OT: Beer Blast From The Past
As I traipsed though the liquor store this afternoon I stumbled upon Altes Beer in the cooler. Haven't seen that name around for lord knows how long. I remember they were a sponsor (along with Hughes Hatcher Suffrin) on Van Patrick's ("we're coming to you from Los Annnnjelleeze") weekly pregame show. Now I'm wracking my brain to remember long ago beer brands. How about Drewry's? Or Pfeiffer?
I'll leave you all to name others. Or you could go off on a riff about long defunct clothing stores. Or long dead sports announcers.
August 30th, 2020 at 2:20 PM ^
Remember when Fudd tried to cut into Duff's market share?
August 30th, 2020 at 2:24 PM ^
My great-grandmother knitted a hat that had aluminum beer can pieces with all different brands of beer on it. Altas was on the front. I used to wear it to Michigan games and I haven’t been able to find it. Wish I could- it was an awesome hat.
August 30th, 2020 at 8:16 PM ^
“Altes beer...did they have some tag line like “the fasbier taste”?
August 30th, 2020 at 2:27 PM ^
I remember seeing the odd bottle of Falstaff at parties as I kid - eventually, even having a couple myself as I grew older. I think Pabst bought them out sometime around 2000 and it very quickly died out like anything Pabst touches, beer included.
August 30th, 2020 at 2:36 PM ^
Good call, my man. Two great things about Falstaff:
1) They came in that hard yellow plastic case/crate.
2) They had those picture/puzzle games on the bottom of the bottle cap, but were so badly made and blurred, you could never figure out that the hell they were trying to say.
Oh - the beer was not so good, which is why you don't see it anymore.
August 30th, 2020 at 2:56 PM ^
We called it Foul Stuff. Lucky Lager also had the puzzle caps.
August 30th, 2020 at 8:17 PM ^
How about Black Label , Goebel and Rhinelander!
August 31st, 2020 at 10:28 AM ^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUd6lYNc_EE
Mabel! Another Black Label! My parents would rip through a couple cases a night with the neighbors every weekend.
August 31st, 2020 at 1:05 PM ^
I somehow put this in another thread, but it's worth repeating here. I grew up in the U.P. We would make an occasional excursion over the Wisconsin border and inevitably stop at a party store in Niagara, Wisconsin to load up on non-refundable cans of Carling Black Label. My dad would fill the entire trunk up with that liquid gold. Fun times.
August 30th, 2020 at 9:02 PM ^
"Foul Stuff", lol---I like that nickname even better than what we called it: "Fall Flat". It was my neighbor's beer of choice, he drank it like water.
Awful beer, but I loved those beer cap puzzles, a reminder of the old TV Gameshow "Concentration".
August 31st, 2020 at 11:52 AM ^
If Pabst died out, it has re-emerged like a blazing Phoenix thanks to hipsters everywhere.
It is, I believe, the largest American owned brewery remaining (it was sometime in the last ten years so unless Boston Beer Company or one of the growing "craft" brewery have overtaken it, it still is).
August 30th, 2020 at 2:32 PM ^
Bass Ale from England!
Good stuff
August 31st, 2020 at 1:05 AM ^
It was a fancy party when you had a keg of Bass and a keg of Honey Brown Ale.
August 31st, 2020 at 1:18 PM ^
JW Dundee Honey Brown was the best cheap beer I had ever had in college (mid-late 90s). Not so cheap anymore, but that was my go-to back in the day.
August 31st, 2020 at 7:48 AM ^
Bass Ale isn't long gone. You can find it in almost any good beer store.
August 31st, 2020 at 11:45 AM ^
Yes, bass is still around, no doubt.
That's how we made black and tan's back in my drinking days - bass and guinness.
August 31st, 2020 at 8:26 PM ^
And here I was thinking you would have been a drinker of Red White and Blue lager.
September 1st, 2020 at 6:49 PM ^
LOL! The parents of my best friend from childhood drank RWB by the truck load. They always had cases stacked in their garage but I never did snag one.
I was always a Michelob Light fan.
August 30th, 2020 at 2:35 PM ^
Hamm’s was always my Dad’s favorite, probably from his Army days. I tried it once and thought it tasted like it had been brewed with sewer water.
August 30th, 2020 at 3:11 PM ^
Well, their marketing ploy was to say it was "from the land of sky blue water." Maybe they just dyed the sewer water blue. I enjoyed their commercials as a kid in the 60s because they were often animated.
August 31st, 2020 at 9:08 AM ^
When I was a kid in the '50s and early '60s we spent our summers in Colorado, and even though Coors was the dominant local brewer in Colorado, I don't recall ever hearing one of their ads on the radio that my dad regularly had on. I do remember Hamm's ads though—Hamm's was a regular advertiser on the radio, and their spots were very similar-sounding to this:
Naturally the radio ads didn't feature the Hamm's bear, since he never spoke. Being a naive kid at the time, I just assumed that Hamm's was a Colorado beer; I was disappointed when I learned later on that Hamm's originated in Minnesota.
August 31st, 2020 at 12:46 PM ^
Watching that commercial reminds me of the old joke about why American beer is like sex in a canoe.
August 30th, 2020 at 8:41 PM ^
I still drink Hamm's, although it's a MillerCoors product now. It's fine for a lighter summer-type beer. Basically a Coors Light without a couple dollars added onto the price tag for marketing budget.
August 30th, 2020 at 9:14 PM ^
No, it's not "fine". But it's really no worse than Bud Light, while a helluva lot cheaper.
I drink Hamm's just one weekend a year, during our annual ice fishing trip up north, when I honor the family tradition of massive consumption of Hamm's.
