Olympia, it's definitely the water, yargh.

Schlitz was once a fine beer....outselling even Budweiser. Never one of my personal faves, but still fairly decent. A little less sweet than most of the big national beers.

Unfortunately around the early 1970s, some corporate suits thought they could cut costs with a new "streamlined" brewing process. The rest, as they say, is history....or more correctly, "infamy"!

Then in the late '70s, they came up with the "Drink Schlitz or I'll kill you" ad campaign.

They never recovered.

Lowenbrau comes to mind as another beer of that era that got "hijacked" by the corporate bean counters. Someone decided that it would be okay to produce what had been a noble and truly outstanding German beer at Miller facilities in Texas and elsewhere "for the American pallate".

They also never recovered.

Tuborg, as well. :td:

I know one customer that Molson lost as a result. The original had a flavor reminiscent of Welch's grape juice. I miss that and no longer buy Molson Canadian.

Iron City Beer -- "a rusty nail in every can" --

(from Pittsburg, PA, of course)

That brings us to "Old Frothingslosh"...started as a joke by IC. "The pale stale ale for the pale stale male".

Natural Light Ice tops the list for me. It's one of the few cheap beers I cannot stomach.

Cheap beers have their charm just as a fine crafted beer does. Well, not exactly th same, but...well, you know what I mean. I'll drink them for a specific desired effect - a hurting stomach but a less hurting wallet. That said, I do actually enjoy a few which have already been mentioned. On that list is Shaffer, Carling's Black Label (not down south, though), PBR and Miller High Life - the champagne of beers (so they say...)!!

Somebody mentioned Red, White & Blue. I was dismayed to learn in college that the lemonade button on our dorm coke machine resulted in RW&B. Bleh.

You're right, Natty Ice is bad bad bad.

miller

At least this bear knows which one is bad for him:D

"A bear had apparently tried out and rejected the mass-market Busch beer in favour of local brand Rainier."

I prefer Busch to the supposedly premium products Budweiser and Michelob.

Another vote for Keystone! :td:

Hmm, I simply can't understand people who would argue about which US-produced beer is better or worse. This side of the Atlantic we have our on take on that:

Q: What do American beer and sex in a canoe have in common?

A: They're both f---ing close to water! :p

Some American beer is quite good, except it's not really marketed outside the USA.

I'm not a huge beer drinker.. usually go for Yuengling here in PA or Pacifico back in the southwest but there's some fairly good beers in the US.

You're right. It's hopeless as long as UK pubs stock Bud Light and market it as a premium draft beer.

Shiner Bock is not a bad beer at all, hard to find outside Texas. But I think the difference is that the 'mainstream' Beers in the UK are of a much higher quality than 'mainstream' beers in the US.

I think the aformentioned Goebel's ($7 a case in college during the late '80s, we called it "joe-BELL", the beer of French kings") is the worst I've tried. I'd rather go without rather than sip that swill, which is saying something for me. I also cannot stand Rolling Rock.

I agree; best US beers are microbrews or regional specialties. Mass produced/marketed 'local' or microbrewed beers haven't done well outside the US if they even bothered to compete.

Lagunitas (Calif), Abita (Deep South/Louisiana) and Yuengling (PA and surrounding areas) are three off the top of my head that come to mind.

I do like Sam Adams and it's marketed around the US but I wouldn't be shocked if they didn't even compete in Canada.

I'd love to get my hands on a six-pack of Generic Beer, since I'm a big fan of Repo Man (the movie). It appears that one can buy single empties for collections off of eBay.

My vote for this thread is Schaefer and Stroh's.