What do you mean? Nothing more Catholic than a 12 pack of beer and a Totinos frozen pizza.
No More Schlitz
- Thread starter NorthCyd
- Start date
Yeah, that was about the time that the brewery started messing with the recipe. They tried to cut corners to pad the bottom line and it really impaired the quality of their beer. Your experience was common. From Wikipedia:
By 1967, the company's president and chairman was August Uihlein's grandson, Robert Uihlein Jr. Faced with a desire to meet large volume demands while also cutting the cost of production, the brewing process for Schlitz's flagship Schlitz beer was changed in the early 1970s. The primary changes involved using corn syrup to replace some of the malted barley, adding a silica gel to prevent the product from forming a haze, using high-temperature fermentation instead of the traditional method, and also substituted less-expensive extracts rather than traditional ingredients even building a new brewery specifically designed to use the process in Baldwinsville, New York. The reformulated product resulted in a beer that not only lost much of the flavor and consistency of the traditional formula, but also spoiled more quickly, rapidly losing public appeal.
During the reformulating period of the early 1970s, the original Schlitz beer formula was lost and never included in any of the subsequent sales of the company. Through research of documents and interviews with former Schlitz brewmasters and taste-testers, Pabst was able to reconstruct the 1960s classic formula. The new Schlitz beer, along with a new television advertising campaign, was officially introduced in 2008.
I don't know who is brewing it, but I 'very enjoyed a refreshing Hamms several times over the last couple of years!
Also, there used to be a saying, "Let's get schlitz-faced."
Same strategy. We'd pack our cooler with stuff like Old Milwaukee, Hamms, Old Style, Schlitz, PBR, and Miller High Life. Strangers would stop by our party and ask if they could have a beer. They'd open the cooler and just walk away sometimes. Others thought it was cool we had something besides Busch & Bud Light. They could stay.
Back when High Life Lounge was still cool, we were there in that 2008 timeframe when they reintroduced Schlitz to their lineup. They were doing all kinds of giveaways and dumb stuff. I remember I did some phony rocket build where you had to build a rocket with the minimal supplies they offered. Just something out of paper and what not sort of thing. Well, I won and got a number of free beers for my table. I still have my Schlitz bottle opener from that day and some beads.
Hamms has been my "keep stocked in the fridge" beer since college - it's just the perfect balance of taste versus price. There used to be a distributor that would bring it to New Mexico (and let me tell you - it hits just right in the dry heat), but COVID killed it off. Now I just bring 30s back with me when I make my semi-annual trips back to Iowa.
Schlitz was from a different era. So was some of its advertising:
Not sure where you're at in NM, but you can get it at a number of places up here in CO.
Once again proving the aging demographic of this community. Even my old ass was a kid when Billy Beer was a thing!
I heard stories of my grandpa drinking Hamms. So I tried it a few years ago. It’s great for the hot as **** summer days, post yard mowing beverage.