Beer Dave

It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ Causton's new radio.

Our number two of Night's Side is underway, and I want to make a bet. I'll bet you fifty cents right now, we'll shake over the phone. I'll put my hand up to the microphone and shake. You can't tell me the number one beer by sales in the United States. I bet my first my next guest could do that. I've had him on many, many times, but it's been a good what three four five years since I last had Beer Dave on. So, Beer Dave, how you doing? Welcome back to BZ.

I'm good, Morgan, it's good to catch up again.

Yes, it is so. I think I know the answer to my question. And it surprised me that the number one beer is bud Light. Is that accurate?

No, it's Medella especial l.

Midello has overtaken Budweiser.

Correct in fact, in fact, michelob Ultra has now taken over bud Light. Bud Light is now number three.

And where does Budweiser place?

Still within the top ten, but it's probably eight, maybe even nine already. Regular you know, it's I mean, the quantity out there that is consumed is rarely the uh low, the high strength. That's usually the low calorie. Those are the leaders, you know across the you know, Bush Light outsells bush you know, Miller Lite obviously outsells Highlight. You know, it's just sat with you know, in the seventies when they started directing us all to go to diet beer

And I'm jessing Medello is an import.

Correct, Yes, it's from the Saint Bury that makes Corona, from the Medello Brewing Company. Corona is the one that sort of broke into the US. And then Medello is the one that most of the Mexican heritage, that was the brand that they always appreciated. And as our Hispanic community has grown in this country and also you know, our tastes have changed, Modelo especially is the one that's taken over. Is the selling beer in the country.

And where does Heineken place.

Heineken wouldn't even be in the top ten. Heineken's actually lost quite a bit of share, but Heineken has quite a bit of ownership and other breweries that play. Heiney Can owns the Laganitis brand, the craft brewery. Heinekin owns Takati and Joseki, a couple of the Mexican beers, and that's helped them. But it's pretty amazing that between you know, Anheuser Busch in bev which owns Medillo, they just don't have the rights to sell it in the United States market.

And I know I'm hopping and skipping around, but we here in Massachusetts have our own little beer, Sam Adams. How does that angel On the large scale.

Of beers, Sam Adams comes in in the top five of the craft breweries, not within the top ten of the of all beers produced, you know, on a national level, you know, it doesn't not really competing with the you know, the Anheuser Bushes and the Millers of the of the country, but you know, with it, it's Sam Adams absolutely places in the in the top five of Kraft craft breweries and they operate a large brewery in the Cincinnati area

If you will, think of America in the fifties and sixties, there were no imports for sales in the liquor stores per se. So you had your Miller, you had your Budweiser, and you had lesser products like Carling black label hamser from the Schaeffer, from the land of Sky Blue Hunter. And why did dominance fade by the comparison to what we have now?

Oh, A lot of it came down to the marketing savvy of you know who ended up being the big two leaders, the you know, Anheuser Busch and the Miller brands. And most of that was driven by the marketing dollars. And you know, those regional breweries could not compete on those levels in any way, shape or form. And asked those those regional brands would start to lose market share, you know, in would come the Miller Lites and the Budweisers of the world to take over that market share.

Usually, if you watched a World Series, you only saw Budweiser Miller. Then slowly but surely Corps filtered in to sponsorship and a few others, but they owned those major sporting events of playoff baseball, World Series baseball football, and now it slipped through their fingers. Those days are gone.

Yeah, you're seeing a lot a lot of imports advertised during those sporting events, and you're not seeing exclusive rights to where you know, you would only see a Miller light or a Budweiser commercial during those events. You know, you you can watch, you know, the playoff games this weekend and you'll have various brands. And you've also gotten back into seeing spirits being advertised. You know, for probably a good forty years, spirits were pulled away from being

I'm going to take a break, but I'm going to ask callers if they want to call in talk to you about their favorite beer six seven, five, four thirty or eight eight, nine to nine, ten thirty. Use those numbers to get through the Beer Dave and I want to talk about the premiums, the giveaways. Yeah, you could buy a T shirt that says bad a course or whatnot, but some of those bigger items like mirrors and the Clydesdale Horses clock. So give us a call, Beer David.

Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World Nightside Studios.

I' WBZ News Radio. I'm Morgan's filling into Dan. Dan. We'll be back tomorrow. My guest this hour is beer, Dave. Trust me, if it's a beer product and it's existed over the past seventy five plus years, Dave will tell you all about it. And I'm asking about the premiums. We've all seen that light fixture usually hanging down chandelier, like in bars where the Clydesdale's are riding in a circle,

They hail about twenty five hundred to three thousand dollars. Now they've gone up a little bit in price. If they're in in mint shape with those crashes or smoke damage, they they absolutely will hold that value.

Smoke damage is common to that particular feature.

Correct, Correct, because you know it was molded plastic and it hung in a bar, and you know that you would get the tar from the tobacco smoke that would permeate the plastic. And you know, unfortunately, there's a lot of a lot of nice pieces of advertising from the berrys that you know, but hung in bars for a long time, you know, you would get unfortunately that that sort of a dulling or a yellowing of the plastic.

Right, what about neon? When I was doing trivia back beginning in the eighties, I was able to give away the full size cores silver bullet neon and what would approximately be the worth of that item?

Neons unless they're they're from a you know, a unique small or or something you know, all the way back to the early days of you know, beer neons, which would be you know, the the forties, post war World War two into the into the early sixties. Something in that is going to hold its value because you know, so few survived, plus you know, the technology. But nowadays what most looks like neon is the LEDs where you have the you know, the tubes that take on and

So a ballpark estimation on your part, Well, I would say that the silver bullet when probably is one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars in that in that range is.

Probably what Yeah, I thought, I thought it must be more than that. But let me take some of the phone traffic we have and let's go to Glenn and Brighton Glenn. Welcome aboard, hear it now?

Yeah? Thanks? Yeah. Beer is one of my favorite topics. My favorite beer, I was telling Rob, the producer is do Sekis. Yeah, a friend of mine. Well, I used to like the ads of do Seki's about a guy that could mail a letter without a postage stamp and that got there anyway. And he said, I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I drink do Seki. Stay thirsty.

My friends remember the commercial.

Yeah, Bradley Jay used to do his promos based on the way they did anyway, And now my second favor be Resizo. It tastes like alcoholic writ with gingerbread. It's called harpoond Winter Warmer. Are you familiar with.

I'm very familiar with Harpoon. It's made by the Mass Bay Brewery guys. And you see a lot of those seasonal beers around the holidays where they'll spice them with with ginger or nutmeg or you know, any number of spices and stuff, and they're they're very popular. It's uh, you know the Great lakes Bury out of Cleveland. Their Christmas Ale is their their biggest selling beer.

Wait, I had one more quick question. Have you ever heard of tree secies. A friend of mine went to San Diego and I guess it's not legal to sell in America because it's a high proof, but he managed this smuggle a case of it up here, and man, that stuff gets a job done.

Well.

Used to be imported. Yeah, well, it's not illegal, it's just because of the strength they choose not to bring it into the US. The importer Molsen Bredor was another one that was a very high strength from the Moulson Brewery.

A number of the well, yeah you can still still.

Get Moosehead, but it's not near as widely distributed as is Le Bat and Molson is from the Canadian imports.

Levett is kind of like the Canadian pap Blue Ribbon or Schlitz there. You know, it's kind of a little green beer, four man's beer. Anything else going, No, that's no, that's I just had to I had to get this because beer is right up my alley.

Well, thank you for the call.

All right, you two pigs.

Good evening. Let's go to Quincy and speak to Scott. Scott, welcome to night Side. You've got beer days.

Well, what a great show.

I love it. And you know, my beer has evolved over the course of my life. In the eighties it was the Moulse in golden and Molse and ice, and then into the you know, two thousands, nineties, twenty twenty ten's, it was the Corona, and then I started switched to COR's Light and as of January first, I'm drinking the non alcoholic bears. If you could talk a bit about that, like the Core's Edge and the Heineken zero zero and.

You know and the IPA Hayes, what's the deal with non alcoholic beers and what are your thoughts on the better ones versus et cetera.

