The Verdict is in. Lone Star Beer is Here to Stay. Chron.com
On Wednesday, after nearly two days of deliberation, a Milwaukee, WI jury decided that MillerCoors will continue brewing Pabst Brewing Company's 21 beer labels, including Lone Star, according to NPR News.First off, a couple of points:
MillerCoors did not want to renew its contract to brew for Pabst when it expires in 2020, saying it no longer makes financial sense, while Pabst argued the contract includes options for an extension and MillerCoors was essentially trying to put it out of business.
1. Lone Star is not a good beer, it is not a craft beer, it's cheap plonk.
2. Lone Star is not the "National Beer of Texas" it never has been.
Now, if you want to make a case for a true State Beer of Texas I would nominate Shiner Bock. For one, it tastes better, is actually brewed in Texas, is owned by Texans and has much deeper roots IN Texas than Lone Star ever had.
Yes, I know that Lone Star started in Texas, but those days are long behind them. And the beer market has moved on.
Lone Star is a carpet-bagger, an import, a relic from a by-gone Texas that some people seem to pine for while waddling around Austin looking for the next hemp store to open up. A Texas that didn't exist.
Modern Texas is an urban sort, and while I disagree with the TLSPM that "all" of Texas vibrancy is found in the cities certainly some of it is. But the wealth, and the history, are found in the increasingly empty wide-open spaces West of the Texas Triangle. Anything truly original can be found there as well.
What Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio truly are is replicators for European and outside culture. Things will get invented in New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, etc. and the Texas 4 will do their darndest to bring it to Texas, just about 2 years after the trend is dying out elsewhere. Cupcakes? Gourmet Donuts? Chicken and Waffles? Tapas? Light Rail? Bike Lanes?
None of those things were invented in Texas, but they were brought to its cities. That's OK in some cases, light rail and bike lanes being the obvious exceptions here) but to find something truly Texas original you usually have to travel to the hinterlands.
Luling and Lockheart didn't invent Texas Bar-B-Q (Mexican Vaqueros did that) but they sure perfected it prior to it being exported elsewhere. You can get a great bowl of Texas red in the cities, but a better one in many small town diners. For years all of these things were brought to the cities via the State Fair. City-dwellers would try them, restaurants would open up and a craze was born. Now people see things on the Internet, or spend two weeks traveling to Europe, and pine to find something here "just like I had over there" (Hint: This is not usually an honest request, it's more a brag that they've been there and you haven't).
The same myth-making, at a much more primitive level, has been falsely attached to Lone Star Beer.
And it's time, past time honestly, to end this myth once and for all.
With that in mind, and judging by the litter I see on the side of the road, it's time to give praise to the TRUE 'National Beer of Texas"
ALL HAIL MILLER LITE!
Sad, but true.
