"Hey, can I take your last beer?"

"No."

"We'll SPLIT IT!" 

Ahhh, a great line from the movie STRIPES. I thought I would take a minute to say, yes, I drink beer. Yes, for a time, I was saving the cartons the beer came in. When you bought bottles in a case format, you got one hell of a carton. It could hold that precious 24 pack of soldiers with care. I bought a lot of one particular brand. Sorry California and most of the Western United States. Yuengling is still a regional brew. Coors used to be right? That's what Smokey and the Bandit was about right?

 You see it all began when the Pittsburgh brewing company had a brewing glitch. I was back in Cleveland from Louisville. I still liked "Falls City Lager" which you could only get in Louisville, so I'd always bring back 4-5 cases when I went down south. Brewed by? Pitt brewing. Then, I would go to see Boomer The Dog about once a month and a beer store near his place (back when you could only buy beer in Pitt by the CASE and only from a distributor) had a beer called J.J.Wainwright's Evil Eye Honey Brown that they sold for 8.99 a case! It actually was a good beer! I'd buy two or three cases from there. I also sort of liked Pitt Brewing's amber beer beverage in the aluminium bottles Augustiner.

It was the perfect storm when I had cases of all three beers at my house and all three of them started having a "spoiled" flavor, and all shared the same sour taste that got worse as time went on.  I wrote to the brewery and their response was "likely caused by storage at different retailers". Hmmmm. Three different beers bought in two separate places that may have been brewed in the same unclean tanks causing all to have the same "odd" sour flavor. What was a Beer Advocate like me to do. 67 beers down the drain!!!! *sob**sob*

Enter the Yuengling beer company. They had been around forever and it looked like the beer store in Pitt sold tons and tons of it. We couldn't get it here in Ohio, so I "imported" my beer beverages once I tried all their beers. Granted, they are nothing really spectacular. The difference is, it's different. The Amber Lager is their biggest seller and well, I think it kicks the beer butt of any of the other non craft beers save for Pabst. I have a friend that says it's too sweet but he also thinks since Bud was bought out, their quality has gone downhill. I'll have to agree with that. Yuengling also is one of the only beer companies to keep brewing a Porter beer all this time. They also have a Black and Tan, a "Miller" like Premium, and good ol' Lord Chets. It's also a rare throwback ale not unlike Ballantine. It's more expensive, but I like it.

You know, I never would have switched to Y! (as I call it) if Pitt brewing would have given me a little good will. Even if they would have said "we'll check into the problem." They didn't. A few years later, they closed the brewery  and now, are brewed under contract at the old Rolling Rock plant owned by a Wisconsin brewer. Yes, the Rolling Rock waters of Old Latrobe helped Iron City go from a slightly metallic tasting beer to a cheap brew that is much better than Bud, Miller and Coors offerings, but the damage was done. I was sold on the Y! and have been consuming it since. Once I moved into a house, I had a whole lot of basement space available and these boxes started building.

I always liked the BOCK beers. Nothing better than asking for a beer by saying what a Chicken says. Of course, this was one of Y!'s seasonal offerings that I started seeing a few years ago. They bought the Strohs brewery in Tampa, Florida and increased their output to meet growing demand. When I was on vacation in Florida, I took the Y! beer tour with two free beers, one before and one after the tour. It was neat to see how the beer I was drinking was brewed. I learned a few things about Yuengling. At least at that brewery, they've never had a bad batch. Quality. I learned the namesake, owner Dick Yuengling hated shipping his beer in cans. Then the tour guide came to the "any questions" portion of the tour and I asked "When are you coming to Ohio? " She replied sternly "Never. Not a chance."  2011? Imported from PA no more.

Meanwhile, I have a ton of these boxes, but you know, those plastic keepers you can buy from any place for about $5 bucks apiece can hold a lot more and don't get stinky or damp if exposed to a bit of water. It's a matter now of, I have a lot of basement and I'm too lazy to tear these up for the recycling bin. I'll get to them. Eventually. Except for the plain boxes that held 22 ounce "bomber" bottles. Yuengling gave up on these when 24 ounce cans became so popular. That means those empty boxes are worth something right? RIGHT?

-Ric