Anheuser-Busch has already begun brewing the iconic Rolling Rock beer in its New Jersey brewery and will start shipping its version of the beer in August.
“We are going to retain as much of the history and tradition and heritage of this brand,” said Andy Goeler, vice president of Anheuser-Busch’s import, craft and specialty group.
The company also plans to expand to other brewing locations in the United States, Goeler said.
“There will be virtually no change to the brand at all,” he said. “The whole mission here is to keep all the things we love about the brand and keep things that were very important to us when we went out to purchase the brand.”
The label will retain the enigmatic number “33” at the end of its quality pledge. But the words “St. Louis, Missouri” will be added to the pledge, which will now be preceded by the phrase: “To honor the tradition of this great brand, we quote from the original pledge.”
And while the beer will now be made in New Jersey, the labels will still say: “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.”
The water will no longer come from mountain springs, but from the Wanaque Reservoir near Newark, N.J., Goeler said.
While this bit of inaccuracy will rankle those still angry that Rolling Rock is not longer made in Latrobe, and those who just plain don’t like Anhueser-Busch, but Goebel doubts it will affect sales. He said said the taste, packaging “and what the brand reflects” were more important than where it was brewed.
Yeah go from mountain spring water in crystal clear PA to the swamp water in Jersey where you can taste the polution. Of course if the damnunions hadn’t been so greedy Budweiser would have bought the plant as well as the recipe and name. As far as saying glass lined tanks of old Latrobe it will only bother the purists and they will already know the RR is now Jersey swamp water. However, since the majority of the RR market is PA and the closer to the plant the more drinkers there are I am willing to bet the market for RR goes down dramatically and AB has to develope a whole new demand market for it.
I will no longer be drinking rolling rock with AB owning the brand and brewing it in New Jersey with swap water. I have been drinking Rolling Rock for over 8 years but with the last batch been brewed in Labtrobe soon it has come time to part ways
I agree. NJ pisswater is not mountain spring water from the Laurel Highlands. Hoping that the new owner of the Latrobe brewing co, City Brewing, will brew some interesting beers there. That’s who I will support.
I have stockpiled cases and cases of our wonderful Latrobe Rolling Rock. I have drank Rolling Rock my whole life. A true Rolling Rock is only made in the Laurel Highlands of Western Pennsylvania. I will not drink this
anheuser busch new jersey swamp piss and will have to find another beer to drink . And trust me, I am not alone.anheuser busch should be sued for claiming mountain spring water is used in the product. As far as I am concerned anheuser busch can burn in hell!!!
“33”
It is a sad day for all consumers when the large bohemoth buys up the small customer focused breweries. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon as many a small brewery folds under the competitive forces of Big Beer.
I have been a consistent consumer of Rolling Rock for 30 years. I have also consumed the AB products and I’m smart enough to realize that AB is not going to forever stick with the RR formula. They are both rice beers but the difference in taste puts RR more than 33% above the bohemouth brands.
I will miss you Rolling Rock. It’s time to move on. This is sort of a divorce from my favorite beer. Irreconcilable differences indeed. I hope you change your mind and go back to Latrobe…but I won’t hold my breath…..I’m crushed, but I’ll recover…I’ll just have to go drown my sorrows with someone new….Hey! Get a look at that St. Pauli Girl!! Oh come on now, you look much younger than “33”…..
This really sucks. I live in Jersey and believe me – you don’t want to drink the water! This situation just illustrates what our country has become…a place with no concern or regard for tradition and the past. Screw AB. And don’t forget to boycott Busch Gardens and Seaworld.
As for PA brews, don’t forget Yuengling – America’s Oldest brew. I put my money where my mouth is.
I’ve been enjoying my last summer of Rolling Rock. I’ve been drinking RR since the mid-80’s, when Providence, RI was RR largest market outside of PA. Hard to imagine but it was the premium beer of choice in Providence in those days.
I remember a retorical discussion I had back in 1990 with a bunch of co-workers at the HOT CLUB on the Providence waterfront. “What would your beer of choice to drink year round if you could only have one brand to drink for the rest of your life?” Rolling Rock was mine.
Although the choices of quality beers & ales has greatly expanded over the past 16 years, I’ve allways had RR in my fridge every summer as a touchstone of those days.
So goodbye, I will miss you….
Rolling Rock has been my favorite beer all my life. Also I live near Pittsburgh. If it doesn’t come from the glass-lined tanks of Old Latrobe, it isn’t Rolling Rock. In an effort to keep my money local I am switching to Stoney’s, which as far as I know is made by Pittsburgh Brewing. Or we’ll see what City Brewing ends up making at the brewery.
Jon O’Data.
I bet the people in SW PA felt the same way when they moved the brewing of Stoney’s from Smithton up to Pittsburgh.
I’ve never had Smithton brewed Stoney’s but I have had the Pittsburgh Brewery version, I think it has a very weird taste. Still, I know for sure that people drink it like it is mothers milk in Connellsville and Meyersdale. Probably better to go with Iron City, (although it is probably made in Florida.)
Ugh! As a life long consumer of the fruits of the glass lined tanks and the mountain spring waters of Old Latrobe I am at a loss. It may be mental but I had my first Rock since the annoucement of the abandonment of Westmorland County- It tasted like New Jersey- I don’t know if it was new Rock, old Rock, or a figment of my imagination. On to Stroh’s.
