“They spill more beer than we make all year.” That was the first piece of marketing I can recall that swayed me to leave the megabrewers behind and look elsewhere for my beer drinking edification. That was one of the early Boston Beer Company’s ads for Sam Adams. I drank Sam Adams for awhile. They make some decent beers that perhaps is more of a gateway to delve into the depths of craft brew like I have. I totally respect and gave them props for being America’s largest owned brewer till an old dog took them down. Yuengling!

Yuengling becomes largest U.S.-owned brewery.

Ok, so I’m not a super fan of the beer, but I’m excited for their achievement since they’ve been around longer than anyone else. I read about Yuengling long before I ever had it since it wasn’t available here anywhere in the midwest. Much to my excitement a few years ago my brother-in-law got a few cases delivered to him via a friend and shared a few with me. Eh, pretty typical American style lager, but certainly I appreciated the novelty aspect of how it was acquired and that here was a beer that was older than any other in the States.

My most exciting experience was when I took a flight from Chicago to Cincinnati last Spring on a small Pennsylvania “vacation” airline called USA3000 (which I just read will serve their last flight this month). I never had a beer on the plane before because it’s always mega-crap that’s available, but low and behold they offered only Yuengling and Yuengling Light! For $5 I had to have one. That was a long day, but that is one of my favorite stories having a Yuengling a mile up from where I had it the first time.

It’s much easier to acquire now that Ohio distributes the brew as of last fall. My sister actually went to seek a keg while I was home over Christmas. If I do move to Cincinnati in the upcoming weeks it will be readily available all the time. It’s a minor win given all the loss of access I’ll have to the many Wisconsin beers now. Maybe I can start a New Glarus/Yuengling exchange program.