Give it a go.

Sure.

Amazingly, there's a brewing company called Athletic Brewing Company. They're based out of Connecticut and they became they broke the twenty five top craft breweries last year and they only make non alcoholic beer. And lots of the brewing companies have put this, you know, put out a representative from that that category, Like you said, the Corpse Edge Honeyken Zero's Nheyser Bush just broke with a michelob ultra that is non alcoholic. You're you're seeing more and more of

Are gonna let you.

Good?

Thank you, Thanks, thank you for your call. Thank you. One open line, grab it six four ten thirty eight eight eight nine to nine ten thirty. Whoever takes that line will be the third person Beer Dave will be chit and chatting with. I've got to take a quick news hit and Beer Dave think about this while we're off in the news hit. What is the most sought after, premium premium, most valuable beer item. And when we come back,

Night Side Thought with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.

I'm Morgan. I was just talking to Rob, my producer, and I said, we have one call on the subject of diabetes. I've got full lines on the subject of beer. You know, figure out what the people want and give it to them. So let's take a call from Jim in Kansas City. Jim, I noticed by your last name. Are you in the beer industry?

Well, not that I know of it. No, probably not. There's a story there. I'll tell you off the air if you want to listen sometime. But no, I don't think our family was into it.

Now, okay, because you know that name is a name within the beer industry.

I did not know that now, but I wondered, I know, I know there's uh, yeah, I know that there's a famous part, and I wondered always how they got rich and famous, but that would probably be how. But I'll tell your stories off theres about my last name and about it. Well, I don't know where do we start here. I'm a collective beer can collector from way back. But uh, you to answer your question my favorite, I'd have to think hard because I had lots of Budweiser posters and paraphernalia.

Uh.

Iroquois was my favorite can ever. But my favorite beer that I ever drank ever was a Balatine. It was kind of like a It was like a Saint Pauly Girl beer, only at like the price of a Schaeffer. I really loved it. And warns aren't the.

Three rings?

It was fantastic and those little pin stripes on the can. So but here's some other ones that stand out in my mind, Iron City Rolling Rock, Uh, Ducune Pilsner and one of the ones from over in the area. This is going way, way, way, way way back from when they still pulled barges on the towpath with mules.

Uh.

There was a brewery in our area called Star Model, and they brewed beer in bottles, and they came in like I think in a court a half gallon or a gallon bottle, you get it. In the bottles were these real tall, long necked bottles, and like fifty years after it went out of business, guys would still go down and try to find these bottles because there were worth hundreds of dollars the bottles were.

Yeah.

It was.

In Peru, Illinois, Okay, yeah, yeah.

In fact, this product in Iroquois. You know both of them.

Yeah. Iroquois was from the Buffalo area and Starmandale was in the Peru, Illinois area. Ironically, I was driving through their day on my way back from Wisconsin. I went right through Peru, Illinois where the brewery used to be, and they went out in the in late sixties, that brewery unfortunately, but Iroquois Iroquois lasted into the seventies in

All right, Jim, you call wait wait there was another one called oh yeah, Mabel Black Label. You remember that.

Oh yeah, right, hey, Mabel Black Label.

And now here's here's hello, here's something that something. The other day I was thinking about. I know there was a beer called Strows, but was there one also called Stores or something like that, Stroll Bulls or something like that.

Yes, you had Strows from Detroit and Stores was from Omaha.

Rules had those commercials, uh with the dog Alex.

It was it was Yeah.

Anyway, there was a guy in our There was a guy in our town that he would only drink stores. It had to be I mean he would go to like anyway.

All right, let's go, Jim, Thanks, thanks for the call. Bye bye, because he was gonna keep naming beer after beer after beer, Jim Law, Jim's line is available. You want to take it. Paul and Plymouth, You're next here on night side. Welcome to speak.

Hi, Hi Morgan, how are you, sir? A good thank you, I and your guest. I was wondering, you know, I'm old enough to remember when Schlitz was the big boy on the block, and I'm wondering if you, if your guests can uh talk a little about what happened there and because they made some really bummed businesses and just all of a sudden went away. So I'm just wondering.

