Piels Beer - coming back to NY

I'd definitely be interested in more craft american lagers but not so much if its contract brewed. Really like Anchor lager and Cream ales like Newburg's - we can't have only IPAs on the shelves.

 

Sounds like good 'solution' to me.

IMO it does not make business sense for @Piels-beer beer to make a watery fizzy yellow beer for his recreated Piels beer. That was the type of beer that Piels was in 2015 and since that beer was discontinued I am guessing that the beer did not sell well.

IMO producing a Piels beer that is a non-watery yellow fizzy beer results in a beer that has a discriminator and if proper marketing & sales is applied will hopefully be a financial success.

Cheers!

 

I know this is way too early if Piel's is just talking about possibly returning very slowly but - East New York (original brewery locatoin per wikipedia) is undergoing a zoning review by NYC. It is actually beginning to start gentrifying but hopefully with respect to current inhabitants. I'm sure a new craft brewery opening up there with jobs for locals would be something officials would consider. Plenty of manufacturing space to be had while its still cheapish.

 

My father in law is the illustrator who drew Bert and Harry..he passed away 2yrs ago but at any time you just asked
the man and they would come right out of his pen just the same as many of his others like Felix the Cat
i have a Piels bar tray at the front door to hold my pocket stuff overnight so I see Bert and Harry ea morning

 

I have fond memories of chilling my grandfather's beer mug, and getting and pouring his Piels (or Schaefer or Schlitz) for him when he came home from work. This was in the 70's; I was a kid but he often let me have a sip. So yeah I'd love to see it come back! And sure, I'd love to help out in some way! Cheers !

Also , I just read Jeff Renner's article on the CAP; very informative , with recipe and brewing notes. Saws hops could also work for late addition.

 

I noticed that you mentioned "Piels" first in that equation!

Cheers!

 

Back in the mid-late 19th century, Brewer's Row was located around this area in Williamsburg and included around 12 breweries:

 

I'm not disputing that there were breweries in Bushwick way back when at all - I was suggesting an East New York location for a new brewery - since that's where Piels originally brewed - and it will be rezoned soon and obviously much much cheaper than anything in Williamsburg/Bushwick.

 

Piles was my old mans beer (hence the avatar) and I never had it. Good news to me

 

Oh I was supporting your point! That East Williamsburg and Bushwick use to be huge brewing areas.

 

Piel Bros. was located at (mailing address) 315 Liberty Avenue, corner of Liberty and Sheffield. (Google maps street view shows a building that certainly looks like it could have been part of a brewery on that corner).

They also ran the former R&H brewery on Staten Island and the Brooklyn branch of Trommer (1632 Bushwick at Conway) in the 1950s. Along with the latter brewery, they also bought the famous Trommer's brand (and it looks like Hawkes maintained ownership of that trademark, too, for a long while) but they never seemed to do much with it after the 60s, even though it had a legendary rep as one of the last (and probably largest selling) all-malt US beer.

The actual Piel Bros. company was bought by mid-West (once) giant Drewrys USA in 1962, which in turn became part of the large Associated Brewing Co. conglomerate later in the 60s. When Associated shutdown, Heileman bought most of their brands and breweries EXCEPT for Piels and the Piels-run Willimansett, Massachusett brewery (ex-Hampton-Harvard). So, for a very short time "Piels" was again an indie brewery but soon folded. After an erroneous report that Rheingold was buying the brand, it eventually became Schaefer's "cheap beer" label - then following the path of > Stroh >>Pabst.

Pre-Pro Piel Bros brands look particularly interesting - they were a company that stuck to all-malt beers in that era. Even in the immediately post-Repeal era, they were brewing a "premium" line-up of:

Dortmunder
Muenchener
Pielsener <yup, that's how they spelled it
Kapuziner​

And the cheaper:

Piel’s Light
Piel’s Dark
​

That "Pielsener" punning name wasn't their only one - they also called their first 3.2 beer "RePiel Beer".

 

I'd personally be really happy to have a local NY brewery making these German style beers again but with the IPA or nothing crowd these days - not sure how big the market would be. Maybe all the new craft beers drinkers will get burnt out on hops someday and discover lagers.

 

So just call it India Pale Piels!

 

Dry-hopped pilsners are awesome! Two Roads and a new one from Peak Oranganic are two ones that I've had recently that were excellent.

 

No, no... close - Id go with India Piels Ale.

Piels under Drewry's, did brew an ale, during the period when they became the eventual leading brewer of "real draft" (i.e., unpasteurized microfiltered/sterile filled*) bottled/canned beer in the northeast.



* Of course, for some odd reason (cost?) Pabst, and maybe previous brewers, dropped the "unpasteurized" aspect of Piels Real Draft Beer - even tho' by US legal definition that is what "draft" means. So, by law, they even had to state that it was pasteurized on labels, etc.

​

"PREMIUM PASTEURIZED BEER" in yellow.

Given that MillerCoors breweries use the same process for Miller Genuine Draft and Coors Banquet, that's even more curious.

 

Was Piels ever priced as a Premium beer. When I worked at an A&P that sold beer in the early 70's I think it was priced as a popular beer.

 

Post-Repeal, it looks like the 4 major Brooklyn/NYC (Rheingold, Schaefer, Ruppert, Piels) brewers' flagships started out as being "popular" priced and that lasted into the '60s. In Piels' case, it looks like they priced their Trommer's beers - Red Letter and White Label in the '60s - in the "premium" segment.

I don't the Piel brands really went further down-market until Schaefer bought the brand in 1975, but brewers commonly priced their beers differently in different markets. Piels was big in New England (3-4% of the ME and MA markets circa 1970)- where, like NY's Rheingold, they were also brewed in MA.