At a craft beer bar in Brooklyn called Queue Beer, all of the 24 taps feature premium and hard-to-find beers — but one tap faucet stands apart from the rest.
It’s a top-of-the-line, Czech-made Lukr side-pull faucet. Rarely seen even in top beer bars, it requires a special technique to properly operate, allowing for more nuanced control of beer flow than the standard on-off tap faucet. Queue uses it to pour Canal Champagne, a lager with a dense, creamy head of foam, and tasting notes of honey and biscuit. It is currently the No. 6-rated American lager on the beer rating site Untappd.
Canal Champagne shares Top 10 real estate with offerings from celebrated craft breweries like Asheville’s Burial Beer Co., and San Diego’s North Park Beer Company. So it might come as a surprise that if you were to follow the line from the Canal Champagne tap down into the cellar, you would find a bog-standard keg of plain old Miller High Life.
“It’s something that everyone’s had, but I can show them a new way to have it,” says Queue Beer proprietor Shane Monteiro. He gave this version of the brew a name that nods to the nearby Gowanus Canal, and to High Life’s “Champagne of Beers” tagline.
Monteiro’s choice of High Life for his Lukr-powered alchemy — largely achieved by separating out the beer’s gassy essence into that thick foam, which in turn protects the beer beneath from being corrupted by oxygen — is only one example of the beer’s unique status. High Life is mass-produced and corporate-owned — and, paradoxically, absolutely beloved throughout the beer and nightlife worlds.
For bartenders, it’s the runaway favorite after-work go-to (especially in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn).
For craft brewers, it’s a cherished change of pace from the bold, often high-ABV beers they make each day.
For Instagram cocktail accounts, it’s the main ingredient in the seemingly must-post cocktail of last summer, the Spaghett (though it is a bit harder to find anyone drinking one in real life).
And for Monteiro, it was the easy choice when picking an everyday beer to give a premium makeover.
“The reason I picked High Life is because it’s an industry favorite,” he says, noting that Coors Banquet and Pabst Blue Ribbon also get a “weird pass” as acceptable American macros, but that High Life stands alone at the top.
‘It’s Delicious, Honestly’
The reasons behind the enduring love affair are mostly very simple and straightforward, but they converge in a way that feels rare in the late-capitalist United States of 2025.
For one, it’s a mass-produced product that is actually good.
“High Life is my go-to, and it has been forever,” says longtime bartender Dave Shaw, currently at Brooklyn’s WingBar. “It’s because it’s delicious, honestly.”
Monteiro agrees, saying that while Canal Champagne represents a “bigger, more developed” version of High Life, the standard bottled version is “not too hoppy, it’s not too malty, it’s not too watery — it’s like this perfect middle ground.”
And not only is it good, but consistently so.
“The consistency is the point,” says Josh Penney, head brewer at Threes Brewing. “You can go to any bar, anywhere, and it’s good.”
Part of that consistency is owed to the fact that High Life is made using a hop extract that doesn’t “skunk” when exposed to light, Penney says — a critical factor for a beer that comes in clear bottles.
“If it tasted bad and looked good, that would be one thing, but it looks good, tastes fine.”
This brings us to another key element of the industry’s High Life love affair: cool, classic packaging and branding, that somehow have gone mostly un-messed-with throughout the beer’s entire existence.
“It’s a beautiful, kind of vintage thing,” says Kellie Kovac-Shields, floor manager at Threes.
The “Girl in the Moon” illustration that adorns the bottleneck has been around, with only slight changes, since 1907. The bottle’s distinct shape, with the neck sloping gently into the body, was originally meant to invoke Champagne bottles. That, too, has stood the test of time, differentiating the beer without being obnoxious or unwieldy.
“It’s a nice-looking package,” says Sam Richardson, co-founder and brewmaster at Other Half Brewing.
High Life is often present in the cooler at Other Half’s original Brooklyn taproom for staff and guests to enjoy as a change of pace from the ultra-hoppy hazy IPAs that made the brewery’s name.
“If it tasted bad and looked good, that would be one thing, but it looks good, tastes fine,” Richardson says.
Change of Pace
The beer’s 4.5 percent ABV — a tick above the 4.2 percent Bud Lights and Michelob Ultras of the world, but still low — also makes it an ideal change-of-pace beer.
“We make a lot of high-ABV beer,” Richardson says. “So it’s nice to have something around that’s low commitment.”
“It’s slammable because it’s always kept super cold. It’s such a small quantity, it’s easy to just chug ‘em back.”
That goes double for a bartender bellying up to relax after a long shift.
“I can’t go out after work and start drinking IPAs — like, I’m already kinda drunk,” Shaw says. “[I like] having a light beer that’s actually delicious, where I can sit there for a couple hours and relax and kinda slowly get drunk, instead of just getting hammered.”
But for those who are looking for a fast-tracked buzz, High Life once again presents an elegant solution: Its 7-ounce “pony” bottle pairs nicely with a shot.
Pony bottles — which like pony kegs are nicknamed to basically indicate a “smaller version” — have been around for a long time and for many different beers, but the High Life version seems to be the most widespread today (along with the equally adorable “Coronita”). A six-pack of the pony bottles also fits nicely in a bucket of ice, which Penney says is his favorite way to drink High Life.
“It’s slammable because it’s always kept super cold,” he says. “It’s such a small quantity, it’s easy to just chug ‘em back.”
The final piece of the puzzle, which almost goes without saying: High Life is cheap. Originally positioned as a premium option, its marketing now embraces its status as a dive-bar staple. The brand even tried selling a High Life “Dive Bar-Fume” this past holiday season that “captures every familiar dive bar scent.”
Meanwhile, the “Champagne of Beers” tagline has somehow aged into something that strikes an almost perfect balance between sincerity and sarcasm. No one thinks it’s the best beer in the world — but it’s the best for what it is.
Champagne Bubbles
High Life actually is one of the most carbonated, “bubbly” beers in its class, Monteiro says, making the tagline at least a little bit literal. This, he says, was another factor that made High Life an ideal beer to run through the Lukr faucet.
“If you’re gonna make something where you’re separating out gas from beer, it helps to have a beer that drinks more bubbly than most,” he says.
Monteiro took it upon himself to list Canal Champagne as a separate beer on Untappd — “It would be weird to check this in as High Life. In my brain, they are different beers” — and the site’s users have taken it from there. The bottled original, beloved as it may be, isn’t sniffing any Untappd Top Rated list.
For his next trick, Monteiro will be introducing his own version of the Spaghett cocktail. Typically made by adding Aperol and lemon juice into a High Life bottle, it looks gorgeous, but “it’s not often you’ll find a bar that’s willing to do that,” he says.
His version will be called the Gowanus Sunset, with the wet, Lukr-produced foam serving as the “clouds.”
“These clouds in the middle, the foam, will actually concentrate the pink color, and it looks like a sunset,” he says. (This reporter can confirm.)
And he’ll still be drinking plain old bottled Miller High Life when he gets off the clock.
“It’s a slam dunk, as far as I’m concerned. You know it doesn’t matter how old it is, or this or that. Just pop it, drink it, call it a day.”
