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Originally posted by Ort. Carlton.

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Originally posted by Sandy Thruthegarden
Other Cincinnati beers I remember my elders drinking were "Bavarian" and "Burger". I think they both went by the wayside in the ’60’s.
Do any of you Cincy folks remember, or know the story of, a cheap but effective local beer called "Top Hat" that was available in this area in the ’80’s? The taste wasn’t much; the attraction was definitely the "cheap" part. I think it was supposed to be a revival of an earlier Cincy brand, supposedly named after the bar that used to attached to the Cincinnati Music Hall.
Like my husband, BillC, I have beer in my background. According to family history, my great grandfather was the burgermeister for Hauck’s Brewery that existed in the late 1880’s. I’d be interested in knowing more about Hauck’s if anyone has information.

Sandy,
I can’t help you with Hauck’s (other than to say that I recognize the name), but Top Hat was widely sold by Burger in the South in the 1940’s. Seemingly it was aimed at the Afro-American market. Burger also made a couple of other brands which slip my mind at the moment.
Burger’s sales plummetted after they switched from city water to well water. It altered the taste of the beer to the point that even the hardest-core Burger drinkers were repulsed.
Nostalgically, Ort. Carlton in Athens, Georgia, where Top Hat was once sold.

OH my gosh. I remember Top Hat. It was sold here in Cincy, too. I had forgotten its connection to Burger. (Remember the jingle? "Burger Beer is brewed with artesian waters…" followed by the faint high soprano echoing "Artesian waters………".)

I remember Wiedemann ("Satisfies a sincere and monumental thirst") fondly. An old gentleman I used to know spent many afternoons with Wiedemann, having walked the block to the local Pony Keg to pick up the beer and half a chicken, which he boiled and fed to his Chihuahua by hand. Oh how I hated that ill-tempered little dog…….

In my Callow Youth, I belonged to a community theater group that had an old Coke machine retrofitted to take Wiedemann longnecks. 35 cents apiece.