Viper Beer;

I know an awful lot about Pennsylvania beer, and I've never heard of Viper Beer. If it's canned, that cuts it down to a very small number of breweries: Pittsburgh Brewing is the most likely candidate, because Yuengling wouldn't have a reason to make something like this. There is a Viper beer dispensing system from Wunder-Bar, a glycol-chilled tap that develops a coating of ice on the tap "to let all your customers know you've got the coldest beer in town!" I guess that's not what you're talking about, if you got it from a can. But if it's 8.2%, it's no light beer: a lot of the calories come from alcohol. Light in color, light in flavor: maybe. If you see it again, take a look and see what town it comes from, that will pinpoint it.

Thanks for the reply. It says Jonesboro Pennsylvania on the can. Also on the can label, super imposed over the silhouette of a snakes head it says--- Viper High Gravity Lager. It's in a 16oz black can,that the local bar sells for $1.75 I normally drink Miller or Bud Lite & this stuff doesn't taste any "stronger" then either of those. It's good,but the barmaid showed me a advertisement flyer that came with the cases they [the bar] bought for stock & it says it's 8.2% on the flyer. It doesn't state alcohol content on the can. I've looked all over the internet,& can't find a-thing on the web about it? I was always under the impression [apparently in correctly] that we had a 6% limit in this country.--------Ron

Must be fairly new or very uncommon, not even an entry for it in the ratebeer.com database.

There's no such limit on beer in the US, although some states have limits. Pennsylvania doesn't have any alcohol limits that I'm aware of, not with Dogfish Head's 23% alcohol beers available there.

Okay, that's odd. There are no breweries in Jonesboro. Matter of fact, none of the maps or Web sources I've looked at lists a "Jonesboro, PA." Where are you in PA?

I'm not in Pennsylvania,I'm in southern Ohio. Cincinnati area. I just called the bar,& asked. I was way off on the town; [sorry-bout-that] It's the Jones brewing company of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania,& it's distributed out of "Springboro Ohio" Maybe I had more to drink then I thought.LOL Anyway it's very good but at 8.2% it might just knock-ya-on-yer-butt, Ron

Oh boy! It might be time to open your eyes to the WIDE range of beers available to you if you thought that, although most higher alcohol beers you might find shocking and they might not taste like what you think of as 'beer'.

Read some around here and go shopping!

_Randal

I thought of another question about beer; Have any of you ever heard of Prior beer? It was at one time in Pennsylvania,my last name is Prior & supposedly way-back it was part of my family. I have a Prior Beer serving tray, a few coasters, a bottle opener, & a tap handle naturally I sort-of collect the stuff

Okay. Jones Brewing was, until very recently, an old pre-Prohibition brewery in Smithton, PA. They went bankrupt, lost the brewery, and they are now contract-brewing their beer at Pittsburgh Brewing. Viper must be a new malt liquor they're making.

About Prior, I THINK that was a brand of the Christian Schmidt brewery, the familiar Schmidt's of Philadelphia (there were other Schmidt breweries). Definitely a southeast PA beer. I used to drink Prior's Double Dark when I was younger.

Prior was originally a brand of the Adam Scheidt Brewery of Norristown, PA., (which Schmidt later purchased, along with the other brands, Valley Forge and, maybe, 20th Century Ale(?)). The interesting thing about Prior was it was, IIRC, a sort of contract brew, done for the importer of Pilsner Urquell (or maybe another Czech beer (?) when supplies of the beer was cut off at the beginning of World War II. Had quite a good reputation in the pre-micro days, tho' the "light" version was eventually dumbed down to just another light lager. The dark maintained some popularity and respect (it was, after all, one of the few dark beers around) and right before the micro boom, Schmidt did a big "revival" of Prior Double Dark, complete with new, fancy bottle and new fancy price tag. (All this from memory, can't recall all the sources but I know a lot of this "myth" was recently confirmed in an article somewhere.)