Dave, tell Paul what killed Schlitz.

So Schlitz. Schlitz started playing around with how they produced the beer, and they sped up their fermentation and a few other things that Unfortunately, what happened was when the beer hit the market, the product wasn't completely fully fermented, and the cans would explode and the beer was expiring on the store shelves and Anhezer, Bush and Miller came

Luster, all right, Paul wanted to hear.

Yeah, yeah, they it is the same if you buy a Schlitz today, is it the same recipe or as I mean, not the bad recipe, but the same old fashioned recipes.

It's what yeah, I mean, it's what it used to be, as close as they could do to make it that way with you know, the available ingredients versus what you know they were using in the you know, Schlitz in its heyday would have been fifties and sixties, you know stuff towards the seventies, in the eighties, you know, they were just jockeying for position on the shelf.

Yeah, I remember when I was growing up, it was very popular.

I'm singing the get together with a glass of Schlitz, a great big glasso slitch real gusto in a great like that was the commercial jingle that right.

Yeah, then when you're out of Schlitz, You're out of beer. I remember those now?

How about another.

Question happened to schmidt Yeah, Schmidts That that was another peer that was a roun Yeah, talk about Schmitz.

Schmitz was out of Philadelphia, settled back with Schmids and they had some really good slogans in that. And unfortunately it was another one where you know, the large berries came in and just ate their lunch. And and Billy Flommer, the last guy that was running the bury there in Philadelphia, he kept it going probably longer than anybody could have. But by the about nineteen eighty six, Schmidt's of Philadelphia sold off to Islam and Ala was out of Lacrosse, Wisconsin.

All right, Paul along, but thank you for calling.

Okay, you bet, thank you very much.

Whoever takes that line, you'll be the last person to speak with beer Dave. All Right, because I've got a break to take, and that would be three callers to speak to beer Dave. Six one, seven, two, five, fourteen thirty eight, eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty and Rob, let's take a break a minute early and we've got that line filled. So no more calls. Time and temperature here on nightside nine four still at seventeen degrees.

Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World, Nice Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.

Rob Brooks, no more calls. I've got these three people, so let me make sure all three of these people get to speak to beer Dave. But Beer Dave, I asked you a question before the last break, give me what you think might be the most valuable premium item.

I think amazingly, we've seen an uptick in the prices of beer cans and there have been a number of auction sites in that and last year we had a quart cone top from the Philadelphia area that was sold for almost sixty three thousand dollars.

Yep, that's not funny.

The beer Yeah, and Friday, it's the beer can's ninetieth birthday. The beer can turns ninety years old on Friday.

Anybody who has one of those at home, find find the buyer. Let's go to Edinburgh, Edinburgh and speak to Michael. Michael, good evening, Welcome to night Side.

Hey, hey guys, great show.

I worked in the club. I'm sorry, I apologize.

I worked in the club and restaurants in the seventies. Was it true that the cous.

And Bud had a agreement calls wouldn't come up here, Bud wouldn't go down on where they were.

No, the deal was with cours. Course was not pasteurized at the time, and they didn't have a way to uh ensure the quality the further east that they went, so for years it didn't even cross the Mississippi. But you know, and then in the eighties they played around all the technology and they still didn't pasteurize it, but they filtered it differently and then extended the shelf life.

Oh okay, because that was okay, And I got problem.

If you remember, that was the plot in Smoking the Bandit that they had to go to Texas to get cors beer because it wasn't distributed all around the country.

Oh, that's probably where the story came from. Anyway, Two real quick things. Did the did bud light bounce back after that brewer brew? Haha, if you excuse me?

Came back some, but not to the level that it was prior to that.

Yeah, because I brought bud last week, I should have bought the bud leg and the guy said they set it's the biggest selling one where that store was.

And then one last thing.

Most people don't know about was it Gablings That was the first light beer attempt at it?

Correct?

Correct?

