It's A Sad Day In Latrobe ... And Here

Rolling Rock
From the glass lined tanks of Old Latrobe, we tender this premium beer for your enjoyment as a tribute to your good taste. It comes from the mountain springs to you "33"

Alas, those 33 words will become myth on August 1.  Rolling Rock is no more.  Or, at least not what it was.

LATROBE, Pa. --A line of trucks idled outside the loading docks at Latrobe Brewing Co. on Friday morning. In a few hours, they would haul away some of the last cases of Rolling Rock beer brewed in Latrobe.

"It's over. It's done," said Larry Ewantis, who ran the receiving department for ingredients. "Now they're just cleaning up."

Known for its distinctive green bottle and quality pledge with a mysterious "33" at the end, Rolling Rock has been brewed here since 1939. But Belgium-based InBev SA, which owned Rolling Rock and Latrobe Brewing, sold the Rolling Rock brand to Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. for $82 million in May.

Anheuser-Busch plans to brew the beer in New Jersey beginning in August. The brewery in Latrobe was not included in the deal, and is expected to close Monday.

La Crosse, Wis.-based City Brewing Co. is negotiating to buy the brewery and produce other brands of beer here. Union workers at the brewery have voted to accept a contract with City Brewing.

Oh, sure, Anheiser Busch will keep the name alive, but the beer will no longer be from the "glass lined tanks of Old Latrobe."  I've been partial to the painted green bottle and pale lager inside for about 20 years.  No, it's not the best beer I've ever had, but it's the best American beer when quaffed ice cold on a hot day with sweat dripping from your brow.  It's the kind of beer that quenches a thirst, that cools an overheated body from thermonuclear to summer breeze in one bottle.  You drink Rolling Rock after 2 hours of pickup basketball at the schoolyard.  You drink it after 18 holes in 95 degree heat.  You drink it after clearing half an acre of brush, or digging a new garden.  It leaves a clean taste on your tongue after passing through.  Rolling Rock is not a beer to be sipped and savored, but rather to be gulped with gusto, with need.

The legend of the '33' is interesting.

Therefore, I hunted up James L. Tito, who at one time was chief executive officer of Latrobe Brewing, the maker of Rolling Rock beer.

Mr. Tito's family owned Latrobe from the end of Prohibition until the company was sold to an outfit in Connecticut in 1985. After some prompting, he told me the sordid truth.

Based on some old notes and discussions with family members now dead, Mr. Tito believes that putting the 33 on the label was nothing more or less than a horrible accident. It happened like this:

When the Titos decided to introduce the Rolling Rock brand around 1939, they couldn't agree on a slogan for the back of the bottle. Some favored a long one, some a short one. At length somebody came up with the 33-word beauty quoted above, and to indicate its modest length, scribbled a big "33" on it.

More argument ensued, until finally somebody said, dadgummit, boys, let's just use this one and be done with it, and sent the 33-word version off to the bottle maker.

Unfortunately, no one realized that the big 33 wasn't supposed to be part of the design until 50 jillion returnable bottles had been made up with the errant label painted permanently on their backsides.

The first thing I ever learned about Latrobe, Pa. was that Arnold Palmer was born there.  That alone gave the town a mystical quality.  Then to find such an enjoyable beer - again, taken ice cold, after one heroic sweat-producing effort or another - also from Latrobe, that's magic.

I'll have a very tough time ordering the "new Rock," as will many others.

Count among them Dave Banner.

[...]

"I'll drink it till they run out of Latrobe beer," Banner said, gazing philosophically at the bottle in his hand. "This might be the last one, you never know."

Like other disillusioned Rolling Rock buffs, Banner has pledged to boycott the brew once it is made in Newark, N.J.

The Rock just won't be the same, and I'll miss it. 

(fade to black as the author twists the cap off a cold green bottle ...)

Linked to Wizbang's COTT LXXIX.