Let’s assume I walk into a typical American bar on a summer day in 1978. Which beers would be available on tap as well as in the bottle?
Would I be able to buy Schlitz, Pabst Blue Ribbon, or Miller High Life? Would Budweiser and Lite Beer from Miller cost more as ‘premium beers’?
How much would a beer set me back?
Beers were still a little more regional at that point, so the answer might depend on where that bar was.
Schlitz, Budweiser, and Miller would have likely been found. In the Midwest, you might’ve also found Pabst, Stroh’s, Old Style, and Hamm’s. Out west, you probably would have found Coors, Olympia, and maybe Burge. I’m not as familiar with eastern beers, so I don’t know what exactly was common there.
“Premium” beers would probably have been brands like Michelob and Lowenbrau.
In New York, Rheingold, Knickerbocker, Bud, Miller. Coors, Rolling Rock were considered to be imports.
In the Pacific Northwest in 1978, the constants were national brands (Bud, Schlitz, Miller), brands sold only in the western half of the U.S. (e.g., Coors, Olympia), and Rainier (a regional). Hamm’s and Pabst were also fairly common. Additionally, your typical PNW bar or tavern would have at least one “higher end” brew available like Henry Weinhard’s (a venerable regional brewery that, at the time, hadn’t succumbed to corporate M&A), Michelob (which A-B pitched as its “draught beer for connoisseurs”), and Löwenbräu (Miller’s overpriced and watered-down faux-German import). In terms of actual imports, some taverns would have Heineken and maybe some Canadian beers.
Anyway, not to nitpick, but isn’t this thread more appropriate for Cafe Society?
well in san antonio you would have been drinking pearl or lone star. everything else was a premium.
little bar we used go to had a wednesday special where you got a gimme draw (12 oz on tap of pearl). cost a nickel. you could get absolutely flattened with a sawbuck.
course you would be shitting like a goose the next morning but what the hell.
neta: plus you would have been eating the heck out of shypoke eggs.
basically a round tostado, topped with a slice of white american and then a jalapeno in the middle covered with a little bit of yellow american.
god they were nasty but it cut the taste of the pearl.
i don’t like american cheese but for those of you who do actually like that nonsense they do end up looking like a fried egg and the jalapenos were hot like firecrackers.
I meant to start the thread in the Cafe and I reported it to a mod to have it moved.
Based on what I recall adults drinking and/or signs I saw from my childhood (Houston, born 1972), you could probably get Budweiser (regular), Michelob, Lowenbrau, Lone Star, Pearl, Shiner (not bock, just “Shiner”), Miller Lite, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Falstaff and Schlitz.
I suspect you could get Miller High-Life as well, but I don’t recall signs or any adults drinking it.
Billy Beer started in 1978.
Great American Beer: 50 Brands That Shaped the 20th Century Top 50 beers then.
Is the US version of Lowenbrau (apparently brewed by Miller) still made?
Doesn’t look like it. Lowenbrau doesn’t show up on the MillerCoors website listing of all their brands. According to the Wikipedia entry on Lowenbrau, Miller stopped making it in 2002.
They still sell it in Japan, though.
Speaking of Japan, living here has made me count my blessings (beer-wise) that I was born in the US when I was. I’m getting a picture of what it was like to have every single beer taste almost exactly the same, and all of them are light lagers. Occasionally you can find premiums (hardly worth it) or microbrews (sometimes good, sometimes just weird) or imports, but they’re all expensive. I really like beer, and I feel sorry for the Japanese beer lovers who’ve never gotten to experience the “beer freedom” we experience in the US (also in parts of Europe, of course).
But, like many social issues, Japan is 10-20 years behind the US, and I’m predicting that the microbrews will gain a foothold here like they did back home. Won’t do me any good, but I’m guessing that’s the direction the country’ll take.
I had a Sapporo at a sushi place recently, and saw (in tiny lettering) that it is now being brewed in Canada, so it still can say IMPORTED in huge lettering on the label.
I always liked Sapporo, but then again I am very partial to pilsners and lagers, as many microbrews are too filling for my tastes…
In the St Louis area, besides the ubiquitous Anheuser-Busch products, you could have also found Falstaff and Stag.
I had the same experience with a six-pack of Kirin Ichiban I recently bought…also made in Canada!
In the late 1970s, I managed to visit both New York and LA. Bud, Schlitz, and Miller were available in both places. In addition, I recall Schaefer being easily available in New York; while the LA bars I visited all offered Coors. As I recall, prices ranged from between about 75 or 80 cents (in an ordinary corner bar) to $1.10 (in a Greenwich Village nightclub).
By 1978, Pabst and Schlitz (both of which had been popular in the 60s) had disappeared from a lot of bars in the Southeast. Here you would have found: Miller, Miller Lite, Budweiser, Busch, Michelob, maybe Lowenbrau and Strohs. A few redneck dives might have still carried Schlitz.
Coors was still a beer of the West in those days.
I turned 18 early in 1979, and frequented bars in central New York every weekend. Drinking age was 18 back then.
My beer of choice was Miller High Life amongst the High School Seniors. Regional beers like Genessee and Utica Club were MOCKED.
I honestly do not remember how much I paid for a bottle of beer. Probably $1. When I went away to college, I remember quarter beer night at the college watering holes.
Michelob was probably THE PREMIUM beer.
I don’t remember any imported beers, not even any from Canada.
The first imported beer I remember seeing was Heineken. I think that would have been widely available by '78, but I may be mis-remembering.