Quote:
You partook in the retro Schlitz I take it?
So that's the one you mean. I will give it an honest try if I see it.
I got my hands on some.
On my way to a grill-out at a friend's house I stopped to get some beer for the party. When I went to the cooler to get a couple of our usual favorites, there it was. Schlitz original 60's formula. Remembering what I wrote here, I bought a sixer so we could give it a try along with our regulars.
Here's the funny part. When I brought it into my friend's house, he and Lance (his wife's boss) started laughing. It turns out they had just been talking about really wanting to get some and try it out.
I had never talked about it with either one of them.
Anyway, we all liked it fine. Particularly Lance because it reminded him of the sips he got from his dad and uncle back in the day.
For my palate it was certainly more enjoyable than the usual mass market suspects, and I actually liked it. But it isn't going to displace my usual favorites in the golden lager category.
I don't know if it's an all malt beer, but it didn't strike me as something that would pass Reinheitsgebot muster. There was a sweet note in the flavor that's usually telltale for brewing with adjuncts. Corn grits being the likely suspect. Yuengling is another "old school" American Lager producer that does this. This is not the same sweetness that I taste in a more heavily malted "real" beer. I would have liked the Schlitz more if the hops were a little sharper so the sweetness would be better balanced.
It was a pleasant diversion, but I can't call it serious Pilsner. It just didn't have the bready malt note and crisp hop bite of the real thing.
