Bud Dry – The Experimental Beer that Vanished
Remember when Budweiser tried to jump on the dry beer trend? Bud Dry was on the market from 1989 until 2010, when it was discontinued. In 1989, American brewing giant Anheuser-Busch unveiled its own version of dry beer with Bud Dry. A brand extension of its Budweiser and Bud Light brands, a serving packed slightly more calories than a Bud Light but maintained the relatively high alcohol content of a Budweiser.
The beer was heavily marketed with the memorable slogan “Why ask Why? Try Bud Dry”. According to Anheuser-Busch, Bud Dry sold 3.2 million barrels in its first year and had a $70 million marketing budget. However, with the introduction of Bud Ice in 1994, Anheuser-Busch slowed its marketing efforts for Bud Dry as its popularity waned. Sales slowly but dramatically dwindled, and Anheuser-Busch started to pull the plug on Bud Dry in 2006. Production officially ended in 2010. Despite its demise, there are still superfans of Bud Dry that wish it would make a comeback. Some folks have even put up a petition on Change.org to encourage a return to the beer aisle. However, judging from the scant 114 signatures on the plea, the discontinued Bud Dry probably won’t be returning to store shelves anytime soon.
Olympia Beer – “It’s the Water” No More
For more than a century, Olympia Beer represented the Pacific Northwest with its famous slogan. Known for its marketing catchphrase, “It’s the water,” which referenced the artisanal, specially treated water that served as the basis of its flagship product, Olympia pumped out beer in Tumwater until 2003, when the Pabst Brewing Company acquired the company and moved production to California. The brand was deeply connected to its Washington state roots, using artesian well water to create its distinctive taste.
In January 2021, Pabst Brewing decided to stop producing Olympia Beer altogether, citing “a growing decline in its demand” in an official statement on the brand’s Instagram page. After more than 125 years of production, shifting market trends, corporate restructuring, and fierce competition from major brewing conglomerates forced Olympia Beer to pause production in 2021. While the beer was never officially “discontinued,” its production halt marked the end of an era. For many in the Pacific Northwest, Olympia represented regional pride and local brewing heritage that can never be truly replaced.
Pete’s Wicked Ale – The Craft Beer Pioneer
These brews tend to have a high alcohol content and pack a wallop of flavor, and the whole scene exploded in the late 1980s and early 1990s thanks to pioneering beers like Pete’s Wicked Ale. In 1979, Pete Slosberg of Norwich, Connecticut gave up on his home-brewed wine efforts and moved into more time-efficient beer-making. After rolling out several more beers, Slosberg sold Pete’s to The Gambrinus Company in 1998.
The downfall came when the new owners messed with the formula. Just two years into its ownership, Gambrinus reformulated Pete’s Wicked Ale to give it a lighter taste. In 2011, Gambrinus sent a letter to distributors announcing that it would no longer make any form of Pete’s Wicked Ale, citing poor sales. The success of Pete’s Wicked Ale wasn’t confined to local popularity; it was one of the first craft breweries to achieve national distribution. This expansion allowed beer enthusiasts nationwide to experience the brand’s exceptional brews, further solidifying its reputation as a trailblazer in the craft beer movement. Pete’s Wicked Ale truly deserves recognition as the craft beer that helped launch an entire movement.
Schlitz – “The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous”
Founded in 1849, it was once the largest producer of beer in the United States. Its namesake beer, Schlitz, has been produced by Pabst Brewing Company since 1999. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the Milwaukee-based Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company held the gold crown as America’s largest brewer. Its flagship beer, Schlitz, known as “the beer that made Milwaukee famous,” was a beloved and iconic American-style lager.
What happened to Schlitz reads like a business school case study in how not to run a company. During the 1970s, in an attempt to cut production costs and keep up with growing demands, Schlitz’s owners decided to shorten the beer’s brewing time by implementing a process called “accelerated batch fermentation.” They also opted to replace its malted barley with a cheaper ingredient, corn syrup, and began experimenting with the use of a silica gel to prevent haze once the beer was chilled. In 1976, Schlitz recalled more than 10 million cans and bottles of beer, costing the company over $1.4 million in losses. In 2020, that’s the equivalent of $6.3 million. The Department of Justice didn’t allow either of those takeovers to happen, but in June 1982 did allow for Detroit brewing company Stroh to purchase Schlitz. Stroh wasn’t able to keep up with debts, including that incurred to purchase Schlitz, and Pabst bought out Stroh and all its assets including the Schlitz brand in 1999.
