Most Nostalgic Beer

Genesee Cream Ale, Utica Club, Manhattan Brewing...

 

Michelob was famously an all-malt, draught-only beer from its inception in the 1890s up until AB changed the recipe, adding rice as adjunct (~20%, according to most sources), around 1960 when they first started bottling it. Very little wheat was being used in the US in brewing at that time - its use after Repeal highest in the last years of WWII and then post-War due to grain shortages and rationing, but even at it's peak in 1945 it was still only 5% of the amount of corn & rice being used, or a mere 0.58 lbs. used for every barrel of beer brewed. Sorghum was actually used more than wheat in that period.

By the 1970s, industry stats show "0" wheat used for most years. I'd imagine any US brewer that did use some wheat in that post-War>Craft era period only noted it as "other grains", if at all, on the label.

As for Michelob-clone recipes, check with @JackHorzempa

By the mid/late '70s (and, no doubt, by the time it was being advertised on television) Lowenbrau was no longer a "European" beer in the US, being adjunct-brewed by Miller under license from the German brewery.

 

My last post I made with 'craft' beers in mind, but there are a few others that have a place in my history...

First, there was Bub's (not "Bud"). My granddad always had these in the fridge when we visited in Nisswa Minnesota. They came in a 3.2% 'mid-strength', and a 6.6% 'strong'. One summer my older cousin snuck a bottle out of the fridge and we went behind the garage and drank it. Grandpa wasn't someone you wanted to cross, so I was a bit scared. My cousin said he would replace it with one of bottles that he found in the cellar. Grandpa looked like he knew something was up. He caught on when we did it again. The cellared 'strong' bottles were a bit dusty, and he only kept one in the fridge. He had a 'talk' with us and kept his kids (our parents) out of it. Needless to say we never snuck another beer from his fridge or messed with his beer again. A year after he passed away my dad, brother, and I were there putting a new roof on the house, and there in the back of the fridge was two bottles of Bub's strong. I was still afraid to touch them. Gramma told us to get rid of them, and dad split one with me. It was as much a treat for him as it was me, for his beer drinking days were years behind him.

Which leads me to another Lager... Hamm's. Dad seemed to like these in his last years of beer drinking. I would 'sneak' one every now and then in my Jr High days.

And in my reckless last couple years of high school there was Lucky Draft. My best friend & I would get a half case, squeeze it between the bucket seats of his 68 Mercury Cougar, put whatever money we had left in the tank, and go out driving around while drinking. How did we manage to not get arrested, let alone survive and not kill somebody?
Yes, long-winded, but I was reminiscing in nostalgia

 

Natural Light. When I was a kid, one of my chores was to make sure the downstairs fridge was properly stocked every Saturday. This meant lining up all of the pops and beers by brand. My dad pretty much exclusively drank Natural Light back then. There is even a picture in a scrapbook of me teething on a Natty Light longneck.

 

Stroh's, '83 or '84. I was a teen and it was a crazy, fun time. Thank goodness nobody got hurt.

 

Wish I could have gotten that when I was in Niger in the 80's, but all they had was Heineken and Biere Niger. Neither of those were excellent, but just couldn't choke down the Heineken.

 

The beers I grew up with and on aren't brewed anymore. Schmitty Tall Boys were $1 a six pack, we'd sneak out sit in the woods with our 6 and get drunk , walk to the local pizza joint, the all too often fights with a rival school at thst Pizza place. When bouncing around Philly after a Phillies game every beer had Ortliebs on tap, it was cheap local stuff, but again we didn't have much money or know the difference anyway. The commercial was almost pleading come try Joes beer, that was Ortliebs. Both were brewed in Philly obviously.

 

Beer in Africa is just generally a blessing, cold or warm. Your experience sounds wonderful, and big with memory!

 

On many Fridays (1969), our team went to Standard Drug in Richmond, off of Grove Ave. in my old 67 Plymouth Valiant. We were 6'10", 6'8", 6'6", 6'4", 6'1", and me at 6'3". We tried to be inconspicuous buying copious quantities of Ballantine Beer at $.79 a six-pack, but we always failed and didn't care. Those were some wonderful days!

 

New Castle Brown Ale. In 1995, i was 19yo, it was a smooth easy drinking complex beer. It got me into good beer.

 

I know what you mean. In Israel, the craft beer scene is less than a decade old, and when I would go there in the early 2000's, literally all there was to drink were awful Israeli beers, Tuborg, Carlesberg, Heinie, and Guinness Foreign Extra. It was almost worth going beer-free for those few weeks at a time.

 

brooklyn black choc stout really opened my eyes to big beers and dark beers in general.
i still but it regularly and i have bottles in the cellar back to 2011
(oh and its great with about half a shot of good bourbon added)

 

Coors. Many moons ago in SC, my college roommate would head home to Texas and come back with a trunk full. Back then, they didn't ship across the Big Muddy.

 

Redhook ESB. Not a great beer, but the first craft brew I ever tasted.

 

I started out on Little Kings Cream Ale and Michelob (who sounded like a fancy import to me), next came Heineken, Becks, and Bass. THEN, Weihenstephaner Original and Scheider Weisse Original opened my eyes to what really good beer should taste like. Even though my palate has changed, those two beers will always will be enjoyable and close to my heart.

To compound things, my dad and I did a father/son trip to the Motherland (which I will NEVER forget ), and outside of the Brewhaus in Munich!

 

So many. Victory festbier is definitely up there on my list though.

 

Hop Devil was my first "damn!" experience with an IPA and still has a special place in my heart. Regularly drank that, Stoudts APA and Troegs HopBack for quite a while. Then I ran across Nodding Heads Berliner Weiss, which was the only one of that style I could find for years.

 

Milwaukee's best.

This was the very first beer I ever tasted (unless I had something before my earliest memory). You know the story, family reunion and my dad and uncle wanted to see my 4 - 5 yr old reaction to a nasty taste.

 

Carlsberg Elephant in graduate school.

 

When u grow up in the NY metropolitan area in the 70s, ur 1st beer had to be Rheingold or Schaefer and noone ever forgets Schaefer city!