It's funny, after I won a gold medal for a German style lager at the American Homebrewers Assoc. national competition back around 2000 I subsequently got written up in the Startlegram by Barry Schlachter who was the paper's beer scribe at the time. After the article was published I got a congratulatory letter from my mentor in the TCU chemistry department, Dr. Manfred Reinecke, who loved German beers and saw the newspaper article. I joked with him that I was finally getting some practical use out of all the chemistry he taught me!
OT: Lone Star Beer. Question from some of the older beer drinkers here.
- Thread starter Limp Lizard
- Start date
vicarfrog
Active Member
I've always appreciated this article:
https://www.artofmanliness.com/livi...l-awesome-and-5-you-should-enjoy-this-summer/
And THIS Red Steagall song:
https://www.artofmanliness.com/livi...l-awesome-and-5-you-should-enjoy-this-summer/
And THIS Red Steagall song:
This Ain't Chopped Liver
Active Member
Miller High Life always has been my favorite American beer, back to my high school days. The most flavorful and good of the old mainstream volume brands. I rarely drink now, but when I last was a regular drinker, Miller High Life was very inexpensive, maybe half the price of Miller Lite, haha, because it had been set aside or forgotten, and you still don’t see it at bars.
The article makes me want to try Hamm’s side by side with Miller High Life. And I agree, the ice cold American beer is best after a hot day doing yard work.
People are controlled by fashion trends, and now PBR and Lone Star are it. And packaging - I read Corona Extra’s popularity in the states was because people liked the CLEAR bottle and the label. They probably also liked the sexy name and the trend to serve it with a lime wedge. Corona Extra - a classic case of perfect marketing via the packaging.
Miller High Life long had the clear bottle, and the champagne long neck
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This Ain't Chopped Liver
Active Member
Heileman’s Special Export was my other favorite go-to old American style beer in the upper Midwest, but I don’t know that it has ever reached national distribution. Made in Wisconsin. It had higher alcohol content so more bite, less sweet and maybe more carbonated. Some kids called it “green death” but it was good, and always in a green bottle.
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campdavid23
KMA
Miller High Life..."the champagne of bottled beers"...my go to in college, and Coors ( if I wanted to splurge)
which was the fashion beer in the mid 70's.
Horned Toad
Active Member
Here’s the deal. If you like to cook and are good at it, you can probably learn to brew a decent beer. You can literally spend as much as you got depending on what and how you want to brew. If I were starting out, I’d find my nearest home brew store and meet the owner and pick his brain on how to start. I’m sure they would have some premade brewing kits, and all the equipment you would need to get started. Keep in mind you need good equipment, a clean environment, and patience, and most importantly, temperature control for your fermenters. If you can control your fermentation temperatures, which a lot of home brewers struggle with, you can make just about any beer style.
It takes nearly as much time to brew, ferment, condition, and carbonate a gallon of beer as it does 30 bbls. (About 930 gallons) of beer. That’s pretty much the range of brewing systems from the home brewer to the pro micro brewer. The difference is the check you are willing to write. You can brew for yourself with no federal or state licenses. Once you go commercial with it, the government steps in to get their take. I currently have an Anvil all in one brewing system that will brew a finished 5 gallon all grain batch of beer. I have two small refrigerators with temperature controllers that I use to control fermentation temperatures. And I serve the beer in 5 gallon corny kegs in a 4 tap keg box. All in for that was maybe $3k.
Many home brewers start out with small systems and brew with extract kits and then eventually step up to all grain brewing. You can get into to home brewing on a small scale with a decent setup for about $500. You don’t get into it to make cheap beer, you do it to make great beer. I tried to miniaturize a pro set up so I was willing to spend the cash to do it right. I’ve built brewpubs and micro breweries that ranged from 7 bbl systems to 30 bbls. A barrel of beer is 31 gallons, or two standard 15.5 gallon kegs. Those systems costs anywhere between $50k-$500k easy. You could probably scrape together some used pro level brewing equipment for a small BBQ shack for $20-50k but that is barebones and you get what you pay for. You can get some larger all in one systems like I use to make 10-15 gallon batches all in for $4-10k. But remember my earlier maxim, it takes nearly as much time to make a gallon as a 1000 so as you scale up that is what you are paying for. Hope this helps.
Sangria Wine
Active Member
It helps me to realize I should definitely just stick to drinking beer.
