Stroh's Beer...

No.

Well, when the brewery still existed, they made a big deal out of "fire brewing" (i.e, the brew kettle was heated by a (gas) flame, rather than steam jacket) and, during their brief ascent to one of the "Big 5" and crash, they did spend money converting their new breweries to the technique. (Does the can even mention "Fire Brewed" anymore?) The beer, once regional, did have a *slightly* different taste and so a bit of a cachet outside of it's normal distribution area in the pre-micro days, but not enough to impress me.

Of course, Stroh the company is gone, so who knows what Pabst/Miller is doing to it.

Unpopular? I suppose it's how you define it. Certainly the brewery got very big very fast (altho' it seems the sales were heavily dependent on the newly acquired Schlitz brands like Old Milwaukee and not just the flagship label) and then simply sold out when the Stroh family decided to get out of the business. I work in the auto industry and visit the Detroit area frequently and I was always surprised how by the 90's the "hometown" brand had disappeared so quickly as a draft product- they had, by then, unsentimentally closed the original brewery. Labatt's seemed to be the "local" draft brand of ILL.

Garbage--wouldn't drink it for free

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 07:53:42 -0400, "James Calivar" wrote in annoying top-posting fashion:

Stroh's *was* "fire-brewed. Since there's no more Stroh brewery, there's no more "fire-brewing" kettles.

Since Stroh's is just a "virtual" brand, brewed at Miller under contract from Pabst, this no longer seems likely.