ALDI beer knockoffs

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There is also a Moxie bottler in central PA (Columbia County) -
Catawissa Bottling Co (yeah, the date on the website is 1999 but other sources claim the place, which is also a beer distributor, is still open).

 

More history of knock-offs and private labels. For a 70's view of knock-offs start with the original super-premium Michelob (http://www.ripencollectibles.com/0000041.html) bottle. Now look at Hamms Waldech (https://vault.si.com/vault/43138) and Pabst Andeker (https://picclick.com/Vintage-ANDEKER-of-AMERICA-Amber-Beer-Bottle-EMBOSSED-262944523991.html). Me-too knock-off packaging, absolutely. I don't remember any lawsuits then. In my opinion those beers were far BETTER than Michelob. Waldech was very good and Andeker was my favorite nationally distributed domestic lager. More on private labels. Most are/were pretty forgettable. However, in the '70s, Huber brewed private label "Berghoff Beer" (light, dark and bock) for the Berghoff Restaurant in Chicago, and they were excellent German style beers.

 

Since my permanent job is on furlough, I've been picking up some hours working at an independent living place for seniors. Among other things, there's a little sundries store, with sodas and so forth. They had a bunch of Moxie in - I guess they figures that the old-timers would drink it. They didn't, but I did. I actually liked it - it's different from Coke and such, maybe the closest would be Dr Pepper (and clones...) but Moxie is less sweet, and has a different spice blend.

As far as the main topic goes, we don't have an Aldi's here (yet - there's one in construction, was planned to open this summer, but with "all this" it's moved to early winter, I think.) I don't know if this one will get an alcohol licence - they're right next door to a Wines & More.
We do have Trader Joe's though, and they have their own names, which is pretty obvious what they're going for, but the labeling and fonts are completely different. Most of those are brewed for them by a couple brewers, I think we've had that discussion before, most of the time they're pretty well hidden, except for the Vintage Ale, and the couple others brewed by Unibrau, and they had one by Harpoon specifically for them. Those ones are completely transparent - the UNibrau and Harpoon labeling was prominent on the bottles. I guess it's a case of labeling - if Aldi;s called it their Lime Sour with a blue background instead of the green, would it differentiate itself enough? I guess another question is who is brewing these beers for Aldi? If it's the originals, just rebranded, that would be one thing, but I presume that's not the case, if DFH is suing Aldi's.

 

I wonder if Aldi could just come up with their own label and include something like drug stores do with their store brand drugs. Print something like "Compare to Dogfish Head SeaQuench Ale" on the label. It might be an even better way to get the customer to buy it.

 

I don't know - I take those house brands' resemblances to other beers as a simple way of Aldis saying:
"If you drink Blue Moon (or Corona or Heineken), this beer is similar."

Not the kind of thing where your grandma might buy it by mistake ("But, sonny, that looks just like the beer you always drink!") Not like when she bought you a record album featuring your favorite song, by that English singing group when you were 12:

That's not the "original" design from the 1960s, which was much more extreme - an award-winner from The Industrial Designers Institute for “meritorious and unusual approach to the design of a product" and, supposedly, also an absolute bitch to running on high-speed bottling lines. (AB's ad agency guys called it "the perfume bottle").

You forgot these two Schlitz products (late 1970s):

The Berghoff brand history was a bit more complicated/interesting than that - the beer was originally brewed by the Berghoff Brewing Co., Ft. Wayne, IN which became a Falstaff brewery and survived into the 1990s. After the sale of the brewery, the brand moved to the Walter Brewing Co., Pueblo, CO, before the Huber deal. And, of course, when Fred Huber bought back his Monroe WI brewery in the late 80s (after new owners, a couple of ex-Pabst execs closed it, but not before selling off their Augsburger brand to Stroh) the Berghoff's were involved in the 'new' company, which operated for a time as the Berghoff-Huber Brewing Co.

(So, not exactly like the private labels below )

Yeah, much more interesting to find those beers than the typical east coast grocery store brands.

I had a job driving a company hatchback, making pickups and deliveries for a company in L.A. and a friend back east was a big can collector, so I'd stop into all the different chains (can't remember most of the names of the beers or stores, now except for Vons and Ralphs) and I'd always score a few new cans for him.

