The Black Label we drank around here was brewed in Natick "on the shores of Lake Cochituate".

Both Gansett and Black Label were better than Knickerbocker, though.

The only time Gansett really went down well was around 7:15 AM after you just got off work on the graveyard shift. A couple of 25 cent drafts at Duffy's Bar in Pawtucket were the perfect nightcap. If you really wanted to wake up in a room that smelled like a sewer, you chased a pickeled egg down with a few quarter draft Gansetts :laugha:

Gotta love those bars that opened at 6 AM--if you ever wanted to see what hard core boozers looked like, it was like visiting the Smithsonian of Alkies.

Life's too short to drink cheap beer any more ;)

My Dad used to buy Black Label and Kinck all the time and I can remember sneaking a few and man they were bad. Knick had rice in the ingrediants and they boasted about that. The Black Label can had to be the coolest design ever. If I remember they had a red Canadian Maple leaf on it with a map of the world and red dots where I'm guessing were supposed Black Label markets. A real international gem!:spin: I never knew it was from Natick.:gu:

Dawson beer plant in New Beige was nearly in my back yard. The aroma of the brew was pleasent along with Wonder bread being baked daily literally next door. The only way I would drink that beer was with a spoon of sugar
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I visited the Carling Black Label brewery in Natick several times. They also had Red Cap ale which wasn't too bad.

Best brewery story I heard was from an old reformed street bum. He was a true bum , sleeping on the streets etc. He used to talk about a brewery in New Haven right next to Yale. He said there was a tap coming out the side of the brewery wall so that the truckers delivering the beer could fill up a mug on the way out from the loading docks. He said that the security guard had a deal with all the local bums. To keep them away when the bosses were around the deal was they could go to the truckers tap and drink all they wanted after like 4:30 PM for about a half hour. If he caught any near there during the day he would shut the tap off to them after work. He said the bums watched the place like hawks to be sure nobody went near it during the day.

Also , when the Narracansett Brewery was in RI , in addition to an hourly wage and some other benefits , every employee was allowed a certain number of beers each day free WHILE THEY WERE WORKING!!! They also got to take home a certain number each night. Apparently it was one of the most valued benefits of working in a brewery.

Some know that I am a long time brewer and almost opened a Microbrewery locally in 1987. I went to many breweries all over New England. Some tours were the best with every inch of the brewery covered and then a long time in the guests lounge for "tasting". Some were just a quick sweep through and into the lounge for just one or two tastes. Eventually some breweries started charging for a brewery tour. What a rip off!

Gansett had a strong larger taste. A larger is made with different yeast than an ale and to optimize the health of the yeast it is fermented about 10 degrees lower (or even much cooler sometime) than an ale. It imparts a very distinct taste. If you got gansett fresh and did not allow it to cycle warm then cold then warm , it had that distinct lager taste. I liked a Gansett ice cold after working in the summer heat or after golfing on a summer afternoon (at one point in my life I played golf several times each week) . I would pound one ice cold one down then nurse another.

Gansett was better when brewed in Cranston. Like almost all beers , its better fresh and the local brewery helped insure it was fresher than something coming in from Wisconson.

I remember as a kid (14 or so)when striper fishing with my dad and uncle and I asked for a beer one night. My dad handed me a Schmidts in one of the little brown bottles. OoohlyChrist that was bitter. I think that drove me away from drinking beer until I went to college.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-140...eature=related

salthart i know a older gent that worked at narragansett brewery and he told me about the free beer for employees he also told me that if he was having a party he could take home a few cases

In these hard economic times why not bring back "Billy Beer" or generic "BEER"?

I was at UMass Amherst from 1984-1988. My buddies and I drank, in no particular order:

Narragansett - "Hi neighbor, have a 'Gansett!"
Piels - "A Real Drinking Man's Beer!"
Stroh’s
Schaefer - "The one beer to drink when you're drinking more than one!"
Carling’s Black Label - "People try it and they like it"
Fort Schuyler
Matt's beer ball
our favorite, however, was Ballantine - the 3 rings stand for Purity, Body, Flavor

I was in the band at UMass and I think I have a picture of me at practice one Friday evening with a Narragansett pounder in the bell of my saxophone. I wonder where that picture is?

