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Schlitz Calssic 60's beer


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This is an incredably good brew for the price. An American lager that actually has some hop presence. This was the stuff my uncles drank, and just the aroma was a flashback for me. When I was a kid, you could smell those hops from a couple of feet away. Why they even changed the recipe (in the 60's Schlitz was the biggest brewer in the USA) is beyond me... turns out they re-introduced this a couple of years ago, but I've only now discovered it. It's actually a very nice hoppy lager. FAR better than anything else in that price range.

 

The original Ballantine was also a great beer, and somewhat similar. It used some corn mash in the grain bill. Now it's Bud and Cooirs, it's rice syrup and no hops. The greatest generation also drank better beer than Gen X.

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This is an incredably good brew for the price. An American lager that actually has some hop presence. This was the stuff my uncles drank, and just the aroma was a flashback for me. When I was a kid, you could smell those hops from a couple of feet away. Why they even changed the recipe (in the 60's Schlitz was the biggest brewer in the USA) is beyond me... turns out they re-introduced this a couple of years ago, but I've only now discovered it. It's actually a very nice hoppy lager. FAR better than anything else in that price range.

 

The original Ballantine was also a great beer, and somewhat similar. It used some corn mash in the grain bill. Now it's Bud and Cooirs, it's rice syrup and no hops. The greatest generation also drank better beer than Gen X.

I was reading in one of my beer books about Schlitz and their downfall around that time. It had something to do with them buying into the "cheaper beer through chemistry" deal more so than anyone else. They jacked up all their recipes to cut costs at every turn. There was a 2-3 year stretch where there was a tell-tale flavor that everyone hated and became associated with that brewery. Something buttery or something, I forget exactly what, but it was a chemical by-product of one of the effed up things they were doing to the beers. That pretty much crushed them.

 

From what I read, it was about as dark a day as any in beer. Beers started being so little like beer that they had to start adding cobalt salts to them to create foam because it wasn't happening on its own.

 

That said, I'll have to check this stuff out.

Edited by detlef
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Det, it's worth it. This is a recipe from back in the day when macro breweries actually brewed pretty good suds. Interesting story about Schlitz, I'll have to look into that story.

 

Honestly, I remember my uncles drinking this and Ballantine, and I used to sneak a sip here and there... the hops made my face pucker up, but I loved it. I did a Ballatine retro home brew once, and it was pretty freakin good. (that's why I know about cracked corn being used in the grain bill) The macro breweries actually used hops in their beers back then, I wonder why cost became this derisive factor. Where they losing market share to the tasteless Budwiesers of the world?

 

Don't get me wrong, it isn't a world class brew, but frankly, it's better than many micro brews I've had. Think Harpoon.

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The original Ballantine was also a great beer, and somewhat similar. It used some corn mash in the grain bill. Now it's Bud and Cooirs, it's rice syrup and no hops. The greatest generation also drank better beer than Gen X.

 

I think you are confusing Gen X with the Baby Boomers. Gex X gave power to the Microbrew revolution. I know....I was one of the early adopters :wacko:

 

EDIT: And Harpoon can't exactly be considered a "Microbrew" anymore.

Edited by Caveman_Nick
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I think you are confusing Gen X with the Baby Boomers. Gex X gave power to the Microbrew revolution. I know....I was one of the early adopters :wacko:

 

EDIT: And Harpoon can't exactly be considered a "Microbrew" anymore.

 

But Bud and Coors still dominate the beer market. All of these beers, the Schlitz retro, Ballantine, Bud and Coors are adjunct beers, meaning they supplement the grain bill with ingredients other than malted barely.

 

The cracked corn in the old recipes is where that "buttery" falvor comes from, and both Schlitz and Balantine retros have that characteristic hint. That isn't something that turns me off, so I don't count it as a huge negative. Gennessee still uses corn adjuncts in the grain bill, but no hops to speak of. Coors and Bud use rice syrup as an adjunct, a flavorless addition to the malt bill that allows for the final product to reach the desired alc content without any side flavors. In short, any beer that uses adjucts do it to keep costs down.

 

Using corn syrup also means they only have to wave hop flowers over the wort to achieve a bitterness balance with the malt content. Rice syrup has little sweetness, while barley malt does, in spades. Rice syrup is all about making tasteless beer as cheaply as possible, and hops are relatively expensive, and besides, it coast far less than barely does.

 

The Schlitz is actually a bit out of balance... the bullion hops leave a disticnt slightly bitter after taste, but it's something I like. Bullions aren't aroma hops, they don't provide aroma like the now commonly used very aromatic citrus cascade and amarillo varieties used in pale ales and IPAs.

 

Would I be drinking this retro often if I wasn't on a buget? Not often, but when compared to any other beer in this price range, it's a blue ribbon as far as I am concerned, and it isn't even close.

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But Bud and Coors still dominate the beer market. All of these beers, the Schlitz retro, Ballantine, Bud and Coors are adjunct beers, meaning they supplement the grain bill with ingredients other than malted barely.

