August 29, 2014
That's the title of a post over at Powerline today. I hadn't heard it in years, maybe decades. I knew it was from an ad for beer, but I didn't remember which one. So I hit the old search engines, and found a youtube of the ad itself. Turns out it was for Hamms beer.
I got curious to see if that brand still exists, so I looked it up. It was acquired by Heublein, who sold it to Olympia Brewing. Which was acquired by Pabst. Which in turn was acquired by Miller. Miller was purchased by South African Breweries. Which merged with MolsonCoors to form MillerCoors.
Gad. Made me wonder which other classic beer brands from around here still survived. Blitz didn't, I know.
I went to a private high school, the ritziest in town. There were two kinds of students there: bright kids on scholarship (me!) and rich kids. The two familes who owned Blitz had their kids there when I was there.
Anyway, Blitz Weinhard was purchased by Stroh, who sold it to Miller. The brewery was shut down in 1999. (Sob.)
The Olympia brewery in Tumwater was shut down. The Rainier Brewery in Seattle is no more.
I never drank any of these, back before I quit drinking entirely 19 years ago. (It wasn't good for me; I couldn't control it.) But I do remember that Blitz and Rainier had some really clever advertising back in the day, and... you know... home team and all that.
Seems like the brewing industry has undergone some ridiculously large amounts of concentration while I wasn't looking. I know Budweiser isn't an independent company any longer. (Lessee... search search search... Owned by someone called "Inbev".)
My favorite beer was Anchor Porter. My god, Anchor Brewing is still independent!! So I guess there's hope.
Actually, while all this consolidation of traditional brands was going on, little bitty craft breweries were springing up all over the place like mushrooms. I bet there are more breweries and brewing companies now than there were when I was in college.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at
01:01 PM
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Posted by: Siergen at August 29, 2014 02:22 PM (Sn+fi)
There was one in San Diego near where I used to live (long walking distance, back when I could still walk). It was a tavern which had big brewing tanks in the middle. They had several restaurants, and they made the beer for all of them at the one near me.
Just before I left they moved all the brewing to a separate building, out of the restaurant. Kind of a shame; it was neat to see all the monstrous tanks in the middle of the restaurant.
This was after I stopped drinking, so I never tasted their beer. But it sure smelled good. (And the food there was excellent, which is why I was a regular.)
Their brewmaster was partially self-taught, and he really worked hard.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at August 29, 2014 03:04 PM (+rSRq)
Posted by: sqa at August 29, 2014 06:16 PM (LtcJu)
"I bet there are more breweries and brewing companies now than there were when I was in college."
I dunno what you bet, but you won!
Posted by: Mikeski at August 29, 2014 08:16 PM (luDkn)
However, I miss the Lone Star and Pearl Breweries back in San Antonio. It's hard to believe neither is made there anymore. At least the Spoetzel Brewery is still open (and thriving!) in Shiner...
Posted by: Tex Lovera at August 31, 2014 09:01 PM (0uoC1)
Posted by: Tex Lovera at August 31, 2014 09:04 PM (0uoC1)
For some reason, I've misremembered the tag line all these years as "From the land of clear skies and blue wa-ahters (wa-ahhhters)". Go figure.
Posted by: Big D at September 01, 2014 08:32 PM (VKO9N)
Posted by: Mark at September 01, 2014 08:46 PM (sgEfF)
Enclose all spoilers in spoiler tags:
[spoiler]your spoiler here[/spoiler]
Spoilers which are not properly tagged will be ruthlessly deleted on sight.
Also, I hate unsolicited suggestions and advice. (Even when you think you're being funny.)
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