Bad beer—when you grow up on Natural Light and graduate to Genesee Light, you have experience.
And by you, I’m referring to me.
It turns out, as I’ve come to find out over the years, this affinity for bad beer was a birthright.
In the land of Trump, birthright citizenship may not be guaranteed, but no one—and I mean no one—can take away my right to bad beer.
Yes, I’m a Rust Belt fanatic, but I also need to tell the truth.
And while the home of Harley-Davidson knows how to make motorcycles, I’m not one hundred percent sure the same can be said of the brewskis.
Let’s just say I had to take two TUMS to make it through writing this piece.
Milwaukee, the city of my nativity scene, had it all: German immigrants, water, grain, hops, and cold storage.
This formula gave rise to the Big Four, or Five, otherwise known as the breweries that colluded to give me recurrent nausea from 1995-1999, referred to by my parents as the pre-med years.
Consolidation, relocation, and just plain shuttering have altered the landscape considerably, but nothing can negate what the city of Milwaukee has done to my body and the bodies of countless other hardworking college students.
Pabst Brewing Company
Founded in 1844 in Cream City and now based in San Antonio, the company and its iconic Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR) have quenched the thirst of many a tight-jeaned hipster and contributed to incalculable hangovers.
Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company
A Milwaukee staple since 1849, Schlitz hit the fritz in 1982, with the rights to the name changing hands a few times since then. You can thank these guys for Old Milwaukee. Enough said.
Valentin Blatz Brewing Company
A thing since the early 1850s, Blatz beer is now apparently produced by Miller Brewing Company (see below) under contract for Pabst Brewing Company (see above). For obvious reasons, I’ve never tried it.
Miller Brewing Company
Founded in 1855 and now under the Molson Coors umbrella, Miller has been poisoning customers for the greater part of two centuries. I mean, is The Champagne of Beers really a brag?
A. Gettelman Brewing Company
The smallest of the five, Gettelman opened shop in 1856 and is now part of Miller (Molson Coors). If you thought Old Milwaukee was bad, Gettelman proved with Milwaukee’s Best that it could get even worse.
The good news, of course, is that in the Rust Belt, we don’t worry about trivial details like quality, revenue, or even continued existence.
Because when bad beer is all you got, you wear it with pride—sucking in, of course.
