Best affordable lagers?

Zlato Prazske is pretty good and I can get a pint for 2 bucks

 

Does that beer have a bottled on date? Can you find it in fresh condition?

Cheers!

 

For Southern AZ, I'll toot my own horn for a second and say that I'm proud of the lagers we produce in Tombstone and we are currently building out our 3rd brewery which will be almost entirely lager production in Sierra Vista. All of our lagers are naturally carbonated, brewed with low oxygen brewing techniques, fermented with a traditional cold fermentation, and use premium ingredients. Our Lite is $8 for a 16 oz. 4-pack at our brewery. Our Pilsners and Helles I believe are $10 per 4-pack.

I'm a big fan of Pueblo Vida in Tucson, but their prices might be higher than you're looking for. If you're ever in the Phoenix area, in addition to visiting the Tombstone location up there, Wren House and Pedal Haus have a lot of lagers.

 

Weedy, is the decision to have this third brewery be a predominantly lager brewery due to existing customer demand (i.e., can't produce enough lagers at the two existing breweries to meet current demand)? Or is this more of a developing a market sort of thing?

Cheers!

 

I honestly cant remember, its been ~6 months since I last had it. I want to say there's a date on the bottle. But around me in Chicago area it moves and I often see them restocking it

 

Wouldn't surprise anyone. Even before Pabst and Miller divided up the Stroh/Heileman brands in 1999, Miller had taken over the contract-brewing of some of Pabst's barrelage the year before. As Pabst collapsed in the 1980s-1990s, the number of breweries they owned fell, some closed (Milwaukee, Newark), some taken over by Heileman (Blitz-Weinhard. in OR, Lone Star in TX, the brewery in Pabst, GA), so Heileman and then Stroh brewed some Pabst brands.

At the time ('98-'99), Pabst's portfolio was PBR, Olympia and Hamm's along with other S&P breweries' (General, Falstaff, Pearl) brands. So it's likely Miller brewed Hamm's for the mid-West region even before they bought the brand. It wouldn't be strange if some of the Pabst brands and Hamm's shared some relationship, too. Although MillerCoors at merger said that the Milwaukee brewery brewed something like 25 different "wort streams".

I do recall one MC brewer implying that Hamm's was hoppier than a typical AAL (so, over 10 IBUs ). I took that to mean they may have tweaked the recipe to appeal to the craft geekery's preferences when they set out to make it the latest "hip" AAL.

 

FWIW that makes sense to me since I personally prefer Hamm's over the other large brewery AAL beers.

This past summer I purchased a six-pack of Reading Premium which is a 'resurrected' brand produced by Sly Fox and I think this is a very well brewed AAL beer and at 10 bucks for a six-pack of 16 ounce cans a good deal IMO. I drank my last can of Reading Premium on Christmas Eve.

Cheers!

 

I've never heard of Von Trapp so i couldn't answer that

 

And I strongly suspect that lots of East Coasters have never heard of Enegren. I personally only became aware of Enegren when they were one of the breweries chosen to provide a beer for this past Summer's BA Lager Fest. Otherwise I would know nothing about them.

Cheers!

P.S. Von Trapp was also part of Lager Fest.

 

@IPAExpert69 has joined the conversation

 

I get the impression Enegren is quite small selling mostly to the large, local SoCal market. During the pandemic they did open up online sales throughout the state so that is how many other Californians became fans. Enegren has across the board excellence and pricing is quite reasonable. Their Helles sells for $10/6 12 oz cans for example.

 

In contrast Von Trapp has a much larger distribution region; I get their beers in PA.

I have purchased several six-pack of their Kolsch this past year. If I ever find a retailer which carries the Bavarian Pilsner I will buy two six-packs of that beer.

On a lager related note I will be homebrewing my annual batch of 1896 Michelob (a Bohemian Pilsner) tomorrow but with a 'twist' in that I will be featuring Lubelski hops for flavor/aroma for this batch. As I understand it Lubelski hops are genetically Saaz hops but with the difference they are grown in Poland.

Cheers!

 

I’m unsure of it’s availability in your area, but
I find that Konig is a hard value to beat for a good German beer. $4.49 for 4 - 16.9 cans. Veltins used to be $3.99 for the same but went up 1 buck over night-I prefer Konig anyways.
One of the staples always in the fridge.

 

Judging from the Lager Fest entries for each - yes.

 

It mostly has to do with that’s what I want to brew and we are lucky to be at a point where the demand is there to dedicate a 8x 15 bbl fermenters to lagers. When this opportunity presented itself, I likely wouldn’t have gone along with the idea of opening another if it meant just brewing more IPA’s. All that said, we struggle to keep up with draught lager demand in both of our existing taprooms, but distribution demand is still very heavy on IPA’s. I believe that having 16 taps with 8-12 of them filled with lagers and the other 4-8 being beers from our other two breweries will be a big hit in our area.

 

Weedy, I hope that your belief 'works' here.

Cheers!

 

Michelob Lager.
A good go to all grain and easy drinking.
Sam Adams Boston Lager?
Any German lager would be great.

 

Every post you makes cements further my desire to visit one of your locations. At this point it is approaching diamond level.

 

Glad you posted here in your quest to find affordable lagers in Arizona. The great replies here offer a wide range of great lagers you should enjoy. Try posting in the US - West forum here on BA. Check the Beer Styles section ,noting beers you have tried and checking beers available in you area.

 

Miller High Life.