In spring and early summer 1962, Boh had a sale on quart bottles: three quarts for $1. That's the equivalent of 8 brew-skis for a buck. That was cheap, even back then.
I was too poor to afford the senior prom but my crowd could scrape enough to have a real suds party on prom night. I had to be the showoff and bolt down my 3 quarts in 5 minutes. Dumbass.
Anyway, needless to say, it was a very wet summer.
Ummm... not really. I've got an old "New Jersey Minimum Consumer Resale Prices" book from 1964 from the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control (in NJ, there were no "sales"- the state regulated prices and MOST retailers sold beer for the same "minimum" price).
Some examples of quart ("throw-aways") prices in '64:
National- Budweiser, Miller & Schlitz - 50 cents Pabst ("now at popular prices") - 47 cents (or deposit bottle at 41 cents + 5 cents)
Regional Big Brewer- Ballantine Beer- 47 cents (or deposit bottle at 41 cents + 5 cents) Piels, Schaefer, Rheingold - same as above Schmidt's, Krueger - 42 cents Carling Black Label - 40 cents
Local/Regional "Discount" brands- Yuengling - 34 cents (or "3-pack" for $1) Old Dutch, Old German, Milwaukee - 30 cents Valley Forge- 3 for $1 Camden - 29 cents (or "3-pack" for 89 cents) Horlacher - 29 cents
And the somewhat exotic "import" from Baltimore is even listed- National Bohemian - 40 cents
WOW! 3 for .89, and in '64!
Don't recall anything like that here.
3 for $1 was the best I recall, and that was in '62.
Opps- that was a typo- the "3 pack" price was 87¢ (otherwise, the 3 bottles individually would have been cheaper- so you got the handy carboard basket for free!). If it makes you feel better, tho', Camden Brewery went out of business the year they printed that guide (1963).
Yeah, well, beer prices often vary quite a bit from state to state and memory and prices are often hazy. (What was gasoline back then- 25¢ a gallon? How many miles would you drive to save 11¢ on 3 quarts of beer? ).
Well, the other "cheapie" I found was Horlacher and they lasted well into the 70's. The '64 guide lists a case of Horlacher deposit 12 oz. bottles at $2.72. (Horlacher was a friend's fathers' beer of choice- altho' he was probably a big spender since he bought the cans (case price- $3.09)- we occassionally "borrowed" a few cans. They looked like this-
and tasted like...well, like cheap beer.
Horlacher did make a very interesting (only occassionally brewed and hard to find) called "Perfection". That was nice stuff and was probably pretty reasonable (I can't even remember beer prices from the 70's ) even tho' it was the most expensive stuff they ever brewed.
The most expensive domestic beer in 1964?
Michelob at $2.25 a six pack (versus Bud at $1.25). What later became the most expensive US non-micro, Ballantine India Pale Ale, was a bargain in '64 at only $1.42, 12¢ more than Ballantine XXX Ale ($1.30).
I lived in Arizona in 1972 or so, and Bayless Grocery Store was selling "Dutch Treat" quarts for 3/$1. They were bottled in Phoenix by A-1 which was owned I think by General Brewing, but I could be mistaken. When I opened one at home, my mother thought someone had brought diesel fuel in the house.
Tom
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