Stephen Morris in his book "The Great Beer Trek" (1984) says of the super-premiums of the late 1970s & early 1980s that "In reality the Supers approximate the formulations of lagers before the trend toward lightness began." He then mentions as super-premiums Andeker, Augsburger Dark, Black Horse Ale (Champale version), Henry Weinhard Special and Michelob. If I learned the lessons taught by jesskidden correctly, there was little difference between the malt and hops content of beers brewed in 1915 and 1935, but from there they gradually got lighter, starting with the hops. Do folks think its fair to consider the super-premiums of the 1970s & 80s Pre-Pros?
“Do folks think its fair to consider the super-premiums of the 1970s & 80s Pre-Pros?” I am going to ‘vote’ No here since a distinguishing feature of Pre-Pro beers is that they would have been more hop forward in all three phases: bittering, flavor and aroma. A review of the BJCP guidelines for a Pre-Prohibition Lager provides details: “IBUs: 25 – 40” “Flavor: Medium to medium-high maltiness with a grainy flavor. Optional corn-like roundness and impression of sweetness. Substantial hop bitterness stands up to the malt and lingers through the dry, soft to crisp finish. Medium to high rustic, floral, herbal, or spicy hop flavor. Medium to high bitterness that is clean not coarse. No harsh aftertaste.” We homebrewers refer to the style as Classic American Pilsner (CAP). @JUkes , if you want to read more on this topic: Details of the CAP beer style is part of this article: https://www.morebeer.com/articles/Pilsen_Beer History of Michelob (first brewed in 1896): https://www.morebeer.com/articles/Brewing_Original_Michelob_Recipe Cheers! P.S. I am confident that @moodenba will provide more input concerning the beers Andeker, Augsburger,…
Why can't they (none still exist) just be considered examples of 1970-80s of the (all but defunct) US Super-Premium style? I mean, calling any recipe "Pre-Pro" is pretty vague to begin with - by 1918, two years before the 18th Amendment and National Prohibition, Wilson's Wartime Prohibition limited beer to 2.75%. On the other end of the timeline, the first US lagers in the 1840s (so, at the same time the Bohemian/Pilsener style was being created in central Europe) were darker, Bavarian-influenced beers. The beers brewed by the US lager brewers of the last half of the 19th century up to Prohibition were often more varied that the AALs of the post-Repeal era. The pre-Pro Big 3 (AB, Schlitz & Pabst) plus two of the large NYC brewers' portfolios (w/the Piel Bros. beers noted for being all-malt): By comparison, AB's portfolio in the 1970s was 3 AALs, distinguished primarily by the brewery by price segment - Busch Bavarian (popular), Budweiser (premium), Michelob (super-premium). (Granted, they did vary by adjunct used and malt/adjunct ratio, as well as hops, etc.) Beyond "style", while Wahl & Heinus did say that the grist of American Lager Beers typically contained about one-third unmalted cereals, the proportion varied "from 10 to 50 per cent". So, pretty difficult to pin down one general pre-Pro lager recipe; throw in the variety of hops (not nearly as large as today's of course) and the fact that average real degree of fermentation figures were much lower pre-Pro than in the 1970s... Did Morris even mention the Champale version of Black Horse Ale in his book? BHA both Champale and pre-Vaux Koch, were usually priced in the "premium" price segment but it sure looks like it varied quite a bit by market (and brewer, inc. Diamond Spring in MA) in the 1960s-1980s. I recall reading the first ed. of the book in the mid-80s, and being confused by the chronology of his trip (IIRC it seems he claimed to have gone to breweries that had closed by the time other brewers or beers were released on the same trip - so I think there was some artistic license involved with it being a single trip). I have a copy of 1990's "Revised & Updated" version but can't say I've read it since that time.
No clue about where it falls in terms of style in that era, but I remember it tasting way bolder than the other macros I had access to in the 80's and 90's. Beer was still new to me in those days, and compared to High Life, Coors Light, and normal Bud it felt like something else entirely. I liked it way more, too.
