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Monday, February 01, 2021

Olympia beer pausing production after 125 years

(NEXSTAR) – Once a mainstay of American grocery store aisles, the gold and white cans of Olympia Beer are going to completely vanish, at least for a time. 

In a message posted to the brewery and distillery‘s public Instagram page, operators of the brand said they had “not been able to find a solution to the challenges posed by reduced beer sales.”

*****

Good riddance. That's some nasty stuff.
My dad used to drink Oly and Ranier when he was stationed at Ft Lewis and even back then when I was only allowed a sip or two from his can, I thought it was foul.

30 comments:

  1. What's the difference between horse piss and mule piss? Yeah - no loss.

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    1. Of course, that begs the question: How would you know?

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  2. Ken, I take it you never drank Keystone Beer; I don’t know who brew(ed) it but that stuff makes PNR taste like it came from Munich.

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    1. Keystone is a coors product.

      The cheap beer we always bought as soldiers a couple days before pay day was Schaefer Beer. Also pretty nasty but you could get a case of 16 oz cans for less than 3 dollars.

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    2. I look at it like the so called Saturday Night special bullshit, "It cheap so", insert opinion here. Maybe it's all someone could afford, or maybe someone actually likes the taste, who knows. Personally I'm not a fan of most so called premium German beers so in that line of thinking some 300 year old German brewery should shut down because I personally dislike their products.
      JD

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    3. JD, the local beer in Heilbronn was this nasty, flat swill called Cluss. It was foul with a capital F.

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    4. Wurm65, back in the mid to late 70s, you could buy Buckhorn beer for 66 cents a sixpack - if you were brave enough.

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    5. I was in the Army from 1983 to 1987 first at Fort Bliss then Grafenwöhr. First really nasty beer I ever had was CBL. The rec center served Lone Star (bleh) on tap, and if I remember correctly it was owned by Olympia during that time.

      @ Anonymous - not all German Beer is good. Some of it is as bad as the worst American swill.

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    6. Drank my share of buckhorn, foul but cheap as you said. E2's didnt make much in 80. Drank a bunch of oly. Small town oregon had either oly, shlitz, or hamms to chose from back in the day. Bad, worse and just plain sucks.

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  3. Never been a fan either, but I hate to see any business go under. That's just the entrepreneur in me, I guess. But a revolution wouldn't be such a bad thing...

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  4. That shit's right up there with Iron City beer.

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  5. The "Artesian" commercials they had in the 80s were funny.

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  6. EVEL KNIEVEL HAD A OLY PATCH ON HIS LEATHERS,HE DID THE JUMPS. POWERED BY OLY

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  7. When all else failed, they could have tried brewing beer.

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  8. The best beer I ever drank was "Oly" from the brewery. The worst beer I ever drank was "Oly" from the can. The only difference was pasteurization.

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  9. Replies
    1. I just started watching that series, other than the fact the writers know nothing about Wyoming gun laws it's a half ass dec series
      JD

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  10. Nothing as bad as Iron City, local to Pittsburgh

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  11. Is that the one with cartoon bears and had ads that said "from the land of clear blue waters?"

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    1. Hamm's. From the Land of Sky Blue Waters.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZC3NUdjtug

      Olympia. It's the water, and a lot more.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEkZR4wyf-M

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  12. Uh, maybe you're thinkin' of Hamm's?
    As for Rainier Ale, aka Green Death, Pearl Baily probably made a pretty penny for her ads for that stuff.

    I R

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  13. One day 40-some years ago, we toured the Brewery in Olympia. As it turned out, it was the day they were taking the "Olympia" signs down, as they had been sold to -- if memory serves -- Heileman's.

    I'll echo Dumb Plumber's comment above: what they served us at the end of the tour was very good beer.

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  14. We all know the type. If it's american and cums in a can it's no good. I don't care what you call it, Ranier, Olympia, Old Meisterbrau, PBR, Iron City, Genessee, it was all bad. I think all the canned beer now is made by one or two breweries owned by Anheiser. The old days of a SOCAL rat who could buy and drink a six pack of Corona for under $2.00 is over and it now costs what good beer cost back then and is still the same swill. I won't further disturb your peace of mind by suggesting a beer to drink but try it in bottles, maybe growlers at your local, and dispense with the canned beer substitutes. Oh, and foreign doesn't mean better. We have many good microbrews although after touring the Fat Tire plant in Fort Collins and watching them bottle the 400,000th bottle of the day I'm not sure microbrew means what it used to up at the Ballard Locks in the old days.

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  15. In college we would buy Rainer Beer (didn't have a ram on it?) in returnable bottles. We drank so much of it we had the heavy cardboard boxes everywhere. So my roommate would use them as endtables. When moved out we took them all in and got 80 bucks.

    A 30 pack of Strohs was another staple.

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  16. A lot of premium beers were only available regionally. Think Grain Belt, Schmidt, Coors, Etc. Sometime in the 1970's, a few breweries started buying up competitors. Olympia Brewing was expanding their market, from a local northwest brand to the national market. Then a high mucky-muck in the company was arrested in the bathroom at a state park for... Overnight the jokes started. What did the beer and the CEO have in common? They both come in cans! Available in 12 once bottles with suck off tops! You've heard them. Their market share took a dive for the bottom. Some other company bought them out.

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  17. It is nasty stuff but I have drank my share of Rainier.
    I toured the Oly beer factory when I was about 15ish and dad bought me an Oly wood crate while we were there. Still have it. Still have a Rainier once in awhile but it doesn't taste as good as it did when I was 15.

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  18. Shepard AFB mid '70's. The barracks had beer vending machines in the basement along with the usual junk snacks. They were routinely stocked up on Friday afternoons, and were of course empty by early Saturday. It was interesting to see what brand order they emptied in. Bud went first, natch. But then it was a toss-up. Carling Black Label, Schlitz, Coors, Old Milwaukie, and a few others. Last to go was a swill called Lone Star.
    College in Portland; the local brewery was Blitz Weinhard, and Oly and Ranier featured too at all the keggers. Back in those days, Coors running from Idaho was a big deal, though I could never figure out why. Didn't seem any different from the local rotgut, except that it was "forbidden fruit" to make it seem special.

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  19. Always liked the t-shirts with the elf peeing in a stream saying It's the water.

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