At least around Maryland, Ive notice Moosehead beers stacked all over the retail storeroom floors and fridge section over last month or 2. I haven’t had this beer since late 1980’s. Bought a sixer (only $7.99) for nostalgia and I haven’t ticked it yet, and surprisingly it’s ok. Anyway what’s up with this supply pump of Mossehead? Is it just regional or others / elsewhere in US seeing this showing up now in your stores?
Been on sale for $18 a case every few months. A good friend drinks it. Not had one in quite a bit. Hamms is less for more so I just pass each time. Enjoy
I remember drinking moosehead in college. (Late 80's) which is also the last time I've had it. It started showing up in Ohio a couple years ago.
A few (4-5?) months ago my local Retail Beer Distributor had a BIG pyramid of Moosehead cases stacked up near the entrance (the first beers you saw when you walked in). I just checked the inventory of this store and they still list 31 cases as being in stock. I wonder if these are old beers from that dump last fall? Cheers!
See it all over in Northern Illinois. Tried some not so long ago, my palate has moved on since the mid-80s.
From the True Confessions Files- Thread title brought me back to a super brief period in the early 80's when a good friend had me convinced that was the best beer.
Enjoyed Moosehead back in college, but that beer gave me some of the worst headaches. Would still drink one if it was given to me.
Holy cow, flashback!!! I was at a bar near my college c.1983, and the bar had advertised "The Moose is Loose" in huge letters on posters near school, advertising a discounted price for students. Green bottles, as I recall.
Yeah this is kinda where I’m going with my OP. Maybe it was always sitting in the cooler for last 30 years and I never paid any attention, but in last few months I’ve seen major promotion for this beer in stores in my area like I’ve seen in your PA area Jack. Just trying to see what’s up with this.
Moosehead is huge here. I've never actually had it (I'll give it a spin if I can try a single - not shelling out for a case of AAL), but when I worked at the bottle shop up until covid, Mooskgeaf was always a best seller. Certainly more than say, Sip of Sunshine. Never saw the stuff until I moved here. Is it any good?
It’s a Canadian Lager brewed in Nova Scotia I think. Typical AAL, if it’s fresh it’s ok, certainly in the same class as the bigger American AALs like PBR, Bud, Miller. Imo anyways, but I’d opt for Sip of Sunshine.
The brewery is in New Brunswick (St. Johns). In 2019 I saw the brewery as my wife and I drove to see the reversing falls at the Bay of Fundy (which is very close to the brewery). It is a fairly big brewery (from seeing the outside). As a FYI it is all malt as per the brewery's website: "Brewed with 100% Canadian two-row pale malt..." https://moosehead.ca/brands/moosehead-lager Cheers!
My dad likes it I think it’s a hair under $20 a case, it’s the only case the distributor orders of the stuff.
Yes, it is indeed an economically priced beer. The last time I had it was on draft at a Royal Canadian Legion lodge in Baddeck, NS (2019). I enjoyed drinking that beer but for me this is not the sort of beer I would buy regularly. I can buy a 15-pack of Victory Classic Lager for 20 bucks and while that beer is more costly per ounce I enjoy it much more. Cheers!
Trendy beer for me back in the early to mid 80s (?). Not bad then, but I remembered I started to notice the skunkiness. Haven't had one since then.
The statement in quotes might be crafty wordsmithing. It could just mean that all the malt is Canadian two row. To me, that doesn't guarantee that all the fermentibles are malt..[/QUOTE]
I drank a lot of Moosehead, and Molson, back in the late 70's/early 80's. Haven't had either for a long time. I'd give Moosehead a try for auld lang syne.
FWIW: Moosehead Resurgence is the name of my new Phish cover band. Y'all are welcome to tape our gigs, and sell grilled cheese at our shows.
re: Moosehead ≠ all-malt Yup, and as noted in several previous Moosehead threads: In the recent past - 2015 or so - a "Blog" entry (on what was then called Moosehead Beer Academy- no longer online) stated: From Moosehead Brewing Co's Facebook page (sorry - "You must log in to continue"): IIRC, Moosehead changed US importers a few years back. They're currently with United States Beverage - Estella, Innis & Gunn, Superior, Kalik (the last 2 minor Heineken-owned imports) - which claims to be "the largest independent beer importer in the nation* and seventh largest of all U.S. beer importers". Like many long time US imports, the brand has bounced around a lot. During their big heyday late 70s-early 80s #5 import in the US) they were with All Brands (Pilsner Urquell, Dos Equis, Sol) and then move to Gambrinus (Corona at the time + owner of Spoetzl, etc) and after that Moosehead operated their own US subsidiary for a while w/headquarters in Boulder, CO (which seemed an odd location) and moved to MHW at some point. * Since Heineken USA, ABInBev's Import Brands Alliance, Molson Coors import div. and Diageo North America are subsidiaries of their parent companies, Constellation owns wineries and Mexican breweries - I guess it's correct. Not sure who #6 would be. Maybe L. Knife/Sheehan Family's St Killian?
Your in Cali, I wouldn’t think it worth the distribution effort for a Eastern Canadian AAL. You get Narragansett? I might think that the same, but we get both down here.
@jesskidden -- so, a big brewery is twisting words and lying to its consumers? Shocked, shocked I say! @moodenba -- yep. 100% Canadian two row. 100% of the malt is all malt.
I had one last night. Just an AAL. Ok for my draft beer pallete. Definitely nothing to race out and buy. During high school in late 80’s Moosehead, Molson Golden, and Labatts Blue we’re very frequent purchases (or paying some older guy to buy us some more like it). I preferred Labatts and Molson over Moosehead. I’ll have to revisit the other 2 now because Moosehead seemed easily drinkable. Still not sure what is this surge in quantity drops in stores and aggressive marketing all of the sudden.
Not just any 2-row malt, but 2-row from Canada. Geez, if it's so great, why don't they name a beer style after it? Oh, wait... Moosehead Beer started out as kinda one of those "fake" imports- in the sense that it was created for the US market and was not sold in the brewer's home market. Supposedly All Brand Importers wanted a Canadian beer to compete with Molson, Labatt and Old Vienna (Carling O'Keefe) and hooked up with Moosehead Breweries which was at the time limited by law to selling only in certain Canadian provinces - so it was a perfect match. They designed a package (center above) based on Moosehead's Special Ale label on a green Molson/Heineken type bottle (Moosehead, as shown, used the standard Canadian stubby at the time) and, my favorite aspect, when they sent out promotional kits to over 500 US distributors the bottles were empty! So, they sold the beer on strictly on image rather than taste.
Speaking of the 80's and Moosehead I had a puppy that liked it. Man I loved that dog. Bought a good amount of the beer back then as well.
I drank Moosehead of some label in Canada proper (1989?). Have no recollection whatsoever, other than remembering it was a brown bottle.
I enjoy Moosehead Lager but I only buy it in cans. There is just one retailer in my area that carries it in cans and I rarely shop there, so I buy it about once year. (4 pint cans for $7) I couple of years ago Moosehead Pale Ale made a brief appearance in North Carolina. It was sold in 15 pack cans for around $13-14. It was a nice, easy drinking pale ale with a bit more flavor than their lager. Unfortunately I most have been the only person in the area buying it because only 2 retailers in a 1 hour driving radius carried it and they stocked it only 2 times, never to be seen again. I contacted Moosehead and they informed me they decided to discontinue distributing the Pale Ale in the U.S.
Maybe it's something as simply as the brewery and the US importer, United States Beverage, wants to make some money? So they do promotions, along with their distributors and retailers (maybe even tweak the pricing and discounts in markets were permissible). Yeah, I take it eventually they started marketing the Moosehead Lager in Canada, but before that Alpine Lager was their primary domestic lager beer and they sold a few different Moosehead branded brews.
I was weened on Moosehead in Halifax back in the early 80’s. Probably haven’t had one in the thirty years I’ve lived in Ontario.
Problem is, most of the Labatt-branded and Molson-branded beers now exported and commonly available in the US aren't the same beers as you likely had in the 1980s. The Labatt brand in the US is owned by Fifco USA (the parent company of Genesee) and the Labatt Blue they import is brewed by Molson - thanks to a DoJ regulation that allowed the AB - InBev merger - and is 4.7% unlike the 5% AB-InBev Labatt Blue in Canada. As for Molson-branded beers - in the 1980s in the US, what was called Molson Golden was far and away their best seller, and confusingly was once labeled Molson Golden Ale but today it is brewed domestically at Molson Coors US breweries and called a "North American-Style Lager" by the brewery. The Ontario Beer Store's entry for Molson Golden says : It appears that the only Molson-branded beer currently sold in the US that is imported from Canada is Molson Canadian ( so "Truth in Labeling", if nothing else).
This rings very true to me; I can remember picking up Labatt Blue on my way home from work in the late 80s and enjoying it as a nice alternative to some of the regionals I was drinking at the time. A little different in malt character, but easy-drinking and enjoyable -- and nothing like BMC. I tried it again recently for old time's sake and was let down. Just nothing special at all. I originally blamed time and palate shift, but now I have to wonder that there's more at play. Been eyeing the Canadian for a while, with the same nostalgia, so maybe?
Yeah, while I always leaned towards Labatt 50 Ale (and Molson Export Ale), I was surprised to see that Labatt Blue was getting pretty wide-spread in NYS in the mid-'80s when I lived up there. Pre-Coors, so the macro choice was sort of "BLM". When I started going to Dee-Troit (as we pronounced it in the auto industry) in the '90s for work I figured "Oh, well - they closed the brewery in the '80s but the corporate headquarters are still there, so I guess I'll see a lot of Stroh's on tap..." but I was somewhat shocked to see the "local" macro beer was Labatt Blue. (I did get the hotel bar to carry Frankenmuth beers for me ). My final trip, early '00s, I stuffed my overnight pack into a co-worker's bag and my carry-on was a case of Bell's Two Hearted Ale.
