Yuengling Launches Mango Beer with Bold Flavor

Well...

I don't mind the occasional AAL either. I think Lord Chesterfield and regular old Yuengling Premium are good at a very reasonable price. In fact, if you could look in my fridge now you'll see a Yuengling Premium can next to a bottle of Founders KBS. Each have their time and place.

 

Because it "works"!?!

 

Just my opinion, but a 24 Oz vessel is a hassle not edgy, I don’t see people at the beach or pool tooling around with a tall boy in their hand. And the Yuengling Mango just sounds like it’s competing to be a Shandy, whether that’s true or not I don’t know. Besides you can’t sneak around with a 24 Oz can protruding from a cozy, but it is the perfect gas station kinda beer. You would think they would have went 12 Oz cans, and would want more than this to be in gas stations and convenience stores. Seems like a perfect TGIF beer for guy/gals bored with Bud Light or Corona with a wedge of lime stuffed into the neck.

 

From the Press Release at the brewery's website:

Looks like there's a TTB COLA for 12 oz cans.

 

“Classic hops” as in cascade? That’s the star in lord chesterfield ale.

 

Fist releasing the big cans just strikes me as strange, but Yuengling is a big hit here. Great financial move coming into the Carolinas.

 

Maybe the thinking here is to first release in a big can format to generate some buzz with the kids? Then later come out with more 'conventional' packaging/formats.

The craft beer scene was extremely competitive prior to the start of the pandemic (and perhaps even more competitive in terms of the need to generate revenue now?). I suppose every brewery needs to cogitate on ways to continue selling beer.

I personally will not be buying this new product from Yuengling but I hope that it sells well for them so they can continue to be a successful business and continue producing their 'traditional' beers.

Cheers!

 

It’s unwieldy walking around with a 24 Oz can, just strange for a brewery who’s been very successful in marketing their products. Here I think it’s seen by most to be the cool beer to drink when you want something better than Bud or Bud Light. It’s on tap everywhere and it usually highlighted as a special by the pitcher beer. Not my style either.

 

Sounds like something an old man would say!?!

Cheers!

 

Get offa my lawn.

 

Also a lot of places don’t sell singles. Yuengling ranges around 1.50 per tall boy. Good idea to reach more people instead of committing to a 6 or 12. Hershey’s porter we could only receive in 12 packs. We sell singles but ripping open twelve packs messed up inventory pretty bad. Pulling single out of sixers not so much

 

How often do brewery sales reps visit your store? Do you personally get a chance to speak to them? Are the discussions an open back & forth conversation (e.g., can you tell them you prefer six-packs because...)?

Cheers!

P.S. I regularly attend a German beer festival in Philly (pre-pandemic every February at The German Society of Pennsylvania). A few years ago I spoke to the Yuengling folks manning their booth. I expressed my displeasure with green bottles (they agreed with me) and told them I wish I could buy the Lord Chesterfield in cans. The person quickly 'reminded' me that I can buy this beer in cans via 12-pack. I replied I am not interested in buying these beers in quantity, I want to buy a six-pack of cans (Lord Chesterfield). The guy just replied "Um" and nothing has changed in this regard.

 

Could be a scheduling or packaging vendor problem, or way to do a distribution area wide "test" market, etc. Wasn't the Hershey's flavored-porter a draught-only beer initially?

So, the PA retail distributors don't (or maybe, legally, "can't" ?) cut cases and 12-packs in half to create homemade 12's or 6's? I've also seen retailers with rolls of plastic six-packs rings who make their own sixpacks that way. In most cases they save a bit of money by buying "loose" cases, and give their employees something to do when it's slow (other than surfing the 'net on the phones).

"Jimmy, why are you behind the counter just @#$%ing off!? Make up some sixpacks!"
"I ain't doin' " nothin'" boss - I'm doing market research!".

Some random Google Images:

 

Not available in sixes is strange, they make more money on the smaller package size. It also prohibits a flash sale, a guy might grab a 6 pack because it looks interesting, a 12 pk? No way.