They were mostly/all (?) brewed at the time by Paul Kalmanovitz's General Brewing Co. (ex-Lucky Lager Brewing Co.), who'd go on to buy Falstaff, Pearl and finally Pabst. I guess some of the store brands were among the many California and other western brands that Kalmanovitz bought up when he owned Maier Brewing Co. and then General?

Safeway's Brown Derby had previously been brewed by numerous brewers - over 20 according to some breweriana sources- there used to be a nice film of one of them, in Los Angeles, on You Tube but a few searches turn up nothing. They made some pretty impressive claims for the brand in the early post-Repeal years. Makes ya wonder...

 

The irony of this post made me do it

 

Hey, I remember this
Was actually quite alright as far as I remember - was pretty hesitant to try it first for having seen everyone drinking this all the time but it was a pleasant surprise for not being a letdown.
Aldi, man... I never seemed to mind any of their knockoffs (which was rather the game of Lidl than Aldi afaik) for most of them being actually decent beers - at least back in Yurp...
Oh yeah and they used to have their (?) German variant of Duff Beer too

 

This one?


Re- Brown Derby's similarity to a Bohemian pilsner:
"They praise Brown Derby's wonderfully delicate hop flavor-not sweet, not bitter-"

Now they could of course be underselling the bitterness, but my guess would be that the bitterness was reduced to suit mainstream American tastes better while the late boil hop flavor may well have been accented and on par with the original (and if the imported beer was months old rather than weeks old, while the Brown Derby was sold fresh, the American beer might well have exceeded it in this respect, I could at least imagine as much).

 

Ha - funny. Yeah, that's the one. I remembered the brewery, the city (both "Los Angeles") and the era - late 1930s -but forgot the film was about Brown Derby Beer. Pabst bought the brewery (among the largest in CA at the time) in the post-WWII period, continuing to brew their local brands, Old Tap and Eastside, and later added Burgermeister aka "Burgie!" after they bought that other famous California brand. It remained opened until Pabst bought Blitz-Weinhard in the late 1970s. Karl Strauss was the brewmaster there in the early 1950s.

Yeah, mostly likely a combination of both. US average hops/barrel was still close to 2/3 lbs pre-WWII but likely a so-called "Western" beer was lighter. Of course, "bitterness" in US beer marketing was always a negative, hoppy beers were described as having a "hop tang" or being "zestful".

 

Just going to go on there record that I also do not understand the hate for Aldi in this thread. I was gifted one of their beer calendars last Christmas, and I personally thought there were some great beers in the mix. Sure, a good chunk are forgettable (most of the Irish ones...), but I thought many of them are good examples of their respective styles. And I really enjoy the seasonal German beers they get. I generally pick up a pack or two.
I like Aldi. I think their food is easily comparable with the brand name stuff. I don't get the brand loyalty some people have... I hate paying for a name, especially if I can get the same stuff for a better price with the name removed...

 

This whole debate just turned meta:

https://twitter.com/BrewDog/status/1296439133217402880

 

For those that don't want to click, the following was posted by BrewDog

Inspired by ALDI's take on Punk IPA from yesterday, we are making a new beer. YALDI IPA is coming soon! Maybe our friends
@AldiUK
will even sell it in their stores?

 

Can't wait for Aldi's response: "Thank you for the free advertising."

 

If there’s one brewery I’m even less concerned about getting ripped off than the macros, it’s Brewdog

 

Maybe --- will you set your wholesale price so they can sell it in the same lower price range as their other knock-offs?

 

Maybe they should have taken a page from Liebmann:

"the delicious racy bitterness of the choicest imported hops". Damn straight. But yeah, advertising that aspect of beer seems to have been a challenge to say the least.

 

Beer is one of the few items that I think "bitter" can be a positive taste profile. Most often, bitter is associated with an astringent quality. I suspect that's why, but *shrug*.

 

This, I think mixes up the history of 3 old breweries in the LA area. Zobelein's Eastside became Pabst (also marketing Eastside) through most of the 70s. Acme went through a succession of owners (https://www.brewerygems.com/acme.htm) until closure by Hamm's in the 70s. Maier was a major producer of Brew 102 and private labels until owner Kalmanovitz purchased Lucky/General in about 1970, closed Maier, and moved production to General facilities (a newer brewery in nearby Azusa). It looks like Brown Derby was a Safeway private label contract brew from the beginning. I doubt that the advertising hype accurately portrayed the actual product.

 

I don't get these comments, who is hating on aldi in this thread?