I still have some beer trays from my grandfather. The Dr. Suess guy did the art for some of them. He used to have them in cases of quart bottles in these extremely strong cardboard boxes. Tried a sample from a pretty young woman in a liquor store a few years back.:yak5::yak5:

I believe at the anheisuer-busch breweries they're allowed to drink beer during the day as long as they're not drunk. Has anyone found gansett in any container besides six packs of long necks or six packs of 16 oz cans?

recently I mean. I can't find any twelve packs

Beer snobs.
I drink Gansett and Gansett light; good on a hot day.
I like a stout if I'm having one or two, but if I was at a cook-out and had a choice between Guiness and Gansett on a hot day, I'm going gansett....

6 gansett drafts and 3 pickled eggs were grounds for divorce.
also violated the pure food act.
also considered hazerdous waste

I'm with you on that one. I'm not a huge beer drinker, more wine and rum but I definitely have some beers too. One thing I've noticed with the beer drinkers at least in the US is that there are so many people who want to consider themselves "beer afficionados" but know zero about even the most basic aspects of beer. For the most part they equate quality of beer to price. AKA gansett's cheap so it suck and guinness is relatively expensive so it's awesome. In the wine world there are some fantastic $10 bottles and some god awful $200 bottles and I think it's the same deal in the beer world just that people want to be thought of as knowledgeable about brew so they couldn't be seen drinking cheap beer. There are so many so called "craft or micro brews" that are just garbage beers and people love to pay $15 for a 4 pack it amazes me. I'm not going to say which ones I feel that way about because I don't want to further an arguement. Obviously more often than not more expensive beers are better tasting and drinking with more interest and complexity than cheap beers my point is that don't count out every cheap beer. The great thing about bad beer compared to badwine, scotch, rum etc is that bad beer tends to be very bland and watery but very drinkable which is inoffensive and boring where the others tend to be gut wrenching and horrible. Now this is just my observation so I'm not trying to start a big debate here. Just wanted to throw that out there feel free to throw it right back.

My major Knock on Gansett is it is way too overcarbonated.

as far as Micro Brews......up until they came around all american beer pretty much tasted the same....subtle differences yeah, but they were all basically the same. You want to talk Beer Snobs, how about the guys that will drink a Bud religiously but turn there nose up at a Coors...give me a break, they are the friggin same thing.

Thanks to the Micro brew rage American beer now has Flavors...different Flavors from different breweries.

People now can Drink IPA's (my personal favorite) ESB's, Porters, Stouts, Heffeweizens, Lambics, Belgian Whites and Abbey Ales. Beers made from Wheat and Rye, Beers made with Honey, Maple Syrup, and Molasses, Beers with Flavors like Blueberry and Strawberry (Yeah, I know, Don't Fruit the Beer), Pumpkin (another of my Favorites), and different Spices.

I agree, there are plenty of people that think because they are expensive they are good....those are also the same people that buy Heineken.

Most people that spend money on Micro brew do so for the Flavor.

My Philosophy on why beers like Bud Light are so Popular is so someone can go "Dude, I kicked a Whole 30 last Night".......and don't get me wrong here either, I love an Ice Cold Bud that's just come out of the cooler, little beads of water and Ice crystals lazily sliding down the outside of the can, on a hot summer day when doing yardwork.

***Disclaimer*** No, I'm not a beer expert, But I did wake up on the floor of a Holiday Inn Express many times

Yeah what TDF said... I HATE mass produced american beer, WHEN I'm sitting down to enjoy a beer or three... They are tasteless. My current Fave is BerkshireBrewingCo's Drayman Porter...TASTEY!

WHen it's hot out and I"m pulling out an ice cold beer from the cooler? Give me an MGD any day of the week.

I'm definitely not a beer expert, but I must be a beer snob. I can drink Bud Heavies (and enjoy them), but I can't drink a Coors Light (although Coors regular is o.k.). Coors Light to me just tastes bad. I also will choose Miller Lite over Bud Light any day of the week.

I have to get some Gansett on my next packie run. I had a sample of the Gansett Light at the RISSA show but it was too small and I drank it too fast to notice how it tasted.

Your point about heineken is right on. as lightish lagers go a bud will beat that any day of the week. My point is that a lot of people love to buy some obscure beer made by elves in the vermont mountains or something and talk about how great it is when they wouldn't know the difference between good beer and soda. They just like the image of some sort of beer sophistication. I agree the mass marketed american lagers are pretty boring and the micro brew scene has brought a lot of new aspects to the american beer scene (particularly in the brewing process, regardless of the varietal). I was just pointing out that because a beer is expensive and made in small quantities does not make it good or even worth drinking. Gansett is far from a masterpiece but I would take it over a few of the bilgewater start up micros out there. On the other hand if you do your homework there are some amazing micros being made very locally and the breweries are a lot of fun to go visit.

