I don’t know. It seems like the ubiquity of Old Style signs hanging in front of stores all over the city may have lent the brand some cachet.
When I was a kid, my dad would shut me up by handing me a can of Old Style and telling me to find the frog hidden in the picture. I’m a little upset that they changed the can to do away with that scene.
My dad shut me up by letting me have a sip of his Old Style. Seriously, when I was about 5 or 6, dad couldn’t open a can of it near me without me insisting on a sip.
And, to this date, it remains my macro of choice.
My husband did this to our kitchen table. Freehand. 
He won’t touch any other beer other than Old Style.
I had my first taste of alcohol at the same age and the same product. I think it’s a Chicago tradition.
Not surprising, since it’s so sweet a kid would like it.
It was kept popular by lower-case dopers looking for the frog.
ETA: I was a Hamm’s kid.
It’s true, it does tend a bit sweet, but so do all those corn-adjunct lagers. It seems less sweet to me than the Miller products, at any rate (and, yes, I know Old Style is brewed by Miller now). I really do think Old Style is a very solid American adjunct lager since they want back to the krauesened version which seems less sweet to me than the non-krauesened one. To my tastes, it’s clearly above the standard BudMillCoors lager products. I still remember the day at the bar I realized this. I was drinking Miller High Lifes, because that’s always been regarded as a reasonable macrolager. After my second or third, I decided to switch to Old Style and was shocked by how much more flavor and beer taste it had. Since then, I’ve just stuck with the hometown favorite when I’m slumming it or at a bar where the selection is very limited.
But what is this frog thing? I know nothing about it.
The old axiom that differences matter most when there is least at stake clearly applies to lawnmower lager. Its appeal really is one of tribe. Allegiance makes brand - allegiance even makes taste.
Find the frog on the can. Don’t know if it’s still there.
Schlitz never noticed that Chicago has several miles of frontage on Lake Michigan?
Old Style caught on in Chicago when Budweiser went on strike and the bar owners couldn’t get beer so many of them switched to Old Style.
Bill Brasky named “Old Style” beer. The brewery did not want to call it that.
To BILL BRASKY!
After years of being a snobby micro-and-import-only guy, I spent a few months taste testing nothing by macro lager. Old Style came out my favorite. The difference isn’t much, but most others either tasted metallic or had one or two notes I didn’t like. Old Style is just simple beer-flavored beer.