple of bottles of National Boh. I would have bought National Boh because is was pretty good. Better than Michelob in my opinion. The imported 70s Lowenbrau was very good.

 

That is indeed the case as was discussed above (Wall Street Journal article).

Yup, you can see the data here:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jib.188

Cheers!

 

Don't forget about the "Red Beer" phase. Remember Coor's Red Light, Genny Red, Red Wolf and the like?

 

I've already forgotten, since I didn't drink any; neither any Ice Beers. I did try a few malt liquors in the early 70s.

 

Data to back it up. Good stuff! Thanks Jack!

 

Yes not by that much but slightly before my time , at least my drinking time

 

If I were to find a way to go back in time I'd actually love to try those "old man beers" that I rejected for the better stuff around 1980. Schaefer, Piels, Rheingold, etc...

Something tells me that with my current palate and understanding of beer, I just might even prefer them to the Bud of the day. Michelob might be a different story.

 

Schlitz was my first beer back in 1970. Loved it! and beer in general. Coors was the local favorite and it was mine also. I didn’t like Bud then and I don’t like it now. Lone Star was the ultra-hyped beer of the day when I moved to Austin in 1974. Other brands I liked were Hamm’s, Falstaff and PBR. Some I never did care for were Schaefer and Pearl.

 

Hmmm... can't say I've ever delved into the Miss. beer scene...

And, though historic pricing info can sometimes be difficult to accurately examine, since in most cases it is based on retailers' ads (and, so, sometimes "sale" prices) and in that era, often the difference in price for the same brand in different packages (bottles v cans, sixpacks vs cases) could be greater than that between brands, but in general at many Miss. retailers it looks like Budweiser and Schlitz, the #1 and #2 brands in the US were sold at the same "Premium" price in Mississippi during that period (as was Miller, usually) as they often were in most other states. Pabst and Jax were marketed in the so-called "Popular" price segment.

Surprised to see Schlitz's growth during these dozen years in Miss. Based on Federal market share stats for most (not all) US states, that was Schlitz's largest market share, the only one over 50%. (ND came close with 47.4%). Obviously, Falstaff and Jax were the big share losers. (In some regions of MS, distributed by the same company).

Was also surprised to see Dixie, which was small at the time (under 200k bbl) compared to NO's Jackson Brewing Co., had no market to speak of it Miss. Jackson along with Texas' Pearl were both 1- 2 million barrel brewers at the time, and when Jackson shut down in 1974 Pearl bought the brand.

 

Well, if it's the same cost and trouble, I'd go back a bit further than 1980s for those NYC brands. None were brewed in Brooklyn by 1980, with Schaefer and their then discount brand Piels (bought in the mid-1970s) were in the process of being taken over by the Stroh Brewery, Inc. and Rheingold was coming out of the Philadelphia brewery of C. Schmidt & Sons, their Orange NJ brewery (their last) closed in 1977, one year after both Schaefer and Rheingold closed their home Brooklyn facilities.

 

Yeah, Straub used flaked corn as an adjunct to barley malt at the time, but so did the other brands you mentioned drinking - Prior Double Dark, Iron City, Schmidt's, Mustang and Colt 45 - in one form (flakes, grits, syrup, dextrose/maltose) or another.

 

Well, I hate to challenge people's memories* but Coors Light was not released until 1978 (a year confirmed in the officially-approved Coors: A Rocky Mountain Legend as well as two other histories of the company, Citizen Coors and Silver Bullets).

The point was Coors thought they were losing market share, in part, to the light versions of other national and large regional brewers. There was a Coors' family reluctance initially since Coors Beer (now referred to commonly as Banquet to distinguish it from Coors Light) was always noted for being lighter than the other macro flagships - one of their slogan's boasted it was "America's Fine Light Beer".

Miller Brewing Co. supposedly was taking Coors' popularity as part of the inspiration when they reformulated Meister Brau Lite and created Lite Beer from Miller. Although AB would not release what was originally labeled Budweiser Light until a few years after Coors Light (AB was concerned about cannibalizing Budweiser sales, which happened with most other brewers' flagship) they were doing alright with both Anheuser Busch Natural Light and Michelob Light. In some markets, Natural Light was even priced above Budweiser.

Coors had even tried an earlier version of a "Light" variation in the 1940 (above right "13% Less Calories") in the 1940s which failed and even the first can design for the 1978 Coors Light showed a, uh ---- "lack of effort" one might imply.

*Some might say, that's all I do in the many threads like this over the years, like it did the the above posts. And they're right. I do find myself trying to resist but, usually the next day, give it. BUT I hate myself for it!

