Friday, March 4, 2011

The Session #49- The Regular Beer

This month's topic for The Session, comes from one of the original creators, Stan at Appellation Beer.  The topic: regular beer.  He asks:

Please write about a regular beer (time to lose the quotation marks). You get to define what that means, but a few possibilities:
* It might be your “go to” beer, brewed commercially or at home. The one you drink regularly.
* I could be a beer your enjoy on a regular special occasion. When in San Francisco I always like to start with draft Anchor Liberty Ale. But it might be your poker night beer.
* It doesn’t have to be a “session beer,” but it can be.
* It probably shouldn’t have an SPE of more than $25 (that’s a very soft number; prices may vary by region and on premise further confuses the matter). Ask yourself, is it what somebody in a Miller High Life TV commercial in the 1970s could afford? Because affordability matters. I’m all for paying a fair price (which can mean higher than we’d like) to assure quality and even more for special beers, but I’m not ready to part with the notion that beer should be an everyman’s drink.
* Brewery size, ownership, nationality do not matter. Brew length doesn’t matter. Ingredients don’t matter. It feels a little strange typing that last sentence, since the Mission Statement here says ingredients matter. But I hope you get the point. I prefer beer that costs a little more because its ingredients cost more, because there’s more labor involved. You don’t have to. Beer should be inclusive.
 When I first read about the topic, many beers came to the forefront of my brain.  I could do it on some special beer that I love to drink when I see it; I could write about some local beer that most people don't know about, but would love it when they try it; I could use the old "the next beer is my favorite regular beer" cop-out; or I just just plain and simply say Yuengling.

I have posted on here before about Yuengling.  It is cheap, has a nice taste and you can put back quite a few (some might call it a session beer- depending on your abv definition).  For me it is also a local beer.  I have a two friends that work there (one in marketing, one in the brewhaus). And finally, everyone likes it- well, no one complains about it.

It started when we first came of age, no one liked the cheap stuff, so we went the next realm up (a whole $4 more- to college kids that seemed like the world).  We knew we liked better beer, Bass/Harp/Guinness when we had the cash, and Selin's Grove Brewpub was a must on the weekends.  But straight up, price/taste/drinkability- Yuengling made the most sense.

So tonight I raise a pint to the brewers from Pottsville, Pa.  Thank you for brewing Lager.

On a side note, I do enjoy their other beers. Lord Chesterfield was always in the fridge, and now their Bock has really started to show up- it has the same qualities- cheap/good tasting/session beer.

4 comments:

  1. Great choice. I would often pick up a case or two when I went home to see my family. Now, I have my own local lager to enjoy up here in Rhode Island (Narragansett!) so there isn't too much need to do that. But, I like to raise a bottle when I can still. Great cheap beer.

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  2. @Barroomhero- I have yet to try Narragansett, but have heard many comparisons between it and Yuengling.

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  3. Every time I get to the East Coast, I make an effort to have at least a pint or two of Yuengling. It just has this hard to define quality I don't find anywhere else.

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  4. My wife is from Scranton and every time we visit the inlaws Yuengling Traditional Lager is my go-to beer. There's nothing better than Yuengling on draft with Old Forge pizza!

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