Did you know that America's oldest brewery - one that was established in 1829 - is still well and alive, and very much still kicking? In fact, through six generations, and all the ups and downs (including Prohibition), this brewery remains the largest craft beer brewery in America, and is even the sixth largest overall, also being the largest wholly American-owned brewery in the US, and outside of the beer scene also boasts the longest uninterrupted history of management by a single family in America - it's a whole lot of records it holds, which really comes down to its resilience in surviving, and thriving, for as long as it has. It's gone on for so long that many characterise it as a Historical Beer - that is, it's by and large a style that befits the historical time period in which it was first created; yet what's great about Yuengling is that it is for the most part it's still incredibly accessible despite being almost 200 years old!

And you might've guessed it - it's Yuengling.

Whilst the brewery's amber lager and porter are widely well-known in the US - it remains by and large a domestic affair, and believe me when I say that everyone who drinks beer in America certainly has an opinion about it. In any beer database from America that you'd search, Yuengling is definitely going to be up there in terms of just how many people have something to say about it, and for many in America, just might be their first craft beer.

But wait, Yuengling doesn't sound particularly American. So let's start from the beginning.

The name Yuengling comes from one David G. Yuengling, a German immigrant from Wurtemburg, who had come over to Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where he thus started his brewery at the North Centre Street. David's birthname was in fact David Gottlieb Jüngling, "Jüngling" actually meaning "young man". However, when David had gotten over to the US, he had figured that an anglicised "Yuengling" was probably easier for folks in the US to remember.

David would originally name his brewery the Eagle Brewery, which he so named as he had wanted to convey a sense of strength and pride - his brewery's opening in 1929 had coincided with the election of the then new American President, Andrew Jackson - and so the idea was for the beers to be a beacon of patriotism of his newfound home. He would even have the Bald Eagle on his beer labels, which persists till this day. From his new brewery, he would start off by brewing the Lord Chesterfield Ale and Dark Brewed Porter, both of which - fast forward to 2025 - are still made available by Yuengling today!

Unfortunately, it wasn't the easiest of starts - the original brewery would suffer from a fire just 2 years into its operations, and would eventually be relocated to the foothills of the Appalachian trail, at Mahantongo Street, where it has since operated till this day from all the way back in 1831! That's sufficiently far back that when America would celebrate its big bi-centennial in 1976, the brewery would be officially inducted to the National Register of Historic Places as America's Oldest Brewery.

First generation David would eventually pass the brewery on to his son, Frederick, who would promptly change the brewery's name back to D.G. Yuengling & Son (his eldest son, David Jr., would go on to start his own brewery, the James River Steam Brewery in Richmond, Virginia, instead). It was under Frederick that the brewery would start to see some serious growth - malt from Philadelphia was transported some 100 miles to the brewery via the Schuylkill Canal, whilst horse drawn wagons were set up as an early form of a distribution system, kegs were supplemented with a first bottling line, and business would grow to see breweries opened in Saratoga, New York and Trail, British Columbia (before they eventually all consolidated back to the original Pottsville brewery).

Frederick would eventually in turn pass on the brewery to his own son, Frank. Frank had it rough - the Prohibition hit in 1920, and as a beer brewery, it would seem nothing short of personal. Now, make no mistake, Frank didn't believe Prohibition would last, and so he was determined to keep things going. Ingeniously, Frank would devise what could be termed the first Low-ABV (or Near Beer)! It seems like Frank was just a 100 years ahead of his time, just as low-ABV beers are booming in the 2020's. And so using a combination of lower-sugar wort and simply cutting the beer with water, Yuengling would produce beers at just 0.5% ABV! And if you wanted a higher proof beer, well, Yuengling also happened to sell malt extracts and yeast which you could in theory make your beer stronger yourself at home - just don't say that Yuengling told you so. The brewery would debut three new near beer products: the Yuengling Special, Yuengling Por Tor and Yuengling Juvo, the last of which was marketed in fact as an energy drink. To make ends meet, Yuengling would even start a dairy business which sold ice cream (there were non-alcoholic), and also ran dance halls across Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York City.