My how I have enjoyed and looked forward to busting 12 packs of RR on Fridays with friends. Having returned from a tour in Iraq to find the bad news I propmptly went to the base package store in Cherry Point NC and bought every drop of authentic RR in the first week of August. $319.00 later I haver some stored but will certainly be out one day in the near future. I am not happy with the situation but realize that I must enjoy what I have and then move on to something new. I will not purchase the NJ fake RR. When I read the quote from AB saying that they employed chemists who could mimic the exact mineral content of the water in PA, that we would not even be able to tell the difference, I knew they had no respect for what it is that they have ruined. What is Miller brewing these days?
I had my first Busch Rock a couple of weeks ago. Tastes like s#$%. Sam Adams will get my business.
Nice move AB — closing “Old Latrobe” and printing the insulting “honor the tradition” line preceeding the famous lines. Yes, I’m done on principle, but give me a break on the water. From what I understand Newark Budweiser wins taste tests against all other Bud brewing locations and for all I know the “mountain spring” near Old Latrobe may have been downhill from a coal mine. Sometimes I think it tasted that way. Another note is that RR was foreign-owned for years. So this leaves me disgusted in many ways:
1) the pompous AB marketing, thinking that they can close the brewery and still use the slogans, and lay off the workers in the process.
2) the outrage about “Jersey water”
3) RR is okay, but there are many like it (Pabst for one) most people won’t drink because the bottle isn’t as cute.
Jersey ,(newark) always had the best water for making beer. Newark New Jersey was the home of many of this countries best beers.We lost alot of good brewery jobs here too.All things come to an end..
.Want a real tasteee brew then open a bottle of Newark brewed BUD. Rolling Rock ,i wouldnt drink that GUTTER SLUDGE even if i was dying of thrust.
I had some of the new Rolling Rock today. It tastes just like all the other A-B products. It’s ok as beers go, but it definitely lost the old RR taste. I am still in mourning over the whole thing.
I can’t get Stoney’s here in Williamsport, but I can get Straubs and Yuengling. I’d say that Yuengling Premium is the closest thing to the original RR taste. All three of these are old regional breweries that are holding on against the giant beers. Straubs is a nice unique taste too. I recommend it.
I’ve basically settled on Straub and Yuengling. The beer distributors where I live rarely have Stoney’s but I buy it when they have it. Friend of mine in the North Hills hipped me to a beer called Troeggenator from a microbrew near Harrisburg that I thought was great, but I haven’t seen it where I live. Bought Penn Pilsner once but then I saw on the label that it is made in Maryland.
Jeez, and I thought it was just me….
I had been a heavy drinker of RR since the early ’90’s, but recently switched to gin because beer and crossing the 40-year marker apparently is a recipe for a big fat belly…anyway, I digress.
The reason that I used to drink RR is that I could slam down unlimited quanities without getting even a hint of a hangover. AB products on the other hand were deadly for me the next morning — even on as little as a six pack.
I like to use the following little story to explain how RR “was†different.
AB products are the only “beer†that I know of where you can pick up a “cold†six pack, toss it in the trunk of your car with no ice on a 100 degree summer day, drive 3 hours in traffic to the Jersey shore, take the six pack out (now a very warm six pack), put the beer on ice, pack your stuff back up the next day, put the six pack back in your trunk (because it didn’t get drunk), leave it in the trunk all week (in the hot sun), take that same six pack out of the trunk the next Friday night, put it on ice, wait 2-3 hours for it to cool down, pop open a can, drink it, and have it taste the same as it would of had you drank it when first purchased at the long aforementioned liquor store…..THE STUFF IS PURE POISON!!
Try the same with a RR and it would be skunked after the first heating/cooling cycle.
Up until recently, I would get a “bucket of Rocks†at my local watering hole once a week. Recently I noticed that I was getting a nauceous hungover feeling the next day after only 6 stupid little nips. This kept happening week in, week out, but I just put it off as being too old to even handle a few……then I remembered where I had felt that feeling before. It was my younger Budweiser days. The same Bud feeling that moved me to RR in the first place. Oh crap!!! That’s right!!! AB bought RR and then I also recalled hearing about them scrapping the plant in Latrobe.
Well I switched over to Miller lite nips and the “hangover†symptons, while not completely gone are much diminished.
Those a-holes at AB are just filling up the RR bottles with Bud piss.
Bastards!
Hi all,
I think its great that the rolling rock beer is finally being shipped around the world. I don’t know if it will be of any interest to anyone who add comments on here but a while back I found a British labels company who printed me some beer labels, as I had brought a home brewing kit and was selling my beer to friends and family. If anyone else is doing the same thing as me and want to make their beer a bit more personalised then maybe you should take a look on the site as their prices are so low they may be able to do you a great deal!
Like Brew Beer? Visit Basil T’s Brew Pub & Italian Grill, toms river NJ.
http://www.basilts.com
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To all of those who are content to diss Wanaque Reservoir water simply because it comes from NJ, please be aware of the vast differences in water quality between central Jersey, including Essex County, and the North New Jersey Highlands. There is a reason why Newark draws its water from points north, rather than from the surrounding industrial wastelands. The brewing water that AB is using comes from the mountain springs and brooks of the Wyanokie Highlands: a place that is full of natural beauty. THIS IS NOT “SWAMP WATER” (for the less informed). You are probably thinking of the Meadowlands, because that seems to be the only landform commonly associated with New Jersey. The Garden State is a very diverse place, and it is silly to rule out beer brewed from its Northern waters (which are clean and full of mineral character) over beer brewed in PA, about which the commentators here are probably just as uninformed.
Did anyone else notice that by the end of this article the AB spokesman Mr Goeler had become Goebel? Simple typo or Freudian slip?
I used to drink RR over here in England but you never see it anymore – who knows how authentic our version was anyway.