That one actually makes sense to me; I imagine there’s some inter-brand cannibalization going on between High Life Light and Miller Lite, and this would mitigate that without actually reducing sales.
I’m personally a little surprised there were THAT many cheap/light beer brands to trim away; I hadn’t realized there were multiple Keystone beers… hell, I’d forgotten Keystone even existed.
I am surprised that Milwaukee’s Best is getting eliminated; I’d have thought keg sales in colleges would be enough to keep it around; everyone got “Beast” when I was in school as it was about the best of the super-cheap beers sold in kegs.
The thing is, though, High Life is significantly cheaper than Lite. It also tastes worse.
Theres lots of other cheap brews around here. Hamms, Blatz, and Old Milwaukee all were premium priced beers back in the day. Today they are among the cheapest sold. Blatz used to be the best selling beer in Milwaukee.
I’ve never quite understood the point of High-Life in all its incarnations. It’s always been worse than MGD as far as the standard American lagers go, and High-Life light always seemed to occupy a weird position of not being cheap like Keystone Light or Old Milwaukee Light, but not being the “premium” product like Miller Lite or Coors Lite.
High Life was their original, flagship beer. But, by the '80s and '90s, Lite had become their best-selling beer, and they had launched MGD as a more premium beer, so High Life became kind of an afterthought in their portfolio for a long time.
I quit drinking a few years ago, but Milwaukee Best and Keystone Ice were big ones for me. I see that Milwaukee Best Ice and Light are going to continue.
Steel Reserve 211 was nasty in many ways, but drinkable. I see at the store now that it has become all “fruity cocktail beverages” like this. Are those continuing? Like this. Those had to be profitable.
Is Keystone Ice(the one in the black can) also being kept? It was probably the best Ice beer I ever had of the cheapo variety.
I drank a lot of Key Ice in college. A lot of guys I knew got jobs at the brewery and even when we did have to pay a keg was like $70. I’ll see if I can find a 30 stone to drink this weekend in remembrance.
Milker High Life and MGD are the exact same beer. The only difference is how they are treated once they are done being brewed. High Life is pasteurized and MGD isn’t. In fact, in the beginning MGD was called “Miller High Life Genuine Draft”.
Pasteurization does have an effect on flavor. Most tap beer is unpasteurized. So if you get a tapper of High Life it should taste identical to a tapper of MGD.
Good riddance. Most of those beers are complete rubbish. Even in my misspent youth I knew that. Henry Weinhards was ok. This is from someone who bought cases of Lucky Lager when he could scrape together the change.
They still made it (and I believe they still do) somewhere in California. I got a 12 pack of it at Binnys a couple years ago. It did not look nor taste like the beer I remember from the 70’s and 80’s. Had an orangy glow to it. Didn’t taste horrible but wasn’t the Oly I remembered.
When I was 18 (drinking age at the time) you could get a six pack of Oly’s for $1.19 and a box of 12 Little Debbie Swiss cake rolls for 39 cents and 4 Slim Jims for 35 cents. You could eat and drink all day for under 2 bucks. And the Little Debbies always had a coupon on the back so next time it cost a dime cheaper!
I value beer. The continued existence of cheap beer (cheap in every sense of the word) is an insult to the brewers art and devalues the contributions of brewers and brewsters throughout Time. The marketing over the years that has convinced millions of people that that is what beer is supposed to taste like and be is a Sin Before God and An Abomination Unto Nuggan.
But then, so are at least half of the “craft” brews being produced these days.
Ugh. My poor-ass friend is going to be disappointed - Steel Reserve was his go-to baseline intoxicant for ages. He refused to drink the more premium beer I’d have in my house and insisted I let him pick up that shit when he was visiting. I tried one once and found it about as drinkable as a Tab soda - which is to say it was vaguely sweet in a disturbing way and I could keep it down without puking, but IMHO it was fucking vile. I’m sorry for the people who preferred it, but I’ll shed no tears at its demise.
But I did drink my share of Henry Weinhard’s back in the day. My progression was HW (teens)>Heineken (late teens/early twenties)>Newcastle, Anchor Steam and Guinness (mid twenties forward)>other stuff. And these days I hardly drink any at all, pretty much once in a blue moon. Ah, well.
That’s where you’re at least partially wrong. Brewing those “cheap” beers is pretty much the absolute pinnacle of the brewing art; they’re SO light, and so mild that there’s absolutely nowhere to hide in terms of off flavors, recipe formulation, temperature control, etc… You have to be a damned good brewer to make those beers well and consistently.
I’m with you on the marketing though; it’s obnoxious how those companies throw their weight around, both in marketing and worse, in shelf-space allocations.
All in all, as a consumer I subscribe to Sturgeon’s Law (90% of everything is crap), and figure that the vast majority of beers on the shelf are at best, unremarkable.
No argument there. Brewing “naked” is extremely difficult, and doing it consistently for decades is damn-near miraculous. Doesn’t make them “brewers” however. Not in my book. Amazing technicians, but in no way artists. They are churning out product to be sold to the masses.
I have over 1300 ratings on there from all over the U.S. and the world. I rip the shit out of a lot of beer, even beer I regularly drink.
But I don‘t begrudge them from existing because I know each one has at least some people that really like it and would be very disappointed if it wasn’t made any more. Crappy beers existence doesn’t affect us negatively. It makes great beer seem even better!
I came originally from the Rochester NY area where Genesee Cream Ale is the bottom of the line cheapest swill available, I had to laugh in Virginia Beach VA when I would go into a bar and it was a premium beer =)