By 1933 when Prohibition was finally repealed, Yuengling would celebrate by creating a special Winner Beer that it would even have a truckload shipped to the presidential White House in appreciation to President Roosevelt who had presided then. Yuengling would also begin to undergo successive decades of upgrading to their brewery, with new infrastructure built to support better fermentation, storage and so on.

Fun Fact: Former US President Barack Obama cited Yuengling as his favourite beer, whilst Yuengling's current owner, fifth-generation Dick Yuengling is an endorse of US President Donald Trump.

The 1950's and 1960's were a period of uneven popularity for Yuengling. Frank would pass the brewery on to fourth-generation Richard and F. Dohrman Yuengling, who did their best to keep the brewery going, which thankfully benefitted from the great American bi-centennial, yet however faced a broader decline. They did however, continue to oversee investments in upgrading the brewery, and would eventually pass it on to fifth-generation Richard "Dick" Yuengling.

Dick was determined not to be the Yuengling that saw the family business go, and by the time he came to assume the helm of the Yuengling Brewery, he had already proven himself a sterling businessman, having started a successful beer distribution company. Dick knew something had to change and if not, the current trend was looking really precarious. He would convince Brewmaster Ray Norbet that need beers were needed to revitalise interest in the brewery, and so after 5 years of R&D, they would produce the Yuengling Premium Light Beer, Traditional Lager (a reintroduction of their old Amber Lager recipe) and the Original Black and Tan, the last of which was a blend of the Yuengling Premium and the Yuengling Dark Brewed Porter. Today the brewery makes use of corn from Minnesota and hops from Washington as some of its more diversified sourcing of ingredients.

These fresh set of unique beers worked! Together with more marketing and a better utilisation of distribution networks (Dick's forte), for once in a long time Yuengling was starting to see sustained growth again! Under Dick, Yuengling would go from 127,000 barrels of beer in 1989 to 360,000 barrels sold by 1996 - that's almost a 3x increase in just 7 years! It would also become the largest brewer of Porters in the US. By 2009, Yuengling would surpass 2 million barrels.

Yuengling would start to aggressively expand, which in turn saw the brewery grow its capacity to a new brewery in Tampa, Florida (taking over the Stroh Brewery) and also another one in nearby Schuylkill County. It would also begin to put out seasonal beers and take on collabs with the likes of Hershey's (producing a Yuengling Hershey's Chocolate Porter), and would also get into a joint venture with Molson Coors which would see it expand to more states in the US.

Dick Yuengling with his daughters.

Today, Dick Yuengling's four daughters work at the family's brewery and have been touted to eventually take the helm of Yuengling.

And so with all that said, today we're going to try Yuengling's most popular Traditional Lager. This is an amber lager that was actually most common pre-Prohibition, and hence is called a pre-Prohibition lager. It was reintroduced in 1987 and eventually became the brewery's flagship beer.

Let's go!

Beer Review: Yuengling Traditional Lager, 4.5% ABV

Tasting Notes

Colour: Deep Amber

Aroma: It's immediately expressive with a nice crispness. There's a brighter accent of citrusy lemons and lemon candy, a whiff of hoppiness too, that's then backed up by a rich and sweeter, more buttery maltiness and a touch of deeper toned caramel. 

Taste: Really crisp, with this persistent yet soft nippiness and a lingering aromatics of lemon peel. It's really textural. Velvety at first, medium-bodied, with a rounded, buttery and caramel malty sweetness that's giving orange jelly, with then a very precise and well-defined effervescence. There's also an overtone of slightly spiced and an almost floral hoppiness that comes through as well.

Finish: The nippiness persists through the finish with its soft barley grain aroma, as well as of roasted malt, with a light umaminess of marmite at the end. It's smooth past the finish, with a floral hoppiness and buttery maltiness that lingers.

My Thoughts

This comes off as a really awesome Pilsner - stylistically it feels like a cross between a Bohemian and German style Pilsners, where it's nippy, crisp, floral and dry, yet at the same time it has a really big maltiness that gives it alot of richness. In that sense, it's both really approachable and also really refreshing. Perhaps what felt most amazing was that textural sensation where on the palate, it's rich and rounded, yet almost narrows out from this pool of buttery malt to give a really precise and high definition crispness. It's incredible to say the least! It's aromatic, textural and long on the finish, what a legend!

@CharsiuCharlie