Meister Brau – The Miller Light Predecessor
Meister Brau beer became a popular local brew in Chicago at the beginning of the 20th century. However, when business slowed in the 70s, Miller Brewing Company bought up the struggling brewery and in 2005 the Brau was phased out. However, Miller Light evolved from Meister Brau Light, so the impact is still felt.
Meister Brau has a long history, starting in 1891 in Chicago. It gained local popularity but struggled to gain market share outside the windy city. The brand and company went belly up, leading to its bankruptcy in 1972. What makes this story particularly fascinating is that Miller Brewing Company acquired the failed brand and discontinued it. However, they reformulated and rebranded it into Meister Brau Lite. The beer exists in spirit today as Miller Lite. So every time you crack open a Miller Lite, you’re actually drinking the descendant of a forgotten Chicago brewery that couldn’t make it on its own. It’s a perfect example of how beer brands can die and be reborn under new names.
Keystone Ice – The High-Gravity Experiment
Keystone Ice beer was an experimental beer from Coors first introduced in 1989. Crafted in the tradition of American value beers, Keystone Ice underwent a unique process that set it apart from other beers. Ice beers became popular in the late eighties and early nineties because they offered higher alcohol content through a freezing process that concentrated the alcohol.
Icehouse Edge was another victim of Molson Coors’ big cut, the high-gravity lager with a dark golden appearance and 8% ABV – a spin-off of Icehouse – was also discontinued in 2021. The ice beer category represented an interesting moment in American brewing when consumers seemed willing to experiment with different processes and higher alcohol content. Keystone Ice fell victim to changing tastes and corporate consolidation, like so many other experimental brews of that era. The brand’s disappearance reflects how quickly consumer preferences can shift in the competitive beer market.
Brown Derby – The Grocery Store Exclusive
A long time ago, though, there was Brown Derby, made exclusively for Safeway. Brown Derby beer dates back to 1933, when Prohibition was repealed. It was made by a California brewery that adopted a name and logo meant to associate its brew with the famous Brown Derby restaurants. The restaurant chain wasn’t too thrilled about this honor, though, so the brewery had to change the packaging.
The beer itself bounced from brewery to brewery, but remained a Safeway staple until 1988. At this time, many Safeway stores were sold to rival grocery chain Vons. The new owners weren’t down with having their own generic beer brand. Rusty Cans notes that Brown Derby continued to be sold in some West Coast Safeway stores, but the brand seems to have disappeared altogether sometime during the past three decades. Brown Derby represents a fascinating piece of retail history when grocery chains were willing to create their own private-label beers – a practice that seems almost unimaginable today.
Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve – Portland’s Lost Classic
Henry’s was a huge hit, seen by many Portlanders as something that paved the way for the craft beer revolution that came along a few decades later. Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve held special significance for Portland beer lovers as a bridge between the old industrial brewing era and the modern craft movement. The brand represented local pride and quality brewing long before craft beer became trendy.
As per Oregon Live, the Weinhard brewery was sold to Pabst in 1979, eventually ending up in the hands of Molson-Coors. Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve is among the handful of brands that the company just dropped. Unlike some of the other ones on that list, though, Henry’s will definitely be missed. The loss of Henry Weinhard’s represents something deeper than just another discontinued beer – it’s the erasure of regional brewing culture that once gave cities their unique beer identity. Portland may have dozens of craft breweries now, but none carry the historical weight and local significance that Henry’s once did.
Rolling Rock – From Latrobe to Everywhere
Rolling Rock is a 4.4% abv American lager launched in 1939 by the Latrobe Brewing Company. Although founded as a local beer in Western Pennsylvania, it was marketed aggressively and eventually became a national product. From 1939 until July 26, 2006, Rolling Rock was brewed at the Latrobe Brewing Company in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, a small city 34 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. As stated on the bottle, it was brewed with a distinctive soft local water in large glass-lined tanks.