As Lew notes, it was a very popular draft product on the East Coast in some markets, I recall seeing it in upstate New York and New England well into the 80's. (In New England, there was often a tap labeled just "Bavarian" which poured a dark beer, often a Falstaff/Narragansett brew.)

Since it sounds to me like I found a-couple of knowledgable guy's------------- What is the real difference between; a lager, a pilsner,an ale,& a malt liquor? If anyone hears of a "re-birth" of the Prior Beer label,how-bout posting here!! Thanks!!!---------Ron

At the risk of sounding like a wise-ass: Buy a book. Really. Or take one out of the library. Any good beer (i.e., one not written by Bob Klein) will have a better explanation that anyone's going to give you in shortened version on a newsgroup. I'd recommend Michael Jackson' Beer Companion, but it seems to be out of print. There are many more available (unlike 20-30 years ago). I'm sure there's something good on the 'net, as well, but off hand don't have any links.

Hmmm... most of the C. Schmidt's & Sons labels went to Heileman, and most of Heileman's went to Stroh, which then went to Pabst. Along the way, some were sold to others, so, unless the beer is still being made, it's hard to say who owns what.

"Reborn" US brands have not done too well, in general- for various reasons, I guess, but either the brand was so old no one remembered it or it couldn't overcome it's latter day image of "cheap beer". Off hand, I can think of Jones in NH, Rheingold in NY, a Washington DC brand (?), a Montana brand (?), Erlanger from Schlitz, and probably half a dozen more were tried. In the mid-West I guess there's been some success with the Augsburger and Gluek brands. The only one I can think of that has lasted at all is North Coast's ACME- which was once merely just another discount supermarket beer from General (Lucky) inside one of the nicest US beer cans.

I'm sure I'm leaving a number of them out, since they tend to be very regional.

JK (still waiting for someone to rescue the Ballantine Ale brands (XXX Ale, Brewer's Gold Ale, India Pale Ale and Burton Ale) from Pabst/Miller...)

Some sources (notoriously incorrect sources*) claim that "Prior" was named after, and/or was a contract-brew of a Czech brand Prior, which was eventually absorbed by Pilsner Urquell. As I said elsewhere, I've recently read a good history of this beer, dispelling some of the myths and inaccuracies but can't recall where it was...sorry.

(*For instance, the same source says that the beer was developed because of import difficulties during and after World War I, but, of course, ALL beer was rare then, since Prohibition lasted from 1918-1933...)

Did this history happen to talk about the persistent rumor that Saranac Black Forest is brewed to the Prior Double Dark formula? I've been hearing that for about ten years now.

Maybe......

Certainly, Prior Double Dark was around well after the demise of C. Schmidt in 1986. After Heileman purchased the labels of Schmidt, were all the brands coming out of Baltimore or did they contract brew some stuff? Did Matts make draft PDD at some point, and thus the "rumor"?

An interesting note is that McSorley's (for a time a Schmidt's brand), now brewed in Wisconsin IIRC, has a dark beer called "Double Dark".

Story was that the recipe and the yeast wound up at Matt's in the late

1980s, and they started making a draft-only beer called Black Forest Porter. It wasn't bottled till sometime around 1996. Don't remember when I first heard the Prior's connection, but it's been a while.

Damn. I gotta find someone who really knows.

In a nutshell, and at risk of omitting something because I'm in a hurry...there are 2 general types od beer, ale and lager. The differences are mainly in the type of yeast used (ale or lager yeast) and the fermentation temps. (ales warmer, lagers colder). Pilsner is a type of lager. Malt liquor is a marketing or legal designation give to certain beers with alcohol content higher than average (NAIL) beers.

-------->Denny

No offence taken!, good advise. I just thought I'd throw the question out to the group. As a matter of fact there's a good book store not far from me & I think I'll do just that,cause i really would like to learn more. Thanks-------Ron