Lagerboy Speaks – Lone Star
‘Texas Gold in every bottle’ is just one of many slogans from the Lone Star Brewery, of er…Woodridge, Illinois. They seemingly have a convoluted history, as the traditional Texan base vanished and re-appeared over the years due to financial difficulties, mergers and takeovers. They began their story back in 1884 as the first large-scale brewer in the state, when they were founded by a group of San Antonio businessmen together with one Adolphus Busch. The heavily moustachioed German knew a thing or two about beer, having emigrated to the United States with three of his brothers from whopping 22 siblings – all of whom were involved in the family business – wine and brewery supplies. Of course, he went on to co-found Anheuser-Busch with his father-in-law, Eberhard Anheuser (and have thirteen children of his own), but the Lone Star Brewery could not have got off the ground without him.
However, since 1976 the brewery has changed hands four times and has been shuffled about somewhat. They are currently owned by Pabst of the aforementioned Illinois town, and Lone Star lager – Texas Gold as it may be – is currently brewed under licence by some of the non-mainline Pabst breweries such as the Miller plant in Fort Worth. At least it’s still produced in the correct state. Lone Star is a typically generic Stateside lager, but may be edging towards the top of the pile with two consecutive Gold Medals from the 2007 and 2008 Great American Beer Festivals, in the ‘American-style cream ale or lager’ category. It contains Pacific Northwest hops, grain, barley and…corn extract (it is a mass-produced American beer, after all). You can’t help thinking what Adolphus Busch would have made of that, hailing from the land of the Reinheitsgebot.
Unsurprisingly, it pours extremely light in colour with a head that vanishes within thirty seconds until it becomes almost totally flat. It tastes almost exactly like Miller Genuine Draft, which is one of the worst abominations known to mankind and is almost painful to even type on a website such as this. I guess that’s unsurprising, given who produces it these days. In basic terms, it’s a generic American lager – the kind of thing that generations of US craft brewers spend their time trying to overturn. It tastes like bitter straw, with that lovely corn additive striking through at the end. There are so many good lagers out there – but this one doesn’t even get one star.
Interestingly, I scoured the bottle several times – and nowhere does it say the alcohol content (according to the website it’s 4.6%). I’m not sure if it’s legal to distribute alcohol in the UK without displaying a % by volume on the label?
