We used to drink Big Bear and Olde English quite frequently back in college. We bought that stuff by the case. Much cheaper than beer, and beats the heck out of drinking that horrid Nati Lite junk! Intoxication effects are much quicker with ML...

I learned Fists of Steel in Florida, where 32oz is the largest sized container available.

Wow, you are bringing back some memories. Olde E was charcoal filtered...and tasted like liquid charcoal. To offset the effects, we would always have a bottle of Malt Duck available. Malt Duck was an impossibly sweet Malt Liquor, flavored with grape. You would drink some Olde E, then wash it down with some Duck....and wait for the intoxication and queasiness to begin! Many a night was spent with friends drinking this concoction in the early 1980's.

I know were talking ML here but that post early in the thread about maddog 20/20 got me thinking and a google search turned up http://www.bumwine.com/ this pretty interesting and funny site.

Thanks for the information! Always glad to know more about that kind of thing.

I'll disagree. "Malt Liquor" isa product aimed at an indentifiable and addressable market segment, few of whom are looking for "high octane" beers or the expensive to produce/distribute "craft" beers.

"Cheap" and "plenty of buzz", in most cases available in a big container are the keynotes, and the folks buying and drinking malt liquor won't be switched to "Chimay", etc., no more so than will drinkers of "Thunderbird" start buying "Harvey's Bristol Cream".

As I read it, gregwiggins's original point was just the opposite.

Because of the legislation, even the "high octane" or "craft" beers were required to be called malt liquors, which turned off the intended buyers because of the cheap buzz reputation.

The makers of Chimay certainly do not think the average malt liquor buyer would look for their product, but they certainly would not want to have their beer called malt liquor.

Cheers,
T.

In Texas at least "Malt Liquor" was always malt liquor and beers with higher alcohol content were still "beer" (or ale). The differences were the nature of the license (and the "local option" status) required to sell them. Malt liquor was the quintessential niche market product, at the end of the cooler in convenience stores, and except for a few (Micky's plus a Schlitz product) almost always available only in big bottles (and these days, some "Tall Boy" type cans).

Does anyone recall the year when Schlitz introduced the original "Tall Boy"? In Texas, it must have been about 1955, but introduction must have been based on the laws of individual states which also regulated the size of beer containers. In Texas, before the Tall Boy, beer (and ML) could only be sold in 12 ounce or 32 ounce containers. Was Micky's the first "Pull tab"?

By 1970 or so, the local Owens Illinois glass plant had converted its total production to disposable beer bottles, and the old returnables quickly disappeared. We completed our first "Convention Center" here in 1971. I was appointed to the Board by the Mayor. The Board's Chair was a former Mayor, soon to retire as general manager of the local "Owenized" glass plant. The Convention Center only sold beer in bottles (disposable) since the nearest can factory was up on the Southside of Fort Worth, next door to what had been anew Carling's Brewery, the first "continuous run" brewing operation in the US. Black Label was so disdained that the plant was soon paying exhorbitant sewer charges because it had to pump over-production down the drain. Quickly, Miller had purchased the brewery, retooled to normal brewing, and used it as a test plant for the new "Lite", which soon became the #1 seller in Texas, dethroning such perennial leaders as Lone Star and Pearl, and once quite popular Schlitz (brewed in Longview, TX, and only kept afloat here by its "Old Milwaukee" down-price brand, very popular on draught in the hundreds of ethnic "Lodge Halls" around the state).

For several years, the newly locally distributed Coors "Banquet" and Miller "Lite" were Texas market leaders. Between refrigerated shipment and the local distributor, Cowboy Hall of Famer, Bob Lily and his distribution manager, ex-Cowboy George Andre', Coors had a good run of popularity here, although local glass plant and General Tire workers were able to keep it out of some coolers because of its non-union production. While in college, we would haul whisk(e)y and vodka to dry counties in far West Texas for illegal sale, then fill up the trunk with Coors, available as far down as Lubbock, to carry back to Austin, where it wasa cult favorite. Of course, back then, "Shiner" was only popular in the few counties around the brewery in Shiner, disdained elsewhere, and "Corona" was the most downscale of Mexican beers, little more than a generic, found in cheap Mexican saloons/whorehouses and on one of the Mexican airlines.

Must’ve been around the same time Party Quarts came out. Different demographic back then. :D


http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...64ndjgyr7s.jpg

I haven't had a Malt Liquor in years but in the day it was usually a six pack of Schlitz Malt liquor talls. I think it was about 3.50 for a six. That and five bucks to split a dime bag and we were set.

they are doing things on the cheap though, grilling hot dogs & drinking party quarts:)

Get your girl in the mood quicker
Get your jimmy thicker
with St. Ides Malt Liquor

15 or 20 years ago when I was a poor college student, I was a huge fan of Mickey's. My favourite thing was that they had 22oz bottles for exactly half the price of a 40oz, so I could get 4oz of free, delicious malt liquor.

I actually picked up a bottle a couple of years ago in a fit of nostalgia. Man, I had horrible taste in college...

OE all the way, yo! :cool:

I'm so just kidding!! :eek: The last time I downed a 40 was hilarious, though! So funny, in fact, that now I am wondering if I can find some 40s at ye olde Duty Free... . @:-)

And I always thought that you were a Champale kinda gal!!!:D