I can’t drink but I can remember my dad saying he’d drink bilge water before drinking Stroh’s.
you would be surprised at how far bad beer travels. Meister Brau was widely available in Norcal in the early '80’s. Heck, I once found Old Milwake (sp?) in tall boy cans in the middle of Taiwan 20 years ago.
I’ve had some putrid beer in China. Most is ok light lager but there are a few little breweries especially back in the communist days that made just undrinkable swill.
I’ve had most of the dreck listed in this thread. Bud is a beer that I really just can’t drink and that includes it being the only beer on a transpacific flight. For my money, the *best *of the swill beers was Schmidt. I say was because it’s been 20 years since I made a habit of drinking cheap beer.
Good god, I remember meister brau…it was foul. But as a young and frequently broke college student its cheapness acted in its favor. One summer my roommate and I visited my hometown and met up with an older friend of my family I hadn’t seen for years. He invited us to his place and we all sat around drinking the stuff. It was terrible, but hey, it was free.
I also remember a beer called Genessee. It was dirt cheap. My stepfather actually gave me and my friends a case of it for graduating high school. (He then gave me the car keys and told us to have fun at the graduation parties we were going to…this was waaaay back in the day when you could kinda get away with that stuff.)
Nasty taste honorable mentionables v.1:
I have only seen and tasted these beers once, since they never appeared in a store afterwards…Old German…it came in round, squat barrel shaped brown bottles. It was dirt cheap and a buddy brought some because of the ridiculous low price. It tasted like cold piss and my friend noted that it was labeled as german style beer but brewed in New Jersey. No doubt in someone’s bathtub.
And Lazer! It was on sale for something like 3 bucks for a case! It came in a black can with neon stripes around it. My Gawd it was bad! Even thinking about it makes me ill.
There was also King Cobra. (warning: retro style 80’s commercial aimed at minorities). After drinking that I wanted to kick Fred Williamson in the balls.
Someone mentioned Malt Liquors earlier in the thread. I never really had the taste for them. Colt 45 is vile. Even as a college student with little money I thought it was awful. My roomie and I once once got a case and drank it with a friend that was a japanese exchange student. He thought it was “good” US beer. I hope he learned later on that it wasn’t.
When I first joined the Army a bunch of the brothers in the barracks invited me to drink “Old English 800” with them. Wow, was that bad. I didn’t even finish one. It tasted like something that came out of a pigs ass. I told those guys that even as a private I could afford to drink better stuff than that. People from the UK should be insulted by the name of that swill.
When even the advertisements for a beer brand call it a “pale, stale ale”, you really can’t expect much…
Reading this thread I am realizing all over again how many truly noxious slanders to the good name of Beer have been marketed just within my own lifetime.
Back during the moment of popularity for all things generic, you could buy Beer. Just like that – the word “Beer”, in plain blue print, on a plain white can. “Beer beer” we used to call it, and it was* nass-ty*! Now the only way you can even see what the cans looked like is by watching ***Repo Man ***-- one of my favorite flicks ever, for a whole bunch of reasons, and that one not the least.
You couldn’t be any more wrong.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t any bad IPAs… but even a bad IPA is better than the swill they call Corona.
At least it wasn’t called** Bierbitzch. **
My friends think I’m a beer snob, because I love India Pale Ale’s. But when it comes to the regular, low brow beers, I actually like Old Style, Old Milwakee, and P.B.R.
2 beers I can’t stand, for taste alone, are Rolling Rock and High Life. Both taste syrupy and thick to me.
My least favorite is Heineken, easily. Maybe it’s great in the right circumstances, but I have never, ever had a bottle that wasn’t at least slightly skunky.
Joe
I came in here to post OE800. We called it “the Green Death”.
Being from Western PA, I have been exposed to some pretty cheap beer. And for the most part, if it’s cold, I can drink it.
Except** Rolling Rock**. When I was younger, that crap was 5 bucks a case, and 4 bucks overpriced. Then, for some reason (I think it was Molson who bought them out, but I’m probably wrong) they went national, and it was COOL to drink Rolling Rock. Stop! I paid $5 for a RR in a bar and thought the world had gone to hell. It’s always skunked. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that all beer in green bottles is skunked. But RR is skunked in cans and kegs, too. I won’t go into the nasties of the next morning, but what it does to my head is amazing. The migraines are incredible.
A couple of beers bring some fond memories for me. Genessee was the first beer I ever had, and I shared it with my grandfather. He was a good guy and I still miss him… A quiet man, he gave me a nice chug of ice cold Genessee as we sat on the front steps of his farm house and told me not to tell anyone. Other than this post, I still haven’t. I can still drink Genny and Genny Cream Ale if I find it, but it’s been a long time.
A few not mentioned but should be remembered by some of you. Stoney’s, Fort Pitt, Duquesne “The Prince’s Pilsner”, among others. There were many beers made by the Pittsburgh Brewing Company, including the much revered Sam Adams. Iron City is an acquired taste (I still can’t drink it much) but I.C. Light is much better. The local breweries are dying. Pittsburgh used to be full of them.
Stoney’s is pretty bad. I actually liked its stablemate, Esquire, a lot better.
And for the curious, this is Olde Frothingslosh.
For us, “Green Death” was Rainier Ale. Rainier beer was a basic, run-of-the-mill lager, but the ale…deadly.
Chang Beer in Thailand is nasty, nasty shit. But it’s cheaper than most other beers in the kingdom, targeted at the peasant crowd, and I know of a bar or two in the red-light zones that have all-you-can-drink Chang deals. Those particular bars are NOT pretty sights to see late at night.
Leo Beer here is another example. (That’s not to be confused with the excellent Beer Lao, from Laos.)
Revisiting to say I find Lucky Lager to be nasty.
The worst was a beer I found in some liquer warehouse from Greece. Cans of Ephisis or something along those lines. It tasted, I shit you not, like the worst skunked beer you’ve ever had with soy sauce in it. Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech
I came in here to say Hudy Delight. Two comments will summarize this beer: First, Hudy Delight in the bottle was still cheaper than Milwaukee’s Best in the can. Second, even as a college student once was enough for me.
It does tell you something when you realize that the poor old Hamm’s bear is now working in a toilet paper commercial.
Back in the early 60s the leading carry-out beer in a backwater Midwestern university town was Grain Belt. I only saw it in quart bottles. It tasted bad, but it was cheap and it was an effective alcohol delivery system. Very popular in married student housing.
I always what the imported beers at Aldi tasted like. Whenever I go in there I’m tempted to buy a six pack. Can anyone else shed some light on these brews.
Your post reminds me of Tsingtao. Maybe I just had a bad bottle the one time I tried it, but I thought it tasted like sucking on an old quarter. It had an odd metallic taste. Yuck.
I always wondered what the imported beers at Aldi tasted like. Whenever I go in there I’m tempted to buy a six pack. Can anyone else shed some light on these brews.
By a mile, Tequiza. Could not finish a whole bottle. Tried 3 bottles on 3 different occassions. Could not finish a bottle.
Stroh’s was a respected brand at one time (and I drank plenty of it in the late 70s early 80s) but last time I tried it, it was utter shit.
I like Corona. With lemon juice.
If some one held a gun to my head and told me I was drinking either Tequiza or IPA, hhhhmmmm, tough choice, how painless IS a gunshot to the head?