 

The only reps I’ve met were from Anhueser Busch, Ron Johnson of Yards Brewing (awesome guy) and a rep from SweetWater. We get the self distributing guys too like Carton, Bolero Snort, Cape May, Brix City. We can request specific sizes if available.

AB was most helpful. They came in trying to sell the new Michelob organic seltzer to us. We have 8oz, 10oz and 12oz cans of Coors light and I couldn’t imagine why. When this ends up happening, the manager will let them know we want no more and why do they do this. End result is they have the means so they make it and it doesn’t matter if it sits, it’ll eventually sell (unfortunate attitude).

We deal a lot with Hunterdon distribution and the rep will come in and the manager here will tell him what he needs or doesn’t need or back orders. A lot of things in this store are sixers due to the “pick a single from anywhere” policy.

if a guy from yuengling ever comes in I will ask him about Lord Chesterfield cans because I’d also like to have them but I’m unsure I’ll ever see the guy.

 

Why do you need to see the actual Yuengling brewery rep to order LCA cans? You can't just order them from your Yuengling distributor, which I assume is Kramer (MC house which also carries Yuengling, Boston and numerous other brands).

I've been seeing a lot of stores carrying the 12 packs of LCA lately but thinking about it, those are probably not Kramer retailers, but Shore Point's (I shop in stores in both regions, Mercer and Monmouth/Middlesex).

 

My store is in Camden county. I’m close enough to the tacony bridge to be in philly in 2 minutes maybe I could look there. As for my store I work in I’ve not seen LCA on the order sheet to be able to get it.

 

JK, I have no idea as regards 'the letter of the law' but I have seen some retailers 'build' six-packs as you described using plastic ring holders. Needless to say this requires effort. I can report that I personally have never seen a six-pack of Lord Chesterfield cans in this manner.

Cheers!

 

Yeah, I figured so. And Kramer "Serv(es) Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Mercer, and Salem counties." Their website still lists LCA, but that might be bottles, only - which are much more common in NJ.

You know, right after I posted I recalled a conversation with a Yuengling distributor (might have been a Kramer guy, forget what store I was in) a while back and he suggested they might drop Chesterfield, but those guys are always vague about such things; implying the brewery wasn't going to ship it to NJ distributors but it might also be the NJ distributor(s) decision to drop it.

Thus, I was pretty surprised to start seeing those 12 pack cans (fresh, too) in Shore Point's region a few months later.

 

Ya know, I was just thinking, too - it's probably not as simply to do anymore in stores that ring up everything by scanning the bar code on the packaging itself. I read people talk on the forums about wrong or missing prices on beer and I think - "Damn! I haven't seen an actual little white sticker type price tag since 1997 or so..."

 

I do not drink it enough as I would like but I’d be pretty bummed if it wasn’t available. It’s hard enough to find as is

 

Yup, with modern day POS systems this does present a challenge.

I remember a conversation I had with the manager of one of my local Beer Distributors where he related to me all of the work he was going through creating SKUs in his system to sell beer by the bottle. He made a decision that every beer in his store could be sold by the bottle so this was indeed a lot of work. This fellow did 'build' a six-pack for Hamms where he broke up the 30-packs into five six-packs so I do know that he did this (I bought a six-packs of Hamms there).

Cheers!

 

I buy it maybe once every 5 years or so because it is seldom fresh, almost always bottles exposed to light, and I'm still shocked at the price they ask these days - "craft" prices, often higher than Trad. Lager -I remember when all 3 then flagship Yuengling beers (Premium, Chesterfield and Porter) sold for the same relatively-cheap price.

Cheaper than Schmidts, Schaefer and Pabst! (The first beer listed, Old German, was likely also the Yuengling-brewed brand.) I'm pretty sure a six of LCA goes for around 8 or 9 bucks today. And that ain't all inflation. The DoJ Inflation Calculator says $5.99 in 1985 dollars equals about 15 bucks today.

And then, when I do buy it, I continue to be amazed at how lame it is compared to the beer I remember from 40-50 years ago.

