Probably the original German beer (which I think is occasionally imported here now, BTW). Miller licensed the name for their own formulation for the U.S. market, which is what was discontinued in 2002.
Although it probably made it there earlier, the first time I saw a Canadian beer offered in a US bar was in 1985. I was staying at a New Hampshire resort, and Molson Golden was available in the resort bar. Since Golden was my usual beer back home in Toronto in those days, I ordered it, just for fun. IIRC, the price was about $2.
Ballentine and Schaefer were big, too. Upstate you had Genesee and Utica Club.
Too bad the beer wasn’t as good as the commercials.
Incidentally, I think amongs those ads you linked is the “Rainier frogs” commercials that was done more than 10 years before the “Budweiser Frogs” campaign.
(For the record, I moved this from the Game Room but I forgot to leave a note.)
Game Room -> Café Society.
Gukumatz,
Game Room Moderator
Olympia had crossed the Mississippi by 1978 - it was widely available in Florida at that time. Michelob Light came out in '78 (if memory serves) and was immediately popular.
Schlitz was considered just as good as Budweiser until '76 or '77 when they started to make it more cheaply. I assume it was priced similarly to Bud even in '78.
Tuborg Gold was a big import.
Andeker and Carlings Black Label were also popular.
No “light” beer in any form. Mostly Bud, Schlitz, Stroh’s, Pabst, Busch, & the only import I remember was Heineken. (Mississippi 1978). Of course, if you were really cool, you made a run across the Mississippi River to Missouri for Coors.
Among the malt liquors Colt .45 and Schlitz ML (silver & blue can with bull on it) were probably the biggest.
In Detroit it was always available .
Lite Beer from Miller hit the market in 1973, bolstered by the iconic “Tastes great! Less filling!” ads featuring various athletes. It was widely available in the 70s.
Schlitz was one of the biggest (if not the biggest) American beer brands until the late 1970s. At that point, they introduced a new fermentation process, which backfired horribly on them – not only did the beer taste different, but it would go bad on the shelf. They lost much of their market share very rapidly at that point.
It’s partly a government issue. Breweries have to produce a minimum amount of beer per year to get licensed, which is a significant barrier.
That said, it’s already happening. I can buy a number of microbrews here at liquor stores, usually for not much more than Yebisu or Suntory Premium. That wasn’t the case when I first arrived here 10 years ago.
In the Buffalo area, you’d encounter Genesee (Beer and Cream Ale), Labatt (Blue and 50), Molson (Golden and Canadian), Budweiser, Miller (High Life and Lite), and Stroh’s at most bars. Go upscale, and you’d encounter Michelob, Lowenbrau, Heineken, Rolling Rock, Beck’s, Moosehead, and/or Corona. More blue-collar, add Schlitz, PBR, Utica Club, Koch’s Golden Anniversary, and/or Old Vienna to the mix. At least in the mid-to-late 1980s, bars catering to college students usually served Old Milwaukee as their generic for St. Patrick’s Day and binge events.
At family gatherings when I was a kid, Genesee Cream Ale and Labatt Blue were the usual default beers.
Coors wasn’t available in Buffalo until the late 1980s. There was a big deal when it arrived, because it was a non-union beer.
Stupid government. It can’t happen fast enough for me. And let’s flip the beer and cigarette prices while we’re at it. Smokes can cost $14/pack like they do in NYC if only you can get a six pack of happoshu for 300 yen.
I’m drinking a Genesee as I type. Cream Ale was available at the Giant Eagle, too. $2.89 for a six-pack of tall boys. Columbus is the greatest city in this fine country!
According to its Wikipedia page, the brand was purchased by AB in 2004. Apparently they actually import from Germany nowadays and sell it as Lowenbrau Original.
In Richmond VA, 1978 you could get: Miller, Bud, Schimdts (99 cents a 6-pack), Shafer(“if your having more than one”), Stroh’s (“Fire Brewed”) and sometimes National Bohemian or Carling Black Label. I once had some draft “Miller dark” at a bar but they stopped serving it.
If you were interested enough to look around in specialty shops you could find a few beers from the north and west: Genny or Coors or even Molson for example.
You could also find imported beer at places like wine shops but it tended to be skunky. For years I just thought that skunky taste was the taste of European beers and couldn’t understand the attraction.
Not in rural Mississippi!
Interesting about Coors. At that time, Coors was pretty much not distributed at all east of the Mississippi (that was the entire premise, after all, behind Smokey and the Bandit).
I can remember paying $10 for a six pack of Strohs, circa 1978. I was not yet 21, and the $10 included a handling fee tacked on by the wino who got it for us. 