American Brews

[evilgiraffe]

Hey all, wondering if you can give me some ideas. I'm getting ready to put on my family's annual Xmas beer tasting. For the first few I just grabbed random beers I liked and we tasted them, guessed what they were, talked about what we liked or didn't, and enjoyed a night of slight intoxication. For one of the others, I decided on a theme of California brews since that's where we spend Xmas that year. Last year, I got the idea to find beers with crazy names and play a game of "name that beer". Anyway, this year, I'm going with the history of American beers from about Prohibition until now. I want to feature the most important brews in American history sans Bud, Miller, and Coors. I'm figuring to serve Yuengling as the representative post-Prohibition American Lager. So here's where I need help:

1) If you were going to serve, say, 6-8 beers at this party, what would they be? I'm looking for beers that had a large impact on the beer world in the US. I have a few in mind, but I'd like to get other ideas.
2) If you were going to going to talk about the most important breweries in the above time period, what would they be?

Thanks.

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Rather than Yuengling, which I’m not fond of, I would get Matt Brewery’s Brewers Blood Imperial Amber Ale, because I read about these guys historic brewery on Beer Advocate. Anchor Steam, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Speakeasy Prohibition Ale, Deschutes Mirror Pond, Founders Breakfast Stout, Stone IPA, Wasatch Polygamy Porter, Bells Third Coast Barleywine. Selected for availability and other reasons. It is my understanding that most historic American beer companies died during prohibition so, I’ve substituted some new brewery craft beers that nod to earlier times. And also more resent innovators.

 

[grampamark]

I would think that to be considered a historically significant, post-prohibition American beer, a brew should be universally, or at least widely, available. Craft beers are still largely regional as far as distribution is concerned.

Once you get past Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada and PBR how many nationally distributed, non-BMC beers are there? Lagunitas and Deschutes are widely available but not universally available. Shiner, maybe? I'm not talking about beers which are necessarily great brews, just what's out there that almost any American can buy if they so desire.

 

[JohnSand]

I would serve the Yuengling, non craft drinkers will like it. Anchor Steam, Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada are good examples too. Then I might work my way up to the present day with some local brews, say an IPA and a craft lager.
Have fun.