Beer summit: U.S. beers win big in restaged Mike Royko 1973 beer taste test at Old Town Ale House

Judges John Carruthers, left, Ben Ustick and Javi Lopez taste beers and take notes Sunday at the Old Town Ale House in a restaging of Mike Royko’s 1973 test. (Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times)

Fifty years ago, columnist Mike Royko staged a beer taste test among friends to prove just how bad American beer was compared with imported brands, writing in a 1973 Chicago Daily News column that “American beer tastes as if it is brewed through a horse.”

Sunday afternoon, Royko’s admirers restaged the test to see if American beer had improved over the last half-century. The answer at Royko’s Beer Test 50th at the Old Town Ale House was a resounding “Yes.”