You just don't mess with tradition.
August 30th, 2020 at 2:39 PM ^
Beers that are rare or now defunct that were around back in the day in Michigan:
- Blatz
- Strohs (one of the worst things I've ever tasted)
- Schlitz (with obvious sayings about the next morning)
- Schaefer in cans
- Scmidt which had the best looking cans with western scenes
- Olympia
Special mention to Iron City beer since both sides of my family are from Butler, PA.
August 30th, 2020 at 3:07 PM ^
My dad used to have a bowling shirt with a big Blatz triangle on it. Wish I had that thing.
August 30th, 2020 at 3:29 PM ^
Schlitz got purchased by a brewer and it’s been available in Illinois for many years. They are using the old classic recipe, not the cost cutting version when the brand died. I have to say, it’s actually a good beer. Not great, but when you want a lighter style of beer, it does the job.
Old Style has come back through similar efforts. Old Style was a classic Chicago beer, but it was pretty meh.
August 30th, 2020 at 5:29 PM ^
I've been drinking Old Style off and on this summer. Inexpensive and light. Good for mowing the lawn or after other yard work.
My Dad drank Hamm's, Drewry's, and Falstaff. Occasionally Colt 45 malt liquor.
August 30th, 2020 at 6:20 PM ^
My dad drank whatever was cheapest by the case. He was a volume over quality kind of guy. When we lived in Massachusetts he would drink Wiedemans which tasted like the bottom of a beer vat. That also may have been his plan to keep me from drinking his beer....and it worked.
August 31st, 2020 at 7:00 AM ^
We used to call Wiedemans “Welfare Whiskey”. Bought it in cases of 16 oz bottles. Another old-time beer my dad used to guzzle was Goebels. The worst of all of them was Weber beer. “Vat Brewed from Water 1872 feet Deep”. You had to be drunk to even start drinking it.
August 30th, 2020 at 6:29 PM ^
Colt 45: Works every time.
August 30th, 2020 at 9:29 PM ^
We had a keg of Colt 45 on 5th Van Tyne / Markley Hall watching the Mich-Indiana NCAA final MBB tournament game...both Blue an yours truly got hammered.
August 31st, 2020 at 7:47 AM ^
I was a 5th floor Van Tyne inmate in ‘71-‘72.
Compared to the comically luxurious Markley rooms today, Markley back then did resemble a minimum security institution.
August 31st, 2020 at 9:25 AM ^
Our RD was a guy named Al. He was about 6’5”, 230 law grad student. We never saw him...except when the inmates got out of hand. We called him the human eclipse. He’d appear, and the light from that end of the hall dimmed. We knew the boom was about to be lowered.
August 31st, 2020 at 8:02 AM ^
Side story: Years ago I had a softball buddy named Tony who would drink anything. Didn't matter what beer it was, just as long as it was cold and cheap. One time after a game he cracked open a Colt .45, and another guy was giving him grief about drinking canned sewage. I confessed I'd never tried it, so Tony handed it to me with the advice, "Take a big slug."
So I did - and a second later the big slug came shooting out of my mouth as my throat refused entry. The next minute was filled with my coughing and my teammates laughter. Tony took it back with a little smile and said, "Well, it tastes better when you drink it out of the paper bag."
August 30th, 2020 at 9:10 PM ^
Old Style was originally brewed by G. Heileman of LaCrosse, WI.
Heileman bought out many of the (Midwest) beers being discussed here. Stroh’s bought the rest. Then Stroh’s bought Heileman.
Then Stroh’s imploded. An investment group bought Pabst & a bunch of the other brands. They closed all of their breweries & became a licensing/branding deal, producing no real product. Pabst has changed hands since then & sold off some of the brands.
as others have noted, some of the brands have been resurrected in a more “authentic” manner.
August 31st, 2020 at 12:00 AM ^
There's a Forbes article from 2014 on the Stroh's family blowing their fortune that is a very interesting read.
August 31st, 2020 at 12:00 PM ^
Schlitz is owned by Pabst (one of 29 brands Pabst owns) and still distributed, yes. Although Pabst outsources all their brewing to SABMiller.
August 31st, 2020 at 9:25 AM ^
Schlitz malt liquor... Don't say beer. Say Bull!
August 31st, 2020 at 9:24 PM ^
I forgot this commercial, I love this commercial! Here you go.
August 31st, 2020 at 10:53 AM ^
Good memories from Olympia. We used to bury an Oly Ball keg in the sand at Wampler's Lake. Good times.
August 30th, 2020 at 2:50 PM ^
I was shocked a few years ago to see Zima sold “all over” in a couple countries in Asia. For many of those in their 40’s, I’m sure Zima is a shameful memory from their past haha.
August 30th, 2020 at 4:41 PM ^
Had one on my wedding night, 2/26/94. Haven't had one since.
August 30th, 2020 at 6:45 PM ^
I was stationed in Japan from 2008-2011 and can confirm Asians love Zima.
August 30th, 2020 at 8:32 PM ^
Zima was for sale in the states a few years ago. I think they produced a novelty run. My gf bought a few cases of it to hand out a few at social events that summer. We still have a few in our basement that I’m sure taste great years later.
August 30th, 2020 at 2:51 PM ^
Wiedemann Bohemian Brew. It was so cheap that stores wouldn't even bother to refrigerate it, you always had to buy it warm and usually blow the dust off the bottle.
August 30th, 2020 at 3:08 PM ^
Seemed like you could buy a new case for the money you got returning the old one.
August 30th, 2020 at 6:21 PM ^
I missed that you had posted this. That stuff was awful, but my dad loved it because it cheap.