Shiner Premium Beer

Shiner Premium Beer was introduced by the Spoetzl Brewing Company of Shiner, Texas in 1909. Over the years, especially in the post-Prohibition days, Shiner gained popularity and rivaled other Texas regional brands, such as Pearl and Lone Star. Today, Shiner Premium is sold nationwide, and is the second most popular Shiner beer, after Shiner Bock, which eclipsed it in sales in the 1990s. Since 1989, the Spoetzl Brewing Company, founded by a business group and in 1915 acquired by Kosmos Spoetzl, has been a Gambrinus Company brand. Gambrinus is San Antonio based, and was founded in 1986. They own some other beer lines, such as Bridgeport.

Although Shiner Premium has, over the years, been sold under different brand names, like Shiner Special, Shiner Texas Special, and in the 1990s through March, 2013 as Shiner Blonde, the recipe (4.4% abv) has remained virtually unchanged.

Shiner is a stereotypical American-style lager, brewed with the usual corn adjunct. It can be found in 12 oz. cans or bottles, although bottles tend to be the more common vessel. Shiner receives no national television or radio advertising attention, although, in western Louisiana and throughout Texas one will see a fair number of roadside billboards touting the brand, usually Shiner Bock, though.

This writer has sample Shiner Premium on numerous occasions, and I find it holds its own against all the other national, mass-produced American-style lagers. A sampling is recommended.

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