American heritage brews

I’m finding that as I get older I am getting less picky about beer. Or maybe I’m becoming less of a snob about beer.

Either way, I’m really coming to appreciate the beers that took us from Prohibition to the beginning of the microbrew era. The stuff your father drank (or you did when broke): Hamm’s, Blatz, Old Style, Pabst and Schlitz, about which more in a minute. True these aren’t flavored with exotic fruits or bottle fermented or anything unusual. They are basic beer, but what a thing beer! Using the most basic ingredients, the brewers of the 20th century figured out how to make beers that appealed to broad groups of people.

But then something happened. Schlitz, then the top-selling beer in the States, in an effort to cut costs screwed up. They destroyed their beer, and refused to go back. Coke at least tried to placate us with Classic Coke. Anyway, the other day I was reading that you can go for the gusto once again. Schlitz is back in its original formula in test markets. Word from the old guys is that it tasted like it used to: remember, this is the beer that made Milwaukee famous. If all goes well, real Schlitz should be available again to all of us.

I can’t wait.

See more progress on: find the perfect beer