 

I toured Yuengling in about 1980(?). The tour guide told us that they had recently switched Chesterfield (LC) from ale yeast to their regular lager strain. The change may have been due to problems sustaining the yeast due to the infrequency of batches of LC. Even then, though we liked LC ($1.39 a six pack of cans in NY!), we thought that the flavor seemed a little thin. I think it's gone downhill since. (Ballantine Ale has fallen much further, from Ballantine to Falstaff to Pabst, a slow rolling 50 year tragedy.)
I also BA reviewed Yuengling Octoberfest in 2018, and mentally compared that to one purchased a couple of years earlier. I thought the newer product had a noticeably less robust body.

 

Great price list! In the early 80s Yaphank (NY) Beer and Soda didn't get Yuengling delivered. But he did to Queens (50 miles) to pick up imports from "Mr. Kulmbacher". When I asked about availability, he said he'd be able to pick up Yuengling at that wholesaler. The beer was a dime more than Schmidts; the ale and porter a dime more than Tiger Head. Also got cases of great tasting Cornell Sodas (sarsaparilla!).

 

I think I have this same photo, also signed by Billie D!

 

I'd give it a try, I mean theres tropical notes in many IPAs, especially NEIPAs, and those all get praise, but yea maybe this is a gimmick to attract people from the seltzer market.

 

I personally never had Lord Chesterfield prior to 1980. From my readings I discerned that this beer was brewed using lager yeast. Regardless of the old timey branding I just viewed this specific brands as being a lager beer.

Cheers!

 

JK,

My local Beer Distributor (walking distance from my house) lists:

“Yuengling Chesterf 12/12oz Cn 12 Pack 12oz Cans 12.99”

So, essentially $6.50 a six-pack.

If they decided to split up that 12-pack into a six-pack (which they don’t) and charge me $7 – 8 bucks I personally would be happy to buy it.

Cheers!

 

Jack, don't forget that in NJ they charge import beer prices for Yuengling coming all the way over the Delaware River.

 

When you have to tell people you’re edgy, it usually means you’re not.

 

Yeah, there's various timelines cited for that switch. Dick, Jr told Modern Brewery Age in '99:

Well, maybe for a company that was 150 years old at the time, "recently" could mean "the last coupla decades"...

Oddly, Yuengling promo material said Chesterfield was top-fermented into the 1970s.

Of course, many pre-craft era US ales were "bastard ales" (more quotes about Chesterfield and other bottom-fermented US ales on that page of mine, including a lot more conflicting info) and the brewers even had it written into the US regulations eventually. A few of those ales - and bottom-fermented porters - survived into the craft era but it seems Yuengling's ale gets all the criticism. That's what success'll do to ya, I guess.

" 'Ying-Ling'? - Is that some Chinese beer?"
(OK, not so common around here these days, but 40-50 years ago?)

As for price:
LORD CHESTERFIELD ALE $8.50 SHOP-RITE Lincoln Park, NJ
Cheaper at Total Wine River Edge - $6.99 (but the traffic up there!)

But, yeah, I've been tellin' you PA guys always bitchin' about beer prices: beer was cheap in Pennsylvania, esp. the locals (well, in 1970s anyway, when I started border-hopin').

 

Speaking of Yuengling and wooden tanks I thought this picture showing what looks to be fermenters was pretty cool. The fittings look pretty modern too to my eyes which made me curious about how long they were in use.

 

Meh, I’m not interested. Keep the fruit out of any beer that isn’t Lambic.

 

Patrik, the gentleman in that photo is John Callahan (PA Brewing Manager) and he every year he mans the Yeungling booth at the annual German Beer Festival in Germany in February. Unfortunately not this year because of the pandemic. I would have brought a copy of that photo and asked him how long those tanks were used. Unfortunately I do not have his e-mail address otherwise I would have asked that way.

Cheers!

P.S.The wood on those tanks look pretty ancient.

 

I've never understood the fuss made about any Yuengling beer.

 

I think Yuengling costs a bit more in NJ because they distribute by traditional methods...

 

Unless one drinks six.