Cool John Stroh conversation

I called up John Stroh III by accident, really. He is the CEO of Stroh Holdings and obviously the standard-bearer for the Stroh Brewery history. I was hoping to reach someone who might let me into the Stroh family archives to hunt for a recipe for Pfeiffer beers. He answered the phone and couldn't have been more helpful and friendly. He quickly told me that by the time Stroh had acquired the name rights to Pfeiffer, there was no intellectual property left. It had either been destroyed or abandoned by G. Heileman under its tumultuous ownership changes. We went on to talk for some time about beer and the differences between the current mass market brands today and Stroh and other brands. It was a truly pleasurable conversation. I learned that at the turn of the century, the malt used in brewing yielded a far lower amount of fermentable sugars through mashing - something like 50 percent - compared with today's standard yield of 70 to 75 percent. Put another way, if a pound of malted barley had 10 units of sweetness, about 7 of those units can be converted to alcohol. Back then, it was more like 5, resulting in fuller-bodied and lower alcohol beers.

Also I learned that when breweries were getting hops for the beer, they didn't name the style so much as the region. For example, they brewers logs would say: Oregon hops, or English, and didn't name a particular style like Cascade or Fuggle. They might say Hallertau hops because that's a region of Germany that essentially grows one type of hops. I'm still going to try to track down the brewer at G. Heileman to see whether there is some secret location for Pfeiffer beer, but it's looking less and less likely that it exists.