 

What you say is true about Bud and Coors to an extent. My only point was they it was the Baby boomers that entrenched these brands. The amount of money these two companies spend on promoting their brand is staggering and they offer a cheap product for the people that want to drink for the purpose of getting a buzz as opposed to having something tasty.

 

Still, it seems that every time I go out beer shopping stores are expanding their microbrew section more and more, and that revolution was brought out in the Gen X years. That's my only point. I agree with you overall, I just think the stranglehold Bud and Coors have de eloped a bit earlier....starting in the late 70s and early 80s or so.

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I was reading in one of my beer books about Schlitz and their downfall around that time. It had something to do with them buying into the "cheaper beer through chemistry" deal more so than anyone else. They jacked up all their recipes to cut costs at every turn. There was a 2-3 year stretch where there was a tell-tale flavor that everyone hated and became associated with that brewery. Something buttery or something, I forget exactly what, but it was a chemical by-product of one of the effed up things they were doing to the beers. That pretty much crushed them.

 

From what I read, it was about as dark a day as any in beer. Beers started being so little like beer that they had to start adding cobalt salts to them to create foam because it wasn't happening on its own.

 

That said, I'll have to check this stuff out.

 

 

It wasn't necessarily by choice - Schlitz was selling more beer than it could produce. So they started cutting corners to churn the beer out, sending out "green beer" which was supposed to ferment in the bottle (note: it didn't).

 

Contrast this with Coors, who saw that demand might outstrip their capacity, so they restricted their distribution area (hence why you couldn't get Coors east of the Mississippi).

 

Schlitz is now owned by the Kalmanovitz Trust, which bought up all those venerable Rust Belt brewers (Blatz, Strohs, Heilemans). And Kalmanovitz is the first "virtual" brewer, that has other breweries make their beer under contract and operates no breweries itself.

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I assume this is about 10,000 times different (ie better) than the piss water most of us think of re Schlitz, right? Still not sure I'd be bold enough to try. It's like someone going "yknow crap wasn't always like crap is now, it used to be good - here's some vintage stuff, give it a try!"

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Sam Adams has been doing this forever. Their 'brewery' doesn't distribute.

 

 

If you're into reading, try to find the book Beer Blast - it's written by the grandson of the guy who brought Heineken to the US.

 

He has some rather pointed comments on Joe Koch (one competitor is quoted as saying "we can't all pay money to have our brew made in Pittsburgh and called a Boston Lager"). I understand the view, but when you think of how Sam Adams was possibly THE key component in the current micro/craft revolution, it's tough as a beer drinker to be overly critical of him, no matter how others in the industry view his business practices.

 

 

If not for him, we'd all basically be chugging your standard sex in a rowboat.

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This is an incredably good brew for the price. An American lager that actually has some hop presence. This was the stuff my uncles drank, and just the aroma was a flashback for me. When I was a kid, you could smell those hops from a couple of feet away. Why they even changed the recipe (in the 60's Schlitz was the biggest brewer in the USA) is beyond me... turns out they re-introduced this a couple of years ago, but I've only now discovered it. It's actually a very nice hoppy lager. FAR better than anything else in that price range.

 

The original Ballantine was also a great beer, and somewhat similar. It used some corn mash in the grain bill. Now it's Bud and Cooirs, it's rice syrup and no hops. The greatest generation also drank better beer than Gen X.

 

Schlitz is one of those very distinct beers for me, kind of like walking into grandma's and smelling her peach cobbler...This summer I was at a party and stopped dead in my tracks and asked if the beer in their cups was Schlitz, sure enough it was. Definitely a beer you can recognize by it's smell and it is something I hadn't smelled in probably 30-35 years! Funny how our minds work sometimes, especially when I can't remember where I put my keys 10 minutes before!

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The owners of Schiltz and Anheseur Busch were cousins . . . and they hated each other with a HUGH rivalry. They were competing and expanding to who would be the #1 beer company in the US back in the day. Schiltz came up with their "green beer" idea to decrease production time and sell more beer and it horribly horribly backfired on them.

 

I enjoy the new Schiltz, mainly when fishing or on vacation in northern WI

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Went to Total Wine yesterday, bought a six of this, a Sam Adams Octoberfest, Sam's winter lager, Shiner blonde and Samuel Smith Oatmeal stout (4-pack). Plus a pint bottle of something called Hobgoblin English ale for tomorrow. Haven't tried the Schlitz yet, drinking bloody marys today.

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The Schlitz is unassuming an smooth, perfect after I got my second wind and dug up another bed, planted shrubs, burned brush, pulled up roots and pretty much just burritoing went at it like a madman after burritoing Brees taco the bed and my best chance of making some dough this season went right down the burritoing pooper. It's not something I'd start the Sunday with, but 8 bloody marys in, who the burrito even cares at that point

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