Drink Identifier: The Beers of Scream 1 (1996)

As will become apparent in the Scream series, a lot of the beer in Scream are fake brands made by prop artists. Probably because most beer brands don’t want to be associated with underage drinking and being murdered. But the Scream movies usually call for a bunch of underage kids (often played by fully adult actors) to have an underage drinking party and then be murdered, so product placement opportunities are slim.

There are two different beers in the first Scream, a real one that the characters never interact with and a fake one that the horny doomed teens drink.

Mendocino Brewing Company Red Tail Beer

This looks a lot like product placement. I mean, it looks like someone looked at the set dressing and was like “hmmm, needs more. Somebody nail some shirts to the wall.”

Mendocino Brewing Company is a mostly defunct brand that operated out of Northern California. The release of this movie was shortly after the company went public, so makes sense for them to get some integrated advertising in.

The characters never actually directly interact with this beer, though you do see some bottles of Mendocino’s Red Tail and Blue Heron in the fridge Tatum grabs beer from.

Tatum famously throws beer at Ghostface though. I guess the folks at Mendocino didn’t like the idea of that and so the beer Tatum is suddenly armed with is…

Unknown / Probably Fake Prop Brand

This label looks so insanely 90s I’m somewhat inclined to believe it is real. However, I can’t find anything that looks like this bottle. It also makes sense to use a fake brand since you would need prop bottles made out of sugar glass or something that can be safely thrown at actors’ faces without causing injury.

This beer is later seen being drunk by the rest of the kids and the king of knowing the rules, Randy Meeks.

If you recognize this 90s beer please let me know in the comments down below. I’m leaning towards it being made by a very 90s prop department though.