The Rise and Fall of Big Flats 1901, the Official Lager of Walgreens

Walgreens holds a high seat at the round table of America’s pharmacy-convenience store hybrids. And while it boasts a solid selection of toothpaste, Haribo gummies, and Band-Aids, its beer aisle is another story. More often than not, it’s a sorry lineup of cheap, domestic macro swill, a handful of imports, the obligatory White Claw Variety Pack, and maybe a few sixers of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Essentially, the same stuff can be found at quite literally any other store that sells beer.

But not all that long ago, Walgreens carried a lager that couldn’t be found anywhere else. A private label wonder in the vein of Trader Joe’s in-house exclusives and Costco’s Kirkland Signature brews, it went by the unabashedly unsexy name of Big Flats 1901.

Big Flats was a 4.5 percent ABV American lager that first hit store shelves in December 2010. As for the name, every can featured the following description: “Brewed in upstate New York, Big Flats 1901 Premium American Lager pays homage to the flat boats that traveled the area’s rivers delivering goods to early settlers. Just as the water played a vital role in the settlers’ quality of life, the pristine water used in the brewing of Big Flats 1901 Premium Lager is vital to the crisp, fresh taste of this traditional American brew.”

According to Star News Online, Big Flats 1901 was developed by Novato, Calif.’s Winery Exchange, a beverage company that produced private label beers for other stores including Costco, Kroger, and 7-Eleven. As noted on the can, the beer was indeed brewed in upstate N.Y., though exactly where remains unclear. The Star News Online article claims that Big Flats 1901 cans listed their production site as Brewers Choice in Rochester, but as far as we can tell, no such brewery exists. Some believe the name was a placeholder for Rochester’s Genesee Brewing Company. It’s a similar sleight of hand that Trader Joe’s employs for its private-label offerings: While cans cite “Joesphsbrau Brewing Co.” as the manufacturer, TJ’s beers are produced by a handful of breweries around the country, none of which are actually called Josephbrau Brewing Co. Another source claims that Big Flats 1901 was brewed by a North American Breweries, Inc. facility in upstate New York.

Regardless, by most accounts Big Flats 1901 was an unremarkable beer — a nondescript brew that tasted near-identical to its macro neighbors on the shelf. But where Big Flats 1901 outshined the competition was in its price point: $2.99 per 6-pack.

Whether or not the brewers behind it were trying to make a full-flavored beer, it didn’t matter. As far as customers were concerned, it was all about the bargain. A 2011 review of Big Flats 1901 published in the Herald-Tribune was simply titled “For 45 cents a can, it’s … not that bad” (the writer bought it on sale). Meanwhile, in a blind-tasting panel, four Chicago-based beer enthusiasts actually mistook the beer for Old Style and PBR, both of which are generally well-respected macro brews. By February 2011, Big Flats 1901 was available in 4,600 of Walgreens’ 7,655 locations nationwide.

After its initial debut, the beer received little to no press, save for a late 2015 article that poked fun at polarizing reviews of it on BeerAdvocate.com. And by May 2019, it had reportedly been discontinued despite its bargain price and passable profile.

So why did Walgreens pull its beloved lager from the shelves? It’s hard to tell. The company never offered an explanation, nor did it formally announce its discontinuation. At some point, stocks ran dry and the beer just stopped coming in. Whatever the case was, it presumably wasn’t due to slow sales. A Reddit thread about Big Flats 1901 from two years ago yielded an outpouring of comments mourning its demise.

“One store I worked at couldn’t keep the crap in stock, it sold so well!” wrote one user. “We had so many people lose their minds when they found out that we didn’t carry it anymore!!” wrote another.

Like many regional lagers and ultra-bargain beers of decades past, Big Flats 1901 now resides in that great brewery in the sky, but it’s clearly not forgotten. And given the current state of inflation, a $3 6-pack sounds like a better deal than ever.

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