 

OK, you've convinced me. It'll be 1975, and I'll take in a Kiss and/or Sabbath show as well.

 

Maybe set your Wayback Machine back another decade+ and enjoy: “The Bushwick Pilsners: A Look at Hoppier Days”.

https://www.morebeer.com/articles/The_Bushwick_Pilsners_A_Look_At_Hoppier_Days

Cheers!

P.S. And enjoy a Beatles show?

 

Keep clarifying the foggy memories. You recently corrected one of my posts, but that's not quite all you do. I noticed the Coors stubby bottle. It appears to be the Northwest returnable stubby, 11 oz. with the fill level ridge near the neck. I guess that Coors stopped using it before the 70s. The 11 oz returnable stubby use was expanded when Oregon implemented the bottle return law in the 70s, with that bottle getting a bargain 2c deposit as an "industry standard". Even some of the national brands used if for a short time (I remember seeing maybe Miller and Pabst, but can't find a photo).

 

Started in the late ‘00s. It was much cheaper. Less selection. Stupid deposit state (Iowa) meant empties stacked up.

 

According to an article in an edition of the Swedish publication Svensk bryggeritidskrift (Swedish brewery publication) from 1963 Anheuser Busch was brewing three beers at the original gravities 11,7%, 12.1% and 12.8% Balling respectively. In an article from the same publication from 1968 it is specified that Busch was brewed at 11,6%, Budweiser at 12% and Michelob at 12.6% Balling, which leads me to believe that the gravities of those three brands followed the same pattern in 1963, with a slight reduction across that time period. In a table from the North Dakota State laboratories from 1962 the abv of Budweiser is analysed to be 4.8%, for Busch 4.6% (with one sample at 4.4%) and Michelob at 4.9% abv. If no major changes took place between 1962 and 1963 it seems likely that the apparent degree of attenuation was around 74% for Budweiser and Busch (except for the outlier sample) in the early 1960s, and a bit lower for Michelob, closer to 71%.

Once original gravities were slightly lowered one wonders whether the abv was kept the same while slightly increasing the degree of attenuation, or if the abv was slightly lowered (I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the degree of attenation of Michelob was increased). For comparison according to today's Finnish alcohol monopoly Alko's independent analysis the original gravity for Budweiser is 10.9% with an abv of 5%, which would be around 85% apparent degree of attenuation. I imagine that it is being high gravity brewed also in Europe, maybe at 13-14% plato, but the 10.9% would be the theoretical original gravity. I've also seen a Russian Bud label which stated 11% original extract, which is of course fully in line with modern brewing standards.

In the 1968 publication they also discuss Coors, of which it is mentioned that the degree of attenuation is "around 80%" and that they store the beer for three months at around 0 degrees celsius. The higher degree of attenuation and the long period of storage made sense for a brewery wanting to increase the stability of their product without resorting to pasteurization. Based on the degree of attenuation and later abw listings of 3.6% one finds for for Coors beer I imagine that the original gravity would have been around 10.5-10.7% or thereabouts. So quite a lighter beer than those of Anheuser Busch, explaining the reputation of Coors as a light tasting beer. Specs wise however it would not have been out of place in for example Sweden in the time period 1965-1977 when 3.6% abw beer was allowed to be sold in grocery stores, where original gravities were typically around 10.5-11%, whereas compared to the stronger beer sold in the monopoly at the time (where OGs were typically around 12.5-13%) it would have been a lighter brew, similar to the relationship between it and the beers of Anheuser Busch at the time.

 

It's not surprising that Coors would produce a lower alcohol 3.2abw Coors for wider distribution. Most breweries in the US did so if they distributed in a 3.2 area. There was such a law in Coors' home state. A 2018 article
https://www.5280.com/so-long-3-2-beer-well-miss-you/
describes some of the Colorado 3.2abw rule as it was being repealed. In Colorado beer above 3.2 was available only in liquor stores and bars licensed for liquor. The lower alcohol stuff was available in markets and beer bars. Several states in the past besides Colorado within Coors' distribution had 3.2 regulations that vary in detail including Utah and Oklahoma. Minnesota still has one!
Washington had a 4abw law that actually had one good result. Rainier produced a 4 abw Rainier Ale that tasted much better than their higher alcohol version.

 

Yeah, Coors was always a bit more forthcoming about their beers' alcohol content - in part, because the "lightness" of them tended to suggest lower alcohol for some beer drinkers and competitors took advantage of that. (It was Coors, after all, that took the case of allowing brewers in the US all the way to the Supreme Court in the 1990s, changing the Federal regulations).
In the 1970s & 1980s: