Well, the mention of Ballantine Ale brings back some good memories. The Falstaff-brewed version was a regular in my refrigerator. I tasted most of the other mentioned beers in the 70s, and wasn't really impressed with any of them. But those that exist now are likely even less remarkable.
The one positive thing about those beers of yore, is that they paved the way towards the current landscape. After drinking nothing but that sort of crap, I felt as if I'd literally had an epiphany when I was sent to Germany in 1973, and then visited London in 1975. In 1987 I felt as if a light had exploded in my brain when I went to Pacific Coast Brewing in Oakland and sampled their "huge" selection of microbrew (probably around 25 different beers). Were it not for the crappy macro scene in the US back in the 80's, I'm not sure those beers would have even registered. They were pretty decent I guess, but in comparison to the AAL crap I was accustomed to, I thought they were amazing.
Lots of incorrect info there, but I always like when these day-old brewery historians confuse Ballantine "Light Lager" Beer with Ballantine Ale. They confuse the two Schmidt/Schmidt's - (of St. Paul and Phila). Rheingold production didn't end with the closing of their last brewery in the late 1970s, C. Schmidt's of Phila. and then Heileman > Stroh continued brewing into the 1990s (when it underwent an attempted "revival" from new owners - well actually the leased the brand from Stroh - including a member of the founding Liebmann family). Pabst's Red, White & Blue dated from the pre-Prohibition era in the early 1900s. The 2 Jax (FL and NOLA) has an agreement not to sell beer in each others markets and when the Florida brewery shutdown, the NOLA took over the full rights to the brand name. There was no "merger".
I thought a respectable fraction of the early craft products were very good. Anchor convinced me in about '72 or ;73. I have a list of memorable beers from my visits to NW family in the 80s and 90s: Pyramid Pale (Kalama), Widmer pale bock (B. Moloch), Grant's Scottish (Portland Bry or Yakima), Bridgeport Cask Stout (at the brewery). Manhattan bry had great English style ales. On visits to Chicago, I liked Baderbrau (Pavicevic) and picked up a really good Hibernia dark wheat ale (from renamed Walter, Eau Claire). The British-style ales I mentioned were all better than the imported stuff of the time. German imports were generally good. Those craft German styles were at least pretty close to what a German import would offer. I rewatched Northern Exposure recently, mostly to look at the craft beer bottles, signs, neons, and cases that reminded me of some really good beers from the old days.
No argument here... I really feel as if you're preaching to the choir. I'm just acknowledging that in comparison to the slew of macro swill available back then, it's at least conceivable that my impression of microbrew might not have been completely objective. Back in the day, there were just so few comparison/reference points (especially on the West coast). So by comparison at least, everything tended to taste pretty good.
Back then, anything that was different was interesting, even if it was the same type of thing from someplace else. Then, early-mid 80s stuff that was actually different started showing up, and there was no going back.