It? If you're referring to Michelob, I don't remember it bolder, but smoother. Of course, when I first started getting into beer in the late 70s I was strongly influenced by the adults in my life (dad, uncles) who always waxed nostalgic about draft Michelob and what a beer epiphany it was compared to the other beers on shelves. But... was it really? Or was it just good marketing?
In my case, I wasn't really aware of any beer marketing beyond "tastes great, less filling" and Spuds McKenzie. My exposure was mostly based upon snatching bottles/cans from friends' parents fridges or whatever the folks with fake IDs happened to purchase. I found Michelob in those lamp-shaped bottles to be almost like a different substance than the other items I happened upon. It had a nuttiness instead of that unripe banana note the others gave me. I actually liked it. For a long time it was the only beer I liked. One guys parents bought a keg of it for our high school graduation (yeah, they were the "cool parents") and that was my peak beer experience for years.
You get the banana notes from Coors products a little? In college when Keystone came out my buddies gave me shit because I said Keystone Light had a banana flavor....now I've read from others that Coors products in general give that off from their yeast I think..
Yep. A combination of the Coors lager yeast strain and the fermentation conditions will produce a subtle banana flavor. That flavor is from an ester (isoamyl acetate). AB beers like Bud/Bud Light also have a subtle flavor from an ester, a subtle flavor of apple. Cheers!
Yeah, I've often told this story about my first Michelob consumed at an AB brewery: Supposedly AB worked for most of the 1950s to develop the recipe for the bottled Michelob and, rumor had it, that some at the company felt the new recipe was something of a failure at capturing the all-malt draught-only version. Pretty sure I've read that AB once gave draught Michelob a shorter shelf life period than they gave kegs of Budweiser (50 days at the time).
A question I've often asked myself as well. The marketing was first rate, of that I have no doubt. The beer however... I remember being dissatisfied more often than the times I was impressed. Price was probably a factor as well. When I was first trying it back in the 70s, it was nearly a dollar more for a 6 pack than regular bud. That was a huge price differential back then. On the other hand, I always felt very cool and affluent when drinking it out of those iconic bottles, so there was that. Looking back on it now, I feel like AB suckered me. But that may not really be fair. It was a very different time and the beer landscape was far different then what we have today.
Well, there may be a timing issue here. As was discussed above, Michelob was a draft only product until 1961. Prior to 1961 the draft only Michelob was an all-malt product and given it was kegged it was not pasteurized. And the practice of the day (and still should be today) those kegged beers would be delivered in refrigerated conditions and the bars/restaurants should place the kegs in their cold rooms. The bottled Michelob of 1961 was not all-malt. It was brewed with adjunct (rice) and since it was bottled it was pasteurized. Is it reasonable to expect a beer that went through both a recipe (all-malt to AAL) change and a process change (pasterization) to taste the same? I have no personal experience here (i.e., before my time) but it seems to me that the bottled Michelob would indeed taste different from the Michelob prior to 1961. Cheers!
From my memory, and the opinions of three or four 25 year old beer drinkers who liked more flavorful beers when we could find them, I have one answer. We did a blind tasting of Michelob, Bud, and Busch Bavarian in southern CA in about 1973. The three were pretty similar. We thought that Busch was best, with a little more body than the others. We disliked Michelob (ranked last) because it was so smooth that the favor disappeared. Bud we ranked in the middle. We drank Ballantine XXX Ale at home. Going out usually meant standard lagers. We could find Dos Equis and sometimes Bohemia at Mexican restaurants. We disliked the market leaders, Coors, Bud, and Oly. We celebrated when San Diego Tug's Tavern switched from Coors to PBR, Andeker, and Pabst Dark.