I agree, there are plenty of people that think because they are expensive they are good....those are also the same people that buy Heineken.

:rollem: :exp: So essentially what you're saying is that people who buy and drink Heinies have no flavor preferrences or taste and do so strictly because if it's expensive it's good. That's a pretty profound statement. By what insight do you profess to know what every beer drinker looks for and enjoys from his favorite brew. I was drinking and enjoying Heiniken when about half of these pretentious connesuers were still inside their daddy's _alls!!! :eek:And after 40 years I don't do it to impress, I like it .:hidin::cheers:

I used to drink Schmidt beer all the time in my early 20s and found Grumpy Bear and Rutting Elk Beers on a trip to Canada. All 3 taste a little rough, but I liked them because they had Fish, Elk and Bears on the labels... And Schmidt was $4.00 a 12 pack :cheers2:
I've drank beer from all over the world during my 20 in the navy and beer is a lot like.........http://www.jigzone.com/t/jz/isA/KittenYarn.jpg

"It's all good"

http://ohla.webpark.pl/schmidt_beer_21big_0355_usa.jpghttp://ohla.webpark.pl/schmidt_beer_07big_0355_usa.jpg
http://www.thegrizzlypaw.com/files/i...mpyProduct.jpg
http://www.thegrizzlypaw.com/files/i...ElkProduct.jpg

those are some cool labels!

Very cool labels! Beer is like p*&^%@$y I have issues with though. Just as there are skunky beers there are........well, enough said!:yak4:

If you like heineken, Great...then by all means enjoy. that was the whole point of my argument.....now we have variety in beers instead of everything basically tasting the same.

Like I said I can enjoy pretty much any beer, under the right circumstances.....

and I'm not saying everybody out there that drinks Heineken has no flavor preferences or taste.....I'm saying that there are a lot of people out there who buy it because they think it should taste better because its more expensive....and they do exist.

sorry if I offended the Heineken drinkers out there........

True, but even a skunky beer is better than "no beer"
same goes for the other :hihi:

Skunky beer doesnt usually result in getting shots

I guess Im a beer snob, nothing is better than Chimay or Cisco Brewery Moor Porter.

I really like the cisco porter and sankaty light. I wish you could get them in more than 4 packs though:cheers2:

actually I like the rum those guys make too. Or age not make.

There is no sense in aguing or offending people about their taste in beer. No knowledge or cost or fancy names and commercials beats individual taste buds. If you like it , you like it even if millions hate it. A very old roman saying is degustibus non est disputandem...matters of taste cannot be disputed.

There are some outstanding beers out there now. A given brewery may make 8 varieties of crap but have one outstanding type. You never know until you taste it.
One of the big arts and sciences of beer making involves yeast. It can be approached from the point of view of a microbiologist or from the point of view of the artison brewer. Some places spend thousands on their yeast operations to get pure strains of a particular type. Lambics on the other hand were originally brewed (and many still are today) by brewing in buildings with big louvered windows on the ceilings to allow yeast from the surrounding lanscape to blow in with the wind. Yeast , hops grains and water are all imortant to beer. When I was big into beer competitions I would add 3 kinds of salt to my water. I did not add the salts for their own flavor as you might think. I added Gypsum , epsom and table salt to insure there were calcium , potasium and sodium ions available for the yeast. Healthy thriving yeast is essential to good brewing and these ions in the water are like vitamins for the yeast. Some very famous beers , bass ale for one, became famous because of a lucky mineral content of the water in the area where they were originally brewed.
Hops have a huge effect on the taste of beer. Different hops have totally different character. Also , with the same hops you can produce totally different flavors by when in the brewing process you add them. I used to import my hops from germany about 80 pounds at a time when I was brewing a lot. No better aroma hops exist than a particular type of german hops. After all the work and research, and expense to locate the best hops and have them shipped to the USA , you could totally waste all that effort by being off by just two minutes when you added them to the wort. Brewing is a great hobby. You can learn as much as your heart desires or you can brew great tasting beer with just a little knowledge and experience.
Bottom line its all about taste and that is a personal preference thing. There are no absolutely good or bad beers. Its only good or bad relative to your own taste preference. I once brewed a Porter that received perfect scores from all but one of the judges in a contest. One judge scored it one point below perfect. However , I know for a fact that half the people who drink nothing but American Rice beer like Bud would not like that porter at all.

In the immortal words of Ben Franklin....beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy. :)