August 29, 2014

From the Land of Sky Blue Water...

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 | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 352 words, total size 2 kb.

1 There are two fairly new microbreweries within walking distance of my house.  I may go sample their fare once Fall comes around (though working up a thirst walking to a brewery in August does have an appeal).

Posted by: Siergen at August 29, 2014 02:22 PM (Sn+fi)

2

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)

3 Craft breweries and local beer is utterly massive in the States these days.  Especially in the Northwest.  It has a bit of hipsterness to it, but I know enough people that swear by them to believe it.

Posted by: sqa at August 29, 2014 06:16 PM (LtcJu)

4

"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)

5 I agree, Steven: Although many of the local (but not small) breweries of the 1910s-1950 have been bought out, there are hundreds of microbreweries out there now.

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)

6 Oh, and my daughter had a co-op job at a brewery during college! One of the perks was free beer! I would never have graduated if I'd had that job...

Posted by: Tex Lovera at August 31, 2014 09:04 PM (0uoC1)

7 Huh.  One of those commercials (the one with the bears playing baseball) lasted well into the '80s.

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)

8 As someone above mentioned, the number of breweries in the US has topped 3000 at this point, with the grand majority being rather tiny, local operations. While big brands like Bud/Miller/Coors represent about 90% of the market, they were around 95% just a few years ago, and they're tanking hard. They're trying hard to capitalize on the craft movement, which I think leads to even more consolidation (i.e. Inbev buying Goose Island, Miller/Coors investing in Terrapin, not to mention international brands, etc...), but I suspect the grand majority of small, local operations will always remain independent (or close). It's the bigger, regional breweries that may start to consolidate (or fall to the likes of Inbev, like Goose Island). All in all, the US is in fantastic shape with beer though. The consolidation of the 20th century also consolidated style and flavor. Now, we're seeing an explosion of variety and novelty, resurrections of long dead styles, crossovers with wine and spirits, etc... You like Anchor Porter? Well, now there's hundreds of other porters to choose from, probably including one made not very far from wherever you might be (and if not, there's a fair bet there will be at some point).  Not all of this will last, but it's an interesting time to be into beer!

Posted by: Mark at September 01, 2014 08:46 PM (sgEfF)

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