Day 70: Schlitz Strong Beer

First thought - given it's almost a liter of beer per bottle, I love the pop bottle cap so that you can put it on right after and keep the fizz. And the price was ~$3.50 for a 940mL. So it's a good 20% cheaper than a domestic beer. So well priced.

I was also curious about why they had chosen 946mL for a bottle size. Seemed random? It's one US quart.

The taste light, especially for what they define as a "strong" beer at 6% alc. The texture is velvety. The taste is sweet, a little bit like maraschino cherry. Ah, after a few sips you realize why it's called a "strong" beer - it does start to take a toll on the inner cheeks.

Not bad for the price point. I also found out, through research, that Schlitz was once the largest brewery in the world! I'll admit that I never even heard of it, so incredible how it declined. Basically, its decline started in 1982, hurt by the rise of high-volume light beers such as Miller Lite and Bud Light, a direction Schlitz did not aggressively pursue. The once strong Schlitz brand was relegated to cheap beer or "bargain brand" status and became increasingly difficult to find in bars and restaurants, especially after the draft version was discontinued in 2001.

Thankfully it has since been revived because this is great value in the bottle.

On Schlitz Brewery:

The Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company was an American brewery based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was once the largest producer of beer in the world. Its namesake beer, Schlitz, was known as "The beer that made Milwaukee famous" and was famously advertised with the slogan "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer". Schlitz first became the world's top beer producer in 1902 and enjoyed that status at several points during the first half of the twentieth century, exchanging the claim with Anheuser-Busch multiple times during the 1950s.

The company was founded by August Krug in 1849 but acquired by Joseph Schlitz in 1858. Schlitz was bought by Stroh Brewery Company in 1982 and subsequently sold along with the rest of Stroh's assets to the Pabst Brewing Company in 1999.

The beer also became available in Ontario, Canada, brewed by Stroh's Brewing, a subsidiary of Sleeman Breweries.