Heilemans Old Style

Pabst Brewing Company
Brewed at Miller Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
Style: Pale Lager
Woodridge, Illinois USA

Serve in Dimpled mug, English pint, Lager glass, Shaker

send corrections   |   shelftag   |   edit barcodes   |   add pic

The darkest of the side by side tastings of american standards this evening. Not saying much still a straw color. Light grainy aroma, with just a hint of floral hops. Actually has a touch of malt sweetness, but also has a light bad vanilla extract flavor. I hate to think how many gallons of this (Blatz, and Special Export) I drank 20 years ago.

Wrigley Field. Hot dog. Cubs and cold beer. Did I want anything with more flavor? Not really.

12oz bottle poured into a shaker. Pours yellow with about a finger of white head. Aroma of corn and grains. Taste is light bitter. Minimal hop presence with mostly corn and grain. Medium bodied with a surprisingly thick texture. Lively carbonation and a decently long finish. Overall, I’ll always like this beer. Unlike some other beers out there, it never pretends to be something it’s not. Old Style will always be Old Style, and will always have a place in my fridge and my heart. Go Cubbies!

Prior tastings from back in the day. High school beer - cheap, tasteless and not too strong. What can I say? They didn’t have good beer back then and I had no money.

16oz can into a pint glass. Pours a clear medium yellow with a fizzy white head. Actually some lacing with this one which surprised me. Aroma has some corn but also some bready grain and grassy hops faintly resembling a german pilsner. Pretty good. The flavor starts off with some light cooked vegetable and corn and is unfortunately not as good as the smell. Some faint hop flavor and a light bitterness coming forward about halfway through. Mouthfeel is watery. Overall, this is a pretty good AAL. A lot more flavor than BMC and a nice, cheap option.

16 oz can sans the brown bag. Ok, I am going to be gererous due to the narcotic effect of nostalgia...this beer brings back memories of yore, like the sleepy 50’s and crazy 60’s specifically. This beer, and it’s more refined sibling, Special Export, WERE very good beers during my maturation days. And, truth be told, I always liked the pictorial of monks parading on the cans, drinking beer on the way to matins, or whatever. That was then, before the brewery closings, shakeouts, buyoffs, how-to- ruin-beer-by-letting-the-suits-run-the-fundamental itself! OK, I’ll shut up about that. Anyways, regarding today’s new Old Style, I was pleasantly surprised, no small feat as I am an import brand slave (read my other reviews please). This is a very fine American Lager, with great aroma, small bubble carbonation due to krausening again, that girl-next-door kiss of the hops (nothing overwhelming here), mild background maltiness and all around smooth finish. Pricewise, I guess they call this a "premium" beer. Worth a try. Prosit!

Can @ home. I picked up a twelver of this for today’s Chicago Cubs opening day game. How the fuck haven’t I rated this already? Piss yellow color with a white head. Bland, grassy, straw, pale malty aroma. Thin body but it does have more flavor than other macros and not nearly as bitter. Easily chuggable and the thing is that it is unpretentious!

Watching shameless...fiona is dead sexy! Thought id rate old style. Pours a clear pale yellow with a huge foamy white head. Aroma has some grassy, skunky notes and some hay...mild sweetness. Flavor is mildly hoppy and bitter...not bad really. Mouthfeel is light and has a hint of creaminess to it...the finish is abrupt and slightly dry. This beer is not horrible.

Tasted at the Bad Beer Bonanza 2012. The Bad Beer Bonanza is a blind taste test to determine the best of the best of cheap beers. It is the beer we will all be drinking in 2012 if good beer is not available. Requirements, sold in 6 pack of cans for $4 or under. 15 beer snobs tasted 16 of the worst pale lagers. At the end of the day Old Style was the clear winner. So if you are looking for a bad beer, this is the one to buy. No aroma, has a stale water taste with a hint of hops, it’s cheap it gets you drunk, and it’s better than all its peers.

I drink this beer when I play beer pong. The finish on this beer is comparable to someone putting a frozen turd in your mouth mixed with Scope. Still, if you want to get drunk for cheap, I guess this isn’t a bad way to go. Just don’t be surprised when you’re pissing out your O ring the next day.

12oz can. Appearance is totally awesome with the can’s sweet logo. A pale lager, with some pale malts in the aroma. Not much else. Light texture. A good beer of this style.