Yuengling Traditional Lager

Brewery: D. G. Yuengling & Son

Location: Pottsville, Pennsylvania
Beer Name: Yuengling Traditional Lager
Alcohol by Volume: 4.4%



I figured that by now it's time to talk about my favorite beer. It's a weird feeling when something you have enjoyed for so long becomes so popular. For instance, I'm a fan of Punk Rock, where the bands enjoy playing the music, and when they become hugely popular, have to make a decision to sign to a large label and hit the mainstream or stay on top in the underground. When bands decide to become mainstream, the fans call them sell-outs or whatever. My feeling on some of this that when something becomes part of the mainstream I just want to say that I've been a fan the whole time, I'm not a bandwagoner.

This is the way that I felt about two years ago. It's not as if Yuengling Lager wasn't popular before that. Hell, if you go into most bars in Philly or any surrounding suburb and order a 'Lager,' you're getting a Yuengling Lager. It's always been a popular beer. In this area of the country. Not too long ago, I heard that Yuengling opened a brewery in North Carolina somewhere and you could get it down south at that point. About six months ago, I was playing an online trivia game and the question was to name the top 20 most popular beers sold in the U.S. for 2009. Yuengling Lager was on the list, and fairly high, I might add. That's when it hit me. Lager is not just a local beer anymore.

So here I am at a crossroads. How can I have a blog essentially praising craft beers and (surely in a future post) write about how I'll never drink popular swill like Bud Light when a beer I thought was a gem in my slice of the world is now a favorite the whole country over?

In the end, the point is to enjoy beer. As long as the product that is put out after it hits the big time is that same quality as the product was before it hit the big time, then there's no shame in enjoying it. I love to drink Yuengling Lager. It's inexpensive, it tastes great, and I can drink a lot of it and not feel terrible the next day. If you were to look in my refrigerator right now, you'd find a case of Lager, as you would any other day of any other year. Before I started my crusade, the only beer I would drink when I went out was Lager. When I was barbacking and finished my shift, the great John Doyle at McGillin's would have a Lager waiting for me.

I feel like Yuengling Lager is one of the greatest beers I've ever had. I'll stand by that statement until the day I die.