Agreed on Beck’s Dark. When it was around it was an easy to find, easy to drink schwarzbier.
Yeah, I remember that as a regularly available choice in a bottle at restaurants as one of a few decent choices along with SA and Bass Ale before beer menus exploded in size.
Original Rolling Rock from Old Latrobe’s Glass Lined Tanks … when I was a kid we used to buy a case or two a week of returnable bottles. It had a weird flavor that later on I realized was DMS. It was obviously best when ice cold. But I have some fond late night memories of being either underage or slightly of age and destroying cases of those with friends.
Can you get MGD any more? I used to love MGD. And Michelob - that was an actual tasty lager back in the days awash of BMC.
I believe Rolling Rock was loaded with flaws, not just DMS. ;D
But we drank it by the wagon load as kids as well.
We used to get Michelob a lot as kids as a step up from bud. Probably the payday beer and stroh’s and others were the Thursday before payday beer. Wasn’t there a michelob dark?
It probably was truly awful! But not as bad as Iron City which, even as a kid, I knew was bad. Even at $6 a case I couldn’t drink it.
I’d love to find a Michelob Dark on the shelf today!
Is Old Style still available, maybe not where I’m at?
I wish I could get the Bert Grant beers. Some of my favorite craft beers from the early 90’s. I remember they seemed to be bursting with flavor apart from the usual macro stuff at the time. I wonder what I would think of it now if I could taste it? Sierra Nevada and Bert Grant are some of my first, fond memories of American micro beer.
New Belgium 2 Below.
This was their winter seasonal in the very end of the 2000s and then appeared in the winter mix pack a few years ago. It’s not an explosive beer but it hits the right spot in winter. It’s one of those beers I keep meaning to go back and clone but I never end up brewing.
I remember Otter Creek was one of the few breweries other than Harpoon and Sam Adams we would see from the northwest in Texas in the 2000s/early 2010s. I think it disappeared from the market around the same time Harpoon mostly disappeared. I came across an old six pack holder for their kolsch. I remember it being a nice beer. Too bad Harpoon seems to have ruined them.
Who made that beer called “long hammer” had it in Olympia Washington in about maybe 2004. First beer I had that wasn’t Red Dog
That’s Red Hook.
Speaking of “whatever happened to…” macro beers, anyone remember Red Wolf from the 90s? Nothing amazing, but better than most of the crap Busch puts out.
In my early introduction-to-beer days, I liked to drink bock beer. Back then its availability was seasonal. I couldn’t wait for the Alex Dreier commercials to come out on Chicago TV and radio stations announcing that Meister Brau “bock is back.” Would only drink it and Stroh’s bock while it lasted, until the next year.
Man I loved 2 below, a really delicious winter seasonal release I’d look forward to. At the time I lived 30 minutes from the brewery so it was reliably fresh and had great hops flavor. I remember sitting in my garage with it snowing out and sipping that beer. I was quite bummed when they decided to replace it with a different winter beer which I didn’t care for.
Chimay blue label back when it was lower priced, better made, and harder to come by.
Among the beers I used to drink but can’t get now would be JW Dundee Honey Brown. It used to be everywhere but today nowhere. A beer I never had but have always wanted to try was Ballentine. My Dad drank it & when I was a kid & we would sing the Tag Line, "Make mine a Ballentine ". I make a Ballentine clone from Michal Steel. I’d love to see how it tasted compared to mine.
Along the same line, how about “Beers they don’t make anymore & we should all be glad.”
Jax (The beal jeer), Lone Star, Stroh, Schlitz & worst of all Old English 800 Malt Liquor.
Oddly enough there was a furniture polish of the same name which tasted about the same. In college it was $5 a case but if you bought 1 case the liquor store gave another for free. It was so bad that I couldn’t give it away to college guys.
I too enjoyed the Honey Brown years ago - not sure that I’d like it as much now but would be interested to find out. I think someone else mentioned it earlier in this thread.
I’ll never forget pouring the Honey “Brown” into a glass and being like “WTF ain’t it brown???” lol
OMG, Dundee’s Honey Brown!!! That brings back some memories. That was the first non-BMC beer I ever had, and I loved it. I drank that by the case when I was in college in Michigan, waaaaaaaaaaaay back when. Was it only distributed in the midwest? It would be so cool if I could go back in a time machine and taste all the early “craft” beers from my younger days (daze?) with the palate I have today.
That was a part of my musings when I started this thread- wondering how I’d feel now about beers that brought me much pleasure decades ago. Some I’d probably find lacking now, and I know my tastes have changed a bit, but I imagine some I could embrace as long lost friends. ;D
Three that come to mind are Two Brothers “The Biter End” (thanks for jogging my memory on this one, Ken), “Pete’s Winter Brew” (I once asked Pete Slosberg for the recipe as I got to know him when I worked at Hoppin’ Frog) and “Thomas Hardy’s Ale” (I still have a few bottles of the '93 and '94 here that I am hoarding and they are still delicious).
There is one other that just came to mind, “Black Forest Lager” made by Crooked River Brewing Co. in Cleveland. That brewery has been out of business for about 15 years or so now and the beer was one that I drank a lot of when I started drinking craft beer