Up until about 2000 I could buy Grain Belt Beer for $4.99 a case of 24 cans. Sometimes it’d be on sale for $3.99 a case. It wasn’t great but it quenched a thirst and gave you a buzz, so good enough for the price.
It disappeared from this area for a while, I guess another brewer took over making it and such.
I saw it at the Woodmans yesterday for $11.99 a 12 pack of cans, $18.99 a case of cans! WTF?:eek: That’s more expensive than Bud.
What could account for a crummy ass swill to jump in price so much?
I remember my family in Minnesota drinking Grain Belt when I was a kid. Dad was a Budweiser snob so my only recollection was that it was indeed an inferior beer. He’d be rolling in his grave at almost $20/case.
I don’t buy it. First, I don’t seeing anyone buying or drinking this stuff. Second, PBR isn’t very expensive. Around here it’s $6.49 a 12 pack regular price (that’s 50 cents cheaper than Milwaukees Beast or Miller Highlife) and occasionally it’s on sale for $5.99. That’s not bad. Also I actually see people buying/drinking PBR. I’ve never seen Grain Belt in any bar this side of the Mississippi.
No. Did you not click on the picture in the OP? It was for regular old Grain Belt Premium.
I think you read that wrong. The all malt beers were Nordeast and such. Regular old Grain Belt is about the same.
Well, my guess is that when the new owners got a hold of it, they rebranded it a bit and priced it at a low-mid-market level. That seems to be about Schlitz-level pricing to me. I’ve never had Grain Belt, but looking at the beer review sites, it’s well-regarded for its style, so seems to be priced accordingly.
Wow. $3.99 for a case of 24. Even adjusting for inflation, that’s only about $5.25 today. Those were the days. The cheapest drinkable beer I could get these days is $3.33 a six-pack (the Big Flats at Walgreen’s, and this will depend on your definition of “drinkable.” It’s better than Bud or Miller, in my opinion, but not as good as Old Style or Schlitz.)
"Rebranding it’ may be the answer. Odd to take rock bottom priced beer and make it so expensive. Where are you seeing it well regarded? It’s average on ratebeer.com is 2.6 out of 5. 52% is a failing grade.
A case of Schlitz was $15.99 in the same store, $3 cheaper, so GB is much higher than Schlitz level pricing.
Well-regarded for style. It scores 95/100 for the pale lager category. (Incidentally, scoring exactly the same as Schlitz, it seems.) For comparison, Milwaukee’s Best scores 0, Budweiser scores 3, Blatz gets a 16, Big Flats gets a 30, and Old Style is 80.
I could have sworn Schlitz was more expensive, but it looks like even here it’s $15.99 a case. I just remembered being surprised what I thought was a high price when they did the whole “back-to-the-60s” formula a few years ago.
It doesn’t really work like that. The 2.6 is already an average, so what that is telling you is the average ratebeer.com drinker thinks that the beer, on a scale of 0 to 5 is a 2.6, which would be pretty much smack dab in the middle between awful and awesome. So, overall an average beer, but excellent for style when comparing apples with apples (which is what the 95 number tells you.)
Can’t speak to Grain Belt, but there’s still plenty of cheap beer in Wisconsin…as I’m sure you know, pkbites.
I’m generally a snobbish hophead, but I do like cheap, cold and domestic for certain situations - cutting grass on a hot summer day, floating down the Kickapoo or Wolf rivers, etc.
Most of these are adequate (although I admit to a soft spot for Blatz) at best, but here’s a good list. I personally find Point especially repellant, but some friends drink it regularly.
When I load the cooler for a day of pontooning, I put a case of BudLight Lime on ice, along with a six of Dales Pale Ale. I always toast other boaters with a Dales can.
Both fill a need on the water. Love me some Dale’s. I’ll occasionally bring a six of Moose Drool also. I’m pleased that more and more craft brewers are canning.
I must admit, Blatz is not one of my favorite ones, but I love the name. I love how so many Wisconsin beers sound to me like German synonyms for getting shitfaced (as in, “man, I got so Schlitzed/Blatzed/Pabst last night.”)
ETA: Ah, yes, Huber Bock! I remember that from college–probably the cheapest beer you could buy that actually had some flavor to it. I remember liking it well enough, but, holy shit, it’s $18.38 a case? That’s the beer I remember at the prices pkbites mentioned, something like $5 or $6 a case in the mid-90s (which would be $9 or $10 in today’s prices.) It seems to me that all beer has outpaced inflation. I could be wrong, but in the early-to-mid 2000, I generally hoped to pay $5.99-$7.99 for a decent 6 pack craft brew. Now, it’s more like $7.99-$10.99.
ETA2: $10.99 for a 30-can case of LaCrosse Lager. That’s the deal I’d hit there. LaCrosse Lager is your macrobrew style pale lager, but pretty darned good for what it is, in the company of Schlitz and Old Style (and Old Style used to be brewed here. Some say LaCrosse Lager is the old Old Style, but I don’t think it’s the same recipe. I think it’s a slightly different beer.)
Tastes like your tongue upon waking from a three day meth and drano binge. It’s insanely cheap and pretty potent, though. I think here in Madison it’s $2.99-3.49 a six.
I used to be in a band with a singer who would bring it to rehearsals, confident that his ability to tolerate it would outlast our thirst and unwillingness to drink vaguely malted horse piss. But he could bring a case of it for the cost of a twelve of anything else…
"Blatz"and “celestial” in the same sentence? Oh my, but we must work on raising the taste bar around here…though I confess an occasional fondness for certain American beers of similarly insubstantial character such as Goebels, Genessee, and Old Style - none of which are available in my dark corner of Appalachia
It did. Look again. Around here Hamms goes for $3.69 for a 6 pack of pints.