On May 19, 2006, Anheuser-Busch purchased the Rolling Rock and Rolling Rock Green Light brands from InBev for $82 million and began brewing Rolling Rock at its Newark facility in mid July, 2006. While Rolling Rock still exists, AB had moved most of the brewing of Rolling Rock to Newark, New Jersey, and as such it has become somewhat indistinguishable from most other light lagers made by them. In 2015, Anheuser-Busch stopped brewing bottled Rolling Rock in glass-lined tanks. Only the canned beer was now being brewed using the traditional process. The beer that once proudly declared its Pennsylvania origins now tastes like just another mass-produced lager, losing much of what made it special in the first place.
Rainier Beer – The Pacific Northwest Icon
The Rainier Brewing Company is an American owned beer brand, originally established in Seattle, Washington. Rainier Beer remains a popular brand in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. After a series of ownership transfers starting in the 1970s, the company was sold to Stroh’s and then to Pabst Brewing Company by the late 1990s. The brewery was closed by Pabst in 1999 and sold, while Rainier beer continues to be sold by Pabst.
The Rainier brand was sold to General Brewing Company, which moved production to the Olympia brewery in nearby Tumwater, Washington. The Olympia Brewing Company closed in 2003. Rainier Beer is now brewed by Pabst in Irwindale, California. In 1954, the iconic Rainier “R” sign was raised above the brewery and became a landmark of the Seattle skyline. However, with Rainier’s huge success in the mid-1900s and a changing of the guard, brewing operations were moved away from Seattle, and that iconic “R” sign eventually went dark. While Rainier still exists, it’s no longer brewed in its hometown, making it a shadow of its former regional self. The beer that once defined Seattle’s brewing identity now comes from hundreds of miles away in California.
Stroh’s – The Fire-Brewed Detroit Legend
The Stroh Brewery Company was a beer brewery in Detroit, Michigan. In addition to its own Stroh’s brand, the company produced or bought the rights to several other brands including Goebel, Schaefer, Schlitz, Augsburger, Erlanger, Old Style, Lone Star, Old Milwaukee, Red River, and Signature, as well as manufacturing Stroh’s Ice Cream. The company was taken over and broken up in 2000, but some of its brands continued to be made by the new owners.
After a tour of famous European breweries, he introduced the European fire-brewing method in the Stroh brewery. Common in Europe before World War I, the fire-brewing process uses a direct flame rather than steam to heat beer-filled copper kettles. After the company’s dissolution in 2000, some Stroh brands were discontinued, while others were purchased by other breweries. The Pabst Brewing Company acquired the most Stroh/Heileman brands. In August 2016, Pabst partnered with a brewery in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood called Brew Detroit to begin brewing batches of Stroh’s Bohemian-Style Pilsner, a beer derived from an original 1850s Stroh’s recipe. The fire-brewing process gave Stroh’s a unique character that made it stand out from other American lagers, but like so many regional breweries, it couldn’t survive the consolidation of the industry.
Jack D’Or – The Craft Beer Casualty
Jack D’Or was a farmhouse ale produced by Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project. In the craft market scene, it was known as a unique “Saison Americain.” Sadly, the beer was discontinued when the brewery ceased operations in 2015. Boston-based Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project was a beloved, whimsical local brewery that created some of the more interesting beers on the market in the 2000s, closed their doors in 2015 leaving fans mourning Jack D’Or, a tangy, lemony beer we’d love to sip again.
Jack D’Or represented the kind of innovative craft brewing that emerged in the 2000s – beers that pushed boundaries and challenged drinkers to expand their palates. The Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project was known for its creative approach and willingness to experiment with traditional European styles adapted for American tastes. When the brewery closed, it wasn’t just another business closing – it was the loss of a unique voice in American craft brewing. Jack D’Or’s disappearance reminds us that even in the craft beer boom, not every innovative brewery can survive the intense competition and challenging economics of the industry.
These forgotten beer brands tell the story of American brewing – from massive industrial operations that fell victim to corporate missteps, to beloved regional favorites that couldn’t survive industry consolidation, to innovative craft pioneers that paved the way for today’s beer scene. Each lost brand represents not just a recipe or a business, but a piece of drinking culture that shaped communities and memories. While new beers continue to emerge and excite drinkers, these vanished brews remind us that nothing in the beer world is permanent – except perhaps the nostalgia for what we’ve lost.
