Philadelphia may be the City of Brotherly Love, home of Rocky, and birthplace of the nation, but its greatest accomplishment in my book is producing the nation’s finest beer, the Yuengling Lager (you pronounce that YING-Ling–no relation to Ling-Ling, late of the National Zoo). Of course, the city is also known the world over for its cheesesteak, a sandwich of thinly sliced rib-eye steak, melted cheese (preferably “whiz,” a staple of the native cuisine), mushrooms, and onions, all on an Amoroso’s roll. But given the choice between a “whiz with” from Pat’s King of Steaks and a room-temperature bottle of lager (in Philadelphia there is only one lager) . . . well, a man can go much longer without food than drink.
It is only with the greatest deference to Pat’s that I say this. The fact is, Philadelphia has long been plagued by sectarian division. Although no scientific survey has been taken, it is my belief that a majority of the citizenry have sworn allegiance to Pat’s King of Steaks, though a sizable minority of apostates frequent Geno’s, a lesser establishment across the intersection at 9th and Wharton Streets in South Philadelphia. Just one thing transcends this culinary divide: the lager of D.G. Yuengling and Son. Sure, we all rally round the Eagles every winter, but the tie that binds in Philly is the cold, frothy brew from Pottsville. The Delaware Valley’s deep and abiding love of beer should come as no surprise, as it was Philadelphia’s greatest, Benjamin Franklin, who famously declared beer to be “living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
The story of Yuengling is unique. It is the nation’s oldest continuously operated brewery. Founded in 1829, it survived Prohibition and the collapse of most of its peers in the 1960s and 1970s, and today remains owned and operated by D.G. Yuengling’s heirs. The lager itself, though not brewed continuously since 1829, is made from an ancient recipe that Dick Yuengling revived in the 1980s. It is amber in color, with a rich flavor and extremely smooth texture–unpretentious and yet utterly refined. Perhaps it’s the combination of tradition, quality, and affordability (a case of the stuff goes for no more than $16 in Philly) that has turned so many of its customers into partisans.
Beer drinkers, like smokers, tend to be loyal customers, and brand loyalty is, of course, exactly what a brewer seeks to instill in its clientele. Budweiser claims to be the “King of Beers,” but, as a number of clever Miller ads recently pointed out, Americans are not fond of monarchy. Miller’s counterclaim to be the “President of Beers,” however, was ill-conceived. Budweiser noted Miller’s South African ownership–foreigners can’t even run for president. Coors is another mega-brewery, but I’ll let you in on a dirty little secret about Coors that the twins won’t tell you. As Lee Buxton, Coors’s head of marketing, explains, “The heart of Coors Light marketing is to communicate that in every bottle, can, and glass of Coors Light is the taste of Rocky Mountain cold refreshment.” That other taste might be the Rocky Flats Superfund nuclear waste site, where tons of plutonium sit “in liquid form, contained in deteriorating piping systems”–says the EPA–just a few miles away from the Coors brewery in Golden, Colorado.
As I said, we’re partisans, but with good reason. Boasting a proud tradition and a scrappy, underdog mentality–like the Italian Stallion himself, you might say–Yuengling doesn’t have customers, it has fans. You won’t see much advertising from the brewery–a few billboards on the Schuylkill Expressway running through Philly is about the extent of it–because word of mouth, the holy grail of marketing, has been the brewery’s main engine of growth. The same loyalty that the city shows for its perennial loser sports teams (I know Donovan will lead us to the Promised Land next year) it also shows for its favorite beer. The Philadelphia diaspora has helped Yuengling expand as far south as Florida and as far north as New England. Just the other day the New York Times Magazine ran a profile of the company and its proprietor entitled “Little Giant.”
Now Yuengling is even flowing west, and Philadelphia has cause to rejoice. Yuengling’s expanding horizons represent a rare triumph for a city with few cultural exports since 1787. Despite the efforts of many to faithfully reproduce the city’s famous cheesesteak in restaurants and pizzerias the world over, no one, by all accounts, has yet succeeded. But perhaps this humble brew, with its proud tradition and loyal drinkers, will unite a nation as it did a city. Our rallying cry: “Yo, another round of lager over here!”
–Michael Goldfarb
