I recently had a Yuengling lager on an East coast trip. I know it’s not anything super special, but I really liked it. It seemed to be just a bit deeper than your typical lager.
I can’t buy it in Colorado. Any recommendations for something you can buy in the West that is similar?
They describe their lager as “pre prohibition” style. Which I have never heard before.
The thing about it is the price. I grew up with it and I remember when it was one of the best beers you could get (1980’s). It’s a solid 80-85pt beer on taste & qpr. Certainly better than similar stuff at the price point. So the question is, what can you get for $20/cs in Colorado?
A little brewing history:
Until the 1840s, the color of your beer was irrelevant, because you were drinking it out of a clay/wood/leather mug. With the advent of affordable glassware, brewers started looking to lighten the color of their beers (this led to the development of Vienna-style lagers and Pilseners). Some of the constraints were brewing water and available malt. Brewers in America found that the local barley, a six row variety, had lots more enzymatic power than continental varieties. Using this malt, they could create paler (and cheaper) beers than their European counterparts by adding corn (an adjunct) to the mash. By prohibition, they were using about 30-35% corn in the mash. Today’s mass-market beers are more like 50-60% adjuncts, and rice has become more popular than corn (rice has a cleaner taste). So a pre-prohibition lager should have more malt character and less of a “corny” element to it, although it should use corn as the adjunct.
I thought Yuengling was a small step up from most standard American lagers, but still not in the same class as the true craft lagers, like Victory, Chuckanut, and Heater Allen.
It’s also interesting to see what is considered large production versus craft beer. Yuengling is the 4th largest brewery in America, but the brewers association considers them a craft brewery.
I know Sam Adams fights hard to keep themselves labeled as “craft”.
But it seems Yuengling was not a craft brewery in 2013.
I hate to keep harping on the price thing but for those of you who don’t know Yuengling here’s a list of current prices from the discounter in NJ where I pick up when I’m visiting my parents.
No container deposit in NJ. Add 7% sales tax
Lager
6pk bottles $5.99
Loose 24pk cans/bottles $19.99
Premium (analog to a regular Coors or Bud)
loose cans 24pk $13.99
6pk bottles $5.29
Specialty–Summer Wheat, Bock Beer, Porter, Lord Chesterfield Ale
$6.69/6pk
In NYC it’s like $12.99/12pk+dep for Lager and B&T so not a huge price difference.
From the Beer Advocate list posted above, I think the Leinenkugel is probably the closest in quality/price to the regular lager.
So the thing is if you’re paying more for stuff like Stella, Corona, Bud, Coors, Miller, etc when you can get Yuengling you’re a dummy IMHO, but if you aren’t in an area where you can get it, there probably isn’t much else that compares for a similar price, and it’s probably worth it to pay more for a true craft lager.
Jim Koch, owner of Sam Adams has been heavily involved in the Brewers Association for a really long time, and his lobbying has pushed up the limit of what is defined as a Craft Brewery at least twice. Problem is, that when they raised the limit the last time, they also captured Yuengling. It’s hypocritical when Sam Adams is considered Craft and Widmer (non-controlling 32% owned by InBev but 1/5 the size) is not. BTW, Sam Adams also owns Angry Orchard cider, and they sell as much of that as they do beer. They are not a Craft Brewery regardless of what the Brewers Association says.
Other brewers that I talk to put the limit on a true Craft Brewery anywhere from 500,000 to 1,000,000 barrels. One thing is clear, when you advertise on national TV and radio, you’re not a Craft Brewery. Frankly I look at anyone over 15,000 barrels as a regional brewery - a category between true craft breweries and the big boys.
The term “Craft” brewery has very little meaning anymore. I feel similar about “organic”.
I haven’t had a yuengling for a long long time, but when I did, I thought it was definitely better than Coors and all the other big beers named above. YMMV.
I tasted Yuengling alongside Budweiser with a couple of coworkers, really wanted the former to be better, and everyone agreed that they were VERY similar in terms of quality. Yuengling is really only a minute step up from what Brian mentioned, if any. Maybe you enjoyed it so much because of the setting. I would get some much better German beer for a nice, refreshing lager.