Suffering From ' "Unavailable" Blues'

I haven’t seen Lowenbrau in at least 12 years maybe longer, might have been the 80’s when I last saw it.

 

Know it's hard to lose favorites, but have you tried other dunkels and seen if they scratch the itch or hit the mark?

 

This is an old and familiar story to me. Times change and the availability of different beers changes. I've just heard that Hair of The Dog is closing and I didn't have nearly enough of their beers to begin with (limited availability on the east coast) so now I'm screwed. I also lost my beloved Whitbread years ago. The driving force behind all of it is that there's only so much shelf space and certain beers get squeezed out over time but that's a double edged sword as newer beers are coming in as well. Regarding Löwenbräu, I agree with @Sheppard that there are a lot of other fantastic dunkles out there to take its place. Unfortunately it's far from my favorite style so I don't have any suggestions to make.

 

Hair of the Dog ships to PA, they still have a pretty good selection online including lots of different vintages. I've done 3 orders with no problems.

 

Very good to know, I'll order some!!!

 

Last half century chronology of Löwenbräu in the US (give or take a year or so, one way or another):

The Miller Brewing Co. signed a contract with Löwenbräu in 1974 to be the sole US importer of Löwenbräu beer and, eventually, to brew a US-version. Test marketing of Ft. Worth Miller-brewed adjunct Löwenbräu began by 1976 and it became available in much of the US by 1977.

Two decades or so later, the German brewery (by then Spaten-Franziskaner-Löwenbräu-Group) ended the Miller deal and starting around 1999 an all-malt Löwenbräu for the US market was brewed by InBev-owned Labatt in Canada.

In 2003, Labatt's US import division began importing German-brewed Löwenbräu for the US market, eventually that contract was awarded to AB's Import Brands Alliance. InBev bought S-F-L in 2004 and then AB in 2008 and in 2013, AB-InBev's import division, Import Brands Alliance, ended Löwenbräu exports to the US. Their phone number is below.