How bad was the beer sold in those generic white cans labeled, “BEER.” Was it about the same level of say Busch beer ? A step below Budweiser but about the standard of beer you could expect in the late 1970s or early 1980s?
Worse. Busch is drinkable if it’s really cold. “Beer” wasn’t.
If I remember correctly, it still got you buzzed. About the same as Wiedemann’s Fine Bohemian-Style Beer.
Never tried “Beer” but a friend and I once bought a bottle of generic “BRANDY” bottled for Osco Drug. White label with olive green and black stripe on the top and black block lettering.
It tasted pretty much exactly like you’d expect it to taste. We did get a night’s worth of jokes about the plain bottle and how nasty it was, though.
Can we get some details about “Beer” and maybe a comparison to a contemporary beer?
Had it in high school a few times. Of course, the criteria then were cheap, intoxicating, and available, and it was at least comparable to the “big name” beers - Schmidt’s and Schaefer.
I was told back then it was the same beer as bottled for Bud, Utica Club, Schlitz, or whatever. Packaging makes all the difference. Put it in a black and white generic labelled bottle, it’s swill. Put it in a bottle with a cute, clever, pretty label and a cute, clever description, and it’s not bad at all.
It was on the level of Brew 102. I seem to recall that we actually preferred Lucky Lager over “Beer,” and Lucky is swill.
Apparently it was made by Lucky Brewing, and may have simply been a repackaging of their Lucky Lager.
The rebus makes the difference! 
I bought one can of BEER to use as a photo prop. It was on my kitchen shelf for many years. I never had the courage to drink it or even open it. Of course, after about a year it probably would have been hazardous to try either one…
I bought BEER back when I was really poor and young. We had it in bottles, which was at least nicer. Plus you could get back 50c for a case of bottles.
I remember it having a rotten rather than fermented taste. It tasted like the water they used to wash out the beer vats or something. It was entirely unecessary to ever drink that stuff. BEER was about $3/case and Burgermeister beer was also $3/case and while burgermeister beer tasted like cat piss, you could drink it if you were already sorta drunk.
There is a chain of convenience stores in Oklahoma and Georgia called QuikTrip. I’m sure they exist other places as well, but I’ve only seen them Oklahoma and Georgia.
Anyway, around the time the white and black generic beer was popular; QT used to sell their own label. Like Silenus said above; it needed to be really cold to consume; but it was SO MUCH CHEAPER than other beer. When you want a buzz on a young adult budget; that was what you did. Like a lot of things about cheap beer and liquor… the worst part of it was the morning after. Even if you didn’t get that drunk; you felt like shit the next day; and felt like the inside of your mouse was fuzzy.
You do realize you PAID that fiddycent going in, right?
In our market, BEER was Falstaff repackaged. I wonder if it was different small brewers in different parts of the country?
During my undergraduate years there was the annual(ish) Bad Beer party. BEER was a fixture of that. I don’t remember it being that terrible, but one of the known rules for the Bad Beer party was that you had a couple or three beers not being served at the party before you went to the party. So my memory could be faulty.
It sounds like at least as far as the internet knows, all of the generic beer was made by General Brewing, the same company that made Lucky Lager at the time, although rumors certainly abounded.
Maybe that was the whole purpose of this marketing gambit-- everyone knew Lucky was terrible but rather than spend a bunch of money on marketing to convince people otherwise, just put the generic cans out and let people imagine it’s really some other better-marketed beer repackaged.
During the BEER era, I worked with a graphic designer, who told a client “I don’t really know anything about beer, but the black and white cans fit the decor in my apartment.”
The client, a big, manly man, was speechless.
BEER wasn’t any worse than Shaefer beer.