Leinie’s is only cheap in Wisconsin, here in Chicago it carries a premium beer price, as does Schlitz and when you can find it Blatz.
Damn, you guys pay a lot for beer. I can get a 6 pack of PBR tall cans for $4 and a 24 case of Bud/Miller/Coors for $13. I can get a 24 case of PBR for less than $10.
I just remembered something I read in a (Swedish) newspaper many years ago. The author had noticed bottles of Budweiser (the real thing) in a store and thought it was great fun that a brewery in communist Czechoslovakia would brew a beer under license from a US company.
Somehow I think he didn’t know much about beer.
Budweiser is considered a premium beer in China. Only upscale bars will carry it. They sponsor a lot of scantily clad girls to promote it in bars. It is significantly more expensive than the local stuff. Budweiser is what you might order to impress a date or to treat a business contact.
I think it is also brewed and bottled by Chinese brewing companies.
From what I have been told, PBR is a super high end brew in China. It’s a slightly different recipe than that sold in the US.
Wow, I lived in China for 2 years(2003-2005) and I saw PBR on the shelf there all the time. It was canned, cost a bit more than Chinese beer, but not as much as Budweiser.
Budweiser was more expensive there, but was bottled in Beijing. I think it is because it is American.
Expensive there though is still cheaper than cheap here. It wasn’t outrageous or anything.
I think it’s a universal geographic phenomenon. Brazilian cachaça is expensive here in the U.S. even for rotgut, while vodka is relatively cheap—and when I’m in Brazil and order a caipirinha, the server often asks if I wouldn’t like a caipiroska instead (made with vodka, which is typically more expensive there and thus has more prestige). No, I say—where I live, vodka is cheap and boring, and I want to enjoy cheap cachaça when I have the chance.