I never drank a lot of Rolling Rock in my younger years, but I don’t remember it being any better or worse than the normal cheap beers. Within the last couple years, I noticed it selling for ridiculously cheap…like quite a bit lower than PBR, Keystone, Busch, etc… While I love “good” beer, I am not a snob and drink my fair share of “yellow beer” so I decided to try this ultra cheap Rolling Rock. Good lord was that a mistake! HORRIFIC! The only two beers I have ever dumped out due to their shit taste are Kirkland brand light beer and now Rolling Rock. It was that bad (I know enough not to buy shit like malt liquor which would also go straight down the drain). I’m now wondering if that shit Costco beer was rebranded Rolling Rock.
So, is it just me, or did RR go down the drain similar to Sam Adams (not that I’ve had Sam Adams in the last decade)?
Ah, Mickeys Big Mouths. Favorite of the jocks because they could easily use it as a spitoon.
Started writing about Schmidt, and discovered a few things. You’re talking C. Schmidt of Philadelphia, correct? I, of course, thought you were talking about Jacob Schmidt in Minnesota. By the time I was alert (I had a beer can collection in the 70s), Jacob Schmidt had been bought by G. Heileman, makers of Old Style. They were famous for having a whole series of can designs of various outdoors scenes.
Per Wikipedia Heileman’s bought out Christian Schmidt in 87. Heileman later was bought out by Stroh’s (1996), and somewhere in there Stroh’s was bought out by Pabst. No Anheuser Busch or InBev to be seen.
I believe Suisse Lowenbrau was the Swiss version. It was very difficult to to find in the U.S… It was superior to all other Lowenbrau versions (IMHO).
Miller stopped making regular Lowenbrau circa 1999 and nobody else picked up the license. I’ve had the Canadian version but it’s not as good. The last time I had real Lowenbrau was in Venice, Italy, spring of 2012. A little old man with a cart was selling Lowenbrau and something else on draft in (approximate) 10 ounce glass mugs for 1 Euro. You stood by his cart while you drank it so you could give him his glass back… And it was good!!!
There was an American beer pretending to be an import called Augsburger. It was rich and hoppy and in the mid-90’s was one of my go to beers equal to Lowenbrau. 80% of my beer drinking was split between them. It got kicked around to a couple of different brewers. Then Point Brewing got their hands on it and fucked it up by messing with the formula. Stupid idiots. I’m sick of this shit! Why can’t they leave well enough alone?
Back in the early 90s, Canadian brewers (mainly Molson and Labatt) had all kind of licences to produce foreign beers. Lowenbrau yes, but also Foster’s Lager, Kirin, Carlsberg, Budweiser, Coors (Light and Original), Miller (*), and so on. Premium pricing, of course. Given that they were each using North American hops, and Canadian tap water, they pretty much tasted the same as any domestic Molson or Labatt product. Budweiser and Coors Light dropped their prices to regular levels and survived, and are popular in Canada to this day; the rest saw little interest due to being basically Molson Canadian and Labatt Blue at a premium price, and were withdrawn.
(*) Fun little story about Miller beer’s introduction to Canada. It was in about 1984, and Ontario was having a provincial election at about the same time Miller beer was introduced to Ontario. Miller beer was heavily advertised on TV, radio, and in the press. And I mean heavily; you couldn’t go a day without being told about the crisp, fresh taste of Miller, which our American friends had enjoyed for years. “Hey, Ontario … it’s Miller time.”
Anyway, one candidate for Ontario’s Premier was Frank Miller. An editorial cartoonist in a Toronto daily did a cartoon with Frank Miller telling a flunky that he was planning a press conference, and he wanted to give the usually-thirsty members of the press a beer with his name on it. Meaning the newly-introduced and heavily-promoted Miller beer, of course. The flunky went off, but returned in the next panel, saying, “I’m sorry, Mr. Miller, but we couldn’t find any beer named ‘Frank.’”
All sorts of brewers made Fosters all over the place. Which is why I rolled my eyes when the TV commercials would tout “Fosters: Australian for beer”. I don’t know if the actual Australian version has ever even been in North America.
Correct on the Philly Schmidt’s. I just read the Wikipedia article on it and man, what a history. It had ties to most of the regional beers of its time. I never knew it was considered by beer “experts” to be far better than the average swill, beating the mythical Coors Banquet beer in a blind taste test. To me, it was always the cheapest, barely drinkable beer there was. On par with Iron City but not quite as bad. I wonder what I’d think of it today.
I have a vague recollection of drinking Augsburger for a bit.
Stegmaier anyone? My father’s beer. 16 oz. returnables.
I spent a lot of time in Australia back in the 1990s. I was on a flight between Perth and Sydney, and the flight attendant asked if I’d like a drink. Sure, I replied, I’d like a Swan. (Swan Lager, the go-to beer of Western Australia. We left from WA, after all, and Swan was quite common and popular there, and it made sense that the Qantas aircraft would have Swan on a flight leaving Perth.)
The flight attendant was quite apologetic. Apparently, even though we had left Perth, the aircraft had no Swan. “I’m sorry sir, but all we have is Foster’s.”
“That’ll do,” I said. And I had a real Australian Foster’s.
It was nothing special. And I mean nothing. Regular American Budweiser has more flavour. Hell, Canadian-brewed Foster’s had more flavour. I subsequently learned from my Australian contacts that Aussies avoided the stuff if they could, because it was just that tasteless and bland.
Man, before Gambrinus bought them in 1989, they were even better. It was really the perfect beer. I still remember when my friend and I found out about the purchase. We went down to the local beer store in Denton and bought a case of the last short bottles we would ever get. Then we drank them on my girlfriend’s front porch in joy and sadness.
We didn’t know the horrors that lay before us. The longnecks would bring us a watery version of the beer we remembered; and the soapy tasting, nasty pitchers and drafts that were common over the next few years were certainly nothing our feeble minds could have conceived. I’ve tried a lot of different bock beers since then, and while they may be very nice, none really compare to the pre-1989 Shiner Bock. I won’t say the expansion of its market killed it, I’ll still occasionally drink it. But it ain’t just the same.
Heck, if Shiner hadn’t messed things up royally, I might have never tried Rolling Rock.
Sadly, I can’t answer that since I haven’t had Rolling Rock in at least twenty years. But since it doesn’t seem to be from the glass lined tanks of Old Latrobe anymore, I can imagine it’s just another indistinguishable contract brewed lager.
Great ads! Thanks for those. I do remember the “soldiers in the desert” one—very creative. For those who choose not to watch it, it sells the product without actually showing the product.
Just for fun, I went looking for that Molson Golden TV commercial that I mentioned earlier in the thread. Sure enough, it’s on YouTube:
Australians will laugh at you for drinking Foster’s. Rightiy so. Castlemaine and XXXX are much better. It’s like going to Mexico and drinking Corona…
I have had many American friends extol the virtues of Sam Adams. I thought it was good, but not as good as their hype. Many Canadians think that American beer is like making love in a canoe. But our own Canadian lagers are much of a muchness. Me, I prefer abbey ales, lambics, Guinness or a decent bitter.