Yeah, it was the Rhinegold Brewery and they called it the Forest Brewing Company because if the brand failed then it would not have been They didn't want it to come back and hurt Rhinegold, so they called it gambling Gers. And it was from the Forest Brewing Company and the gentleman that developed it. I got to know him quite a bit, and he and I worked on a beer recipe when I was a brewer, and it was doctor

And two quick things, okay, two quick things Rhyinegold. When they had a product placement in The Godfather. Remember the scene where Sonny beat the be Jesus out of Connie's husband, there was a yellow Rhinegold delivery truck making a delivery. So next time you watch The Godfather, watch for that truck. And gamblinger is what they did to get everybody's attention. In their commercials. They put a slice of bread in a beer glass to talk about carbohydrates.

Okay, okay, I thought i'd mentioned that.

All right, Michael, I got let you go, but thank you for the call. Bye bye, And I got another Michael in Boston.

Nice, Hi there, good evening, very.

Fast, Thank you.

I had a second thought, Morgan, for you before I asked my question of Dave uh and it's related to diabetes. I was just curious, are you restricted on beer, wine and alcohol or can you have it in moderation?

Just a yes or no.

Yes, I can have it in moderation, but I'm not a drinker.

Okay, good, I can't have it moderation. Either any any of them. And today I wondered if he knew the difference in alcohol content between let's say, uh, a vta gimle or what a vut versus a bottle of Budweiser. What is the difference in alcohol content? And also what does he think the impact of this miserable uh warning that was given two weeks ago about alcohol causing cancer and when they start labeling bottles of liquor and beer are a warning to answer?

Start there, because he's got to answer all three of you questions.

Dave, so h yeah, Yeah, there's quite a bit of of attack on alcohol right now. They want to you know, basically they want to treat it like cigarettes. So with advercate, you know, with warnings and stuff, nothing's been developed on that, you know, to really move forward. It's just been mentioned uh out there. When it comes to the alcohol content, you know, your body uh breaks down different things. Wine is broken down different than beer, and broken down different

Uh.

In the way they are mostly marketed out there, but Ideally, a twelve ounce can of beer is supposed to be relatively the same as an average cocktail, you know, not as double, you know, and not something that's used you know, with various you know, three or four different spirits to get to the drinks level and basically a four ounce class of wine. So you know, if you're consuming a four ounce of wine or a twelve ounce can of beer or an average cocktail, it's supposed to be equal

All right, Michael, you got your answer.

Thanks you.

And Jack we got you in. It was difficult, but I made a promise and you are the last call. It would be a d.

Oh well, that's that's so fortunate for me. And in honor of the the anniversary of the beer can, I want to just give everybody a little to let to let everybody know how much we appreciate that.

I might go to beer. I mean, I'm an economy beer drinker and I drink rolling rock, okay, And to me for the for the economy beer drink, and I think I think it's the best and and I also want to throw go ahead. Do you have anything to say about Rolling Rock?

Yeah?

Rolling Rock obviously was you know, there in Latrobe, Pennsylvania for all those years, and then when the Bat owned it, they eventually sold the brand to Anheuser Busch before le Bat and Nanhyser Bush got married. And if you'll notice, it'll say Latrobe Brewing Company, Newark, New Jersey usually on the packaging because they moved the production of Rolling Rock

Yeah, I think it's a great product. Let's also when it let's how about narrak Anset. I do drink Narraganset every now and then. It has quite a story and you know.

What, Yeah, beer Dave Narrakinsset was the monster in this area fifties and sixties. They sponged all that and they were a monster.

They absolutely were.

You know, you had Gangway for Gastt and you know well, and they had lots of appearances in the movie Jaws. That's what they were drinking on the boat when the shark started to attack. And you know, but now they've got you know, new local ownership and it's it's being produced again in New England and it's enjoying quite the resurgences it returns to the market.

Hi, I never have again to give this longer beer a chance. It has that straight from the barrel taste. I could keep going, but I'm almost out of time, so beer Dave, thank you for coming on. As you can tell you are still a valuable commodity to have on the radio and talk beer. And we'll do it again. Thank you.

Sounds great, Morgan, Thanks for the time.

I look forward to the next time you. Take care. Bye bye, all right bye. Next hour, I've got dB Cooper here and we'll be talking about voiceover work. So if you want to call in line to wide open line up early time and temperature nine fifty eight seventeen degrees