Rainier better than Busch?

SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) -- A black bear was found passed out at a campground in Washington state recently after guzzling down three dozen cans of a local beer, a campground worker said on Wednesday.

It turns out the bear was a bit of a beer sophisticate. He tried a mass-market Busch beer, but switched to Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck with it for his drinking binge

Reply to
mary
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Contradictory message here.

Is the Reuters writer talking about Rainier Ale? That's an old favorite of mine. But the cans now bear a message that it is brewed in Irwindale, CA.

Does the Rainier Brewery in Seattle still exist? Do they still make a Rainier Beer? I have pleasant memories of taking tours of that brewery and its bottling plant.

To answer the question in the subject line, anything is better than Busch. Boycott nuisance advertisers.

Reply to
Herb Childs

I think the writer was just being "cute" and using "ale" as a synonym for beer, not realizing that Rainier Beer and Rainier Ale ARE to different products.

That's an old

Mine, too, back in the 70's when I lived in LA and couldn't easily find Ballantine XXX Ale. Back then, Rainier Ale was hard to find and Rainier Beer didn't make down there at all.

But the cans now bear a message that it is brewed

Yeah, that'd be the Miller brewery...

Nope. Rainier went the Heileman > Stroh > Pabst >owned by Pabst, brewed by Miller route, with the brewery itself closing with the demise of Stroh.

Do they still make a

It's one of the Pabst brands that Miller (and others) brews for them.

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Reply to
jesskidden

Jeeez, does Pabst own every local brand that went out of business thanks to A-B, Miller and Coors? The only brand that I don't see is Knickerbocker. Perhaps George Steinbrenner could resurrect this brand. It would be a fitting tribute to Colonel Ruppert, a former owner of the Yankees and Knickerbocker beer. He could set up a microbrewery in the Bronx near where Yankee Stadium is. He's supposedly going to spend a lot of money on a new stadium in the near future. Why not a new brewery as well? When was the last time there was a brewery in the Bronx?

Bruce

Reply to
Bruce

Just about, only a handful survive (and we used to think in the 70's that only a handful was left...). Yuengling, for instance, is now the fifth largest brewer in the US- sure, they've grow a lot but it's mostly due to everyone else going under. The real sad fact is that Pabst has NO breweries and Miller (and, in some cases, a few regionals) brew all their beers.

Certainly as beer brands went from closed brewery to brewery, in many cases "lesser" brands got dropped along the way. Rheingold brewed and marketed Knickerbocker (supposedly their biggest market was actually New England) in the 60's and 70's and most of the Rheingold brands were sold to Schmidt's of Phila. (altho' Ortlieb picked up a few, as well, like McSorley's). I seem to remember Schmidt's making Knickerbocker for awhile but don't think I've seen it once it went to Heileman and then Stroh. On occasion, some of these brands get sold to other local breweries (Rheingold is back in the hands of an indie who has Matts and a brooklyn micro brew it, for example) but some just get lost.

Well, Brooklyn was the big brewing borough (better water), tho' Ruppert's brewery was on Manhattan island, IIRC. Don't recall ANY Bronx brewers...

Reply to
jesskidden

That's a lot more "local" than a Rainier I drank in Washington state earlier this summer. My Rainier was brewed at the Miller plant in Eden, NC!

Reply to
Micke Boone

Rheingold I've been told had a brewery in the Bronz on Fulton Ave in the E150's (I'm thinking like between 153 St and 157...took up a few blocks). Maybe Boston Road? Third Ave? Somewhere in that vicinity. Been years since I've passed it (9+) and at the time had been abandond for many years prior.

Reply to
Jimmy

Yeah, Rheingold in it's heyday had a number of breweries (even 2 in California, having bought Acme, which they renamed California Brewing Co. in SF but continued to brew Acme beer and ale).

In 1947, they bought the Eichler Brewing Co. at 3582 Third Ave. in the Bronx and ran that brewery until 1961.

Their main brewery was the one in Brooklyn on Forrest St (off Bushwick), which brewed from 1855 to 1976, so they will always be thought as a "Brooklyn Brewery" (even tho' their Orange, NJ brewery- bought from Trommers in 1950 survived a few years after the closing of Brooklyn).

Many brewery history books make separate note of Brooklyn breweries (which once had 43 brewers) but usually just lump the others together as "New York City" breweries.

Reply to
jesskidden

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