Original Recipe Old Milwaukee

Does anyone have a clue where I might find this if it even exists?

 

Bump to this thread.

BMC have ruined REAL beer with what they have evolved it into... (Although they have evolved it into something else entirely, with its own merit for something to be so extreme...)

However, I would be REALLY interested to taste the REAL originals...

I would like to taste the 1896 formulation of Pabst Blue Ribbon in order to find out what won that Blue Ribbon...

I like to think to myself that the original recipes were delicious, respectable, pilsener lagers (like a Budweiser Budvar, allegedly the inspiration for the "Bud" that evolved into what we know today).... ...Or is this just me trying to believe that Americans had at least SOME beer taste in the mid to late 1800s, which was watered down over time (and kicked in the gonads by prohibition), until the rebirth of the craft beer and homebrew movement...?

If you're talking about trying to find the ORIGINAL Milwaukee's best- I.E. a beer without adjuncts that might have actually helped to have won market share, rather than simply profit by the addition of adjuncts, then I am with you....

If you want just an older, adjunct filled, slightly "meatier" adjunct filled "pilsner", then just make your own- whatever you make will be better than whatever a big brewery was making originally with cost saving as its primary concern.

I like to believe that Budweiser, Miller, and even COORs were at one time delicious, full-bodied and -flavored beers. Is my fantasy false?

 

I'm with you brother and those are the recipes I'm looking for. I would like to think that we cannot be alone in endeavor. There must be someone out there that has the "in" on locating such recipes.

Is there anyone else out there that can aid us in this cause.

 

If you have not seen the movie Beer Wars, you should rent it and watch it. The movie explains why BMC is brewed with 6 row malt instead of 2 row and why adjuncts are used. In a short summary when Prohibition was repealed, the US military was the largest consumer of 2 row barley as a feed source for the troops. The brewers were relegated to using 6 row and a shortage of 6 ensued due to the demand of the breweries and the demand of others to use 6 row as a food source. Since the breweries could not get enough 6 row to meet their demand they switched to a grain bill of up to 40% adjunct of rice or corn. Once WWII was over the country had found its taste in beer and the big breweries did not want to change the taste of their beer lest the lose customers.

Here we all thought BMC did it just to make cheaper beer.

 

Never seen it but I will have to rent it. Leave to the government to ruin everything, even good beer!

 

Look at some of the pre-Prohibition Pilsner recipes.

 

Oceans,

Thanks for clarifying that beer history for me.

It makes me slightly glad, though, to confirm that it wasn't Americans' palettes that were the primary driving force for the evolution of BMC beers into the extreme "Alko-pops" that they practically are today.

"Pre-prohibition American lager" or "Pre-prohibition American pilsner"... Hmmm... Almost sound like worthy BJCP subcategories.... Thanks, david 42.

 

Ok Gentleman,
Based on David_42 recommendation on pre-prohibition recipes this is what I have found:


Golden-Age Pre-Prohibition Pilsner

Issue 2009
Online Date Wednesday, 31 December 1969
Golden-Age Pre-Prohibition Pilsner
(5 gallons, partial mash)

Ingredients:
• 3 lbs. six-row lager malt
• 0.5 lb. carapils malt
• 1 lb. flaked maize
• 0.5 lb. flaked rye
• 3 lbs. unhopped extra light dry malt extract
• 1.5 oz. whole Tettnanger hops
o (4% alpha acid, 6 AAUs) for 60 min.
• 1 oz. whole Hallertauer hops
o (4% alpha acid, 4 AAUs) for 15 min.
• 1 qt. American lager yeast slurry (Wyeast 2035 or 2272)
• 7/8 cup corn sugar for priming

Step by Step:
Heat 1.5 gal. water to 138° F, mix in cracked malt, adding flakes to the top of the grist. The mash should settle at about 132° F. Hold 30 min. between 130° and 133° F. Add 1 gal. more water at 180° F to bring mash up to 152° F or so. Hold 60 min. Begin runoff and sparge with 3 gal. at 170° F.

Add dry malt extract and bring to a boil. Total boil is 60 min. Add Tettnanger hops and boil 45 min. Add Hallertauer hops, boil another 15 min. and remove from heat. Cool, add enough cold, pre-boiled water to make up 5.25 gal. When the whole volume cools to 65° F, pitch yeast slurry.

Let stand and begin to ferment at 60° to 65° F for two days, then move fermenter to a cool place (50° F) and continue fermentation for another two weeks. Rack to secondary, place in a cold, dark corner (36° to 38° F) to lager for four to six weeks. Bring up to room temperature for 24 hours, prime with corn sugar, and bottle. Lager in bottles at 38° to 40° F for six to eight weeks.

OG = 1.057
FG = 1.016
30 IBUs

Alternatives:
All-grain: Increase the pilsner malt to 7 lbs. and omit the dry malt extract. Mash temperatures will be the same, but increase the volume of water to 3 gal. to start, 2 gal. for the second addition, and 3.5 gal. for sparging. You will need to adjust your total boiling time to allow for evaporation and still maintain the proper hopping schedule.

Extract: Steep the carapils, flaked rye, and flaked maize in 2.5 gal. heated to 150° F for 30 min. Remove the grains, bring to a boil, and add 6 lbs. of dry malt extract (instead of only 3 lbs.). Continue as above. It is important to use the lightest extract you can get, or this recipe will end up somewhat dark for the style.

About the additional grains: The maize, or corn, is appropriate to pre-Prohibition recipes, but the rye is perhaps not. (But then, some breweries also used kidney beans and soybeans back then.) I like to use a little rye in this style because it adds a nutty, bready flavor and also a touch of sourness that cuts the sweetness of the corn.

Yeast: This is a recipe in which the yeast is crucial. I recommend strongly against using a dry yeast. This beer really must have no yeast-produced off-flavors, and those are often a problem with dry lager-yeast cultures.

 

Hmmm. This brewing book from 1902 seems to suggest differently.

CORN AND RICE

SUPERIORITY OF SIX-ROW BARLEY OVER TWO-ROW VARIETIES FOR AMERICAN BEER
Starts at the bottom of that page


Also, BJCP 2C - Classic American Pilsner.

 

Well, well... I should not have doubted the BJCP...

...I know that this is off topic, ODaniel, but could you give a synopsis of what you found in the '02 book? I'm too much of a cheapskate to buy it, and I am interested in getting my history straight about why BMC became crap.

Brewlicious, that recipe looks good. I am interested to see how it turns out for you.

If it is good, I would be interested in brewing it myself in order to educate my beer loving friends.

This thread is interesting.

 

Click the links I posted. The whole book is online via Google. Those links go to certain pages.

Granted it's not like the recipes in here, my Kentucky Common is a pre-prohibition beer that is great.

 

I think the big difference from today's American lagers and the pre Prohibition ones are hop rates. They still used a high percenage of adjuncts.