I have no old Michelob drinking experiences/memories to share but I do have an ‘old’ book: The Great American Beer Book by James D. Robertson with a 1978 copyright. In this book the author worked with a team to conduct taste tests of a large number of beers. On page 52 there is a section entitled “The Taste Panel” providing some details on that topic. As specifically regards Michelob, on page 76, with some emphasis in bold by me: “MICHELOB BEER – golden color, hops notable in the aroma, smooth and beautifully balanced, good body, fine hop-malt taste, finely balanced aftertaste, with hops remaining only faintly. An excellent beer and worthy of choice for serious beer drinkers. The draft version is similar but better.” From my perspective the above should be considered within the context of the times. In other words, the Michelob beer of 1978 was “excellent” in comparison to the other beers of that time. And I suspect that the draft version was “better” due to the combinations of continual cold storage, freshness and not being ‘damaged’ via pasteurization. Michelob is also discussed in a broader context on page 69: “Some, like Budweiser and Michelob, are very good and scattered about the country are excellent regional brews like Perfection from Horlacher, Augsburger from Huber, and Maximus Super from West End.” Cheers!
While some of us weren't too impressed with the bottled Michelob by the 1970s, Anheuser-Busch apparently thought it was successful enough in the 1960s to print novelty pinback buttons promoting their master brewer, German-born Frank Schwaiger (hired the same month as Repeal - April, '33) as a candidate for president - of the US, not AB - because of his work on bottled Michelob. The button and some history of Schwaiger at Anheuser-Busch can be found on my page on AB brewers, page down about half way for Schaiger's section.
Takes me back to my old thread re American Pilsner not having its own sub-style category. CAP. Jack you are a well of information.
Has Classic American Pilsner become a category yet!?! Happy Hour is close to happening (East Coast Time). I have a homebrewed CAP in the fridge that is 'calling my name'!! Cheers!
Morris says this about BHA: "Black Horse Ale (Champale and Koch). Brewed under license by two breweries, the Champale version seems to be truer to its English roots. Hop/malt balance seems about right, meaning you can actually taste the hops. Originally a Canadian product." I got the Morris book as a Christmas present 5 or 10 years ago. I was confused about it because it was supposed to be a reprinting of the original book, but he talks about breweries that he visited during his beer trek (like Ortleib's) as being out of business. So I didn't read it. I recently found out that he took his beer trek in 1978, but the book about the trek wasn't published until 1984. That helped the book make sense to me. I read it a few weeks ago and loved it. Some of the things that he says are off (he has Champale as the state beer of NJ, and National Premium, not National Bohemian as the state beer of Maryland). But those are quibbles. I thought that he really did a great time capturing the beer spirit of the late 70s & early 80s.
I think that the beer writers of the late 70s & early 80s fawned over Bud & AB products more than they deserved. But that was at a time when the steamroller that Philip Morris had turned Miller into was upending the brewing industry and AB was the last line of defense for traditional brewers. (Miller even made phony Lite beer!) So I was on the side of AB then. After AB had turned back the Miller assault in the 80s, I thought that they were bullies. I'm not sure how much that dynamic of the traditional AB vs. the insurgent Philip Morris/Miller is appreciated today.
Never had the Koch version until after Vaux bought them and I moved to the Finger Lakes region - it was just OK, and I liked their Porter better but it was nowhere near a porter. Black Horse Ale's roots were Canadian (Dawes and later Dow and Carling-O'Keefe), of course (apparently made it's US rep during Prohibition) and was well-advertised as a legal import into the 1950s. The story told by a Holihan descendant is that Diamond Spring/Holihan Bros. [MA] simply took over the brand over in the 1960s when Dow let the US trademark lapse and without Dow's authorization brewed it for the US market, sharing somehow (maybe licensing?) the label with Champale and Fred Koch. Koch said they developed the recipe and it had no relation to the Canadian brewed ale, but they might have meant their version of it. Genesee bought the Koch labels in '85 or so and even brewed Black Horse for a few years - always wondered who owned the label during that period. Heileman soon after bought Champale but didn't continue any of their other brands that I recall. I've been looking through my "Revised & Updated" copy from '90 and, yeah, quite a bit deleted. The only mention of Black Horse Ale is under Genesee (which bought the Koch brands around 1985 IIRC but soon dropped Black Horse). Ha, ha! Yeah, I remember that and being a bit insulted. Black Horse Ale was always suspect as far as age and condition (green bottle) as well as being not real commonly found on the shelves in its home state. Went to the brewery once, right off the Delaware River, but they didn't want visitors.