Putt4Purple
Active Member
YOU are a god!!!
vicarfrog
Active Member
My friend got me hooked on "Old Style Beer." My problem with micro-brewery beer is, while I enjoy it, the alcohol content is intense. I drink a couple of micro-brewery beers and I'm gone.
I can enjoy some Old Styles and still go about my business.
Froglaw
Full Member
Almost needed armed guards to keep the tent dwellers below the fire marshal‘s limit.
I‘d forgot about the Pappy.
This Ain't Chopped Liver
Active Member
Heileman’s brewed the Old Style label and at one point it was the most common sign in some rural areas of the Midwest - hanging from bars in tiny towns and isolated bars on county and state highways - it made me chuckle - you knew where you were.
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East Coast
Tier 1
Fresh, draft Guinness is like heaven, especially as cold weather sets in. Unfortunately, I've only found it once in the US (Irish pub about 15 miles from Foxboro, Mass).
Yuengling Black & Tan hits the spot for me just as well as canned Guinness at a much lower price point.
Yuengling Hershey Porter is pretty good too.
Frognosticator
Tier 1
There are many bars in the DC area that have Guinness on tap. I guess I'm lucky.
But those cans that form the microbubbles when opened are pretty good too.
East Coast
Tier 1
Good to know, I can find Guinness tap but it's never fresh. Maybe those bars don't store it properly or don't have the turnover required.
BrewingFrog
Was I supposed to type something here?
Depends on the style. Old Style is a "American Light Lager" and thus a low-alcohol content beer, 4.7% according to their can. Most beers in this style will be within this range of alcohol content. It's when you venture into the India Pale Ales, or up to the Barleywines where the alcohol content climbs past 6% and up to as much as 16.5%. One style, the Porter, is dark and rich, yet not high in alcohol content. Try one of those!
IPA is a style descended from ales produced in Britain and shipped to India for the Army and other folks. It was made with more hops than normal, and brewed to be stronger in alcohol content because both are preservatives, and would keep the ale from spoiling during the long trip around Africa and across the Indian Ocean. Modern IPA brews take advantage of the umpteen gazillion strains of hops the botanists have teased out of the humble weed, and the flavors are pretty danged wild. Yet, my tired old taste buds find them a wee bit too hoppy, rarely balanced properly with rich maltiness. Mrs. Brewingfrog loves them!
Barleywine is brewed for aging. It's strength means that it can be stored, like a wine, for a long time while it slowly blossoms in the bottle. Quite possibly the best beer I have ever had was brewed by the Saint Arnold gang down in Houston: It was something they called "Spiced Oatwine" and released during the winter season some many years ago. They later re-released it as one of their Divine Reserve beers (#19), and also had a barrel-aged variant that was outstanding as well.
That was a long-winded rant, that, summed up, says: It's style dependent, man. Keep trying, and go for the lighter colored ones, or try a Porter.
BrewingFrog
Was I supposed to type something here?
Oh, we haven't. Eternal Gratitude.
The TCU Football Jerk
Active Member
I like most Shiner offerings. That said, a buddy and I had one of those Holiday Cheers at the company Christmas party. We both looked at each other at the same time and declared it tasted like ash. "Peaches and pecans my ash" is what I followed it up with.
FrogCop19
Active Member
Yeah, it's not for everyone and I don't judge people that don't like the seasonal/"flavored" versions. Sometimes I think they're good but can only drink one. Perfect example of that is the Best Maid Pickle brews. It's literally like drinking fizzy pickle juice; it's really good but one is my limit for SURE.
The TCU Football Jerk
Active Member
Yeah, they're hit or miss on their seasonal offerings. They've got a 12 pack with their Home For The Holidays offerings that has some good stuff in it. A couple of them I didn't care for, but as a whole it has some good choices. I don't think people appreciate just what Shiner offers. They put out a very underrated and solid lineup. Kölsch and Czech 101 were my favorites. I purposely drank them on different days to get a true taste.
BrewingFrog
Was I supposed to type something here?
I find the new fashion of "sour" beers to be awful. I avoid them like the plague. However, at times my lovely and talented (and long-suffering) wife will have me try one that she believes will not upset my curmudgeonly palate, and she is generally correct. The zymurgist wizards at Hop Fusion and Martin House have produced some fine examples that I actually ordered a second of. Martin House had a Beet Sour (Yes, beets. They're deadly serious.) that I found delicious at the brewery. Alas, a pack of the cans were not at all good. Some issue with the process of canning evidently.
Oh, and pickle beer is right out.
