Do you think Miller/Bud will ever brew a proper Pilsner?

If you had tasted my homebrews you would not say that.

 

I really wouldn't care if they did, to be honest.

 

Looking at the top 50 most commonly rated pilsners from both the German and Czech categories, you would think that even craft breweries can't brew a "proper" one. Of those 100 beers only 2 get above a 4.0 rating. Even the good lighter style brews get little credit on BA.

This is a community where an Imp Stout has to be infected with herpes and a DIPA has to be dry hopped with genocide to earn a B-, and even then the low raters probably just couldn't handle the complexity.

Who would they try and impress, and why? They already got the macro drinkers, and even if it was amazing the craft community wouldn't want it. No sense in them going out of their way to train their current drinkers on what lagers are supposed to taste like.

 

I think the big guys already think they are.
Let's not forget that Miller states that their Miller lite beer "provides great pilsner taste." Which makes you wonder, if they think it's a pilsner, should we include it the pilsner category on here and rate it accordingly?

 

They will do it immediately, as soon as they are sure they can make more money making a world-class pils than with bud lite. Which is to say, when pigs fly.

 

Give up on them. They are big, evil corporations. I hate Anheuser Busch more than anything. They will never make anything good. They focus on marketing, not a quality product.

 

Hey, he was just paying his Geico bill. lol.

 

I'm pretty sure BMC could can heady topper and everyone here would still give it a 1. The hype to rare ratio would be too low...

 

I would not mind this whatsoever if it was similar to the Goose Island route. Have a solid brewery explode in distribution and still produce quality beers.

Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of demand for proper (or even good) lagers. Many people on BA don't seem to like them, and folks who are mainly drinking AALs seem to already like what they're getting.

 

Include me out of the many people on BA don't seem to like them. I love a well made Lager and I don't exclusively mean the stronger varieties.

 

A common theme in this thread is that the majority of craft enthusiasts don't really care that much about Pilsners. What if one of the "big boys" decided to make a "quality" IPA? As the OP stated, they've got the equipment, know-how, resources, etc., and have the POTENTIAL to brew an IPA that would rival the highest rated here on BA at a lower price point. Would it be worth it to them? Would BA-types buy it? Would non-BA-types buy it? I'd love to see them try....

 

I think maybe it was a marketing typo. It was supposed to be "great pissner taste". How the hell can you have pilsner taste when your malt bill is primarily corn?

 

Obviously they could brew anything they care to and probably do it as well as anyone could do it. What's in for them if they brew for the sake of argument a HT quality DIPA. Would their base customer be impressed? I'd guess no. Would BA guys be impressed? Maybe, maybe not, and the BMC tag would still haunt them, but even if wildly embraced as a being a success the sheer BA numbers are a small percentage and it could/ probably would be a colossial financial fail. They know their customers, and they're loyal to their share holders, end of story.

The Michelob line expanded a bit and offered some different styles, some quite good, how did that work out? Fail.

 

There's no reason for this because operations of this size run on the razor thinnest of margins in order to sell the mass volume they do for market share. It's just that simple. The money they'd have to put into better ingredients and the amount they'd have to raise the price in order to do so would destroy their market share. It's why McDonalds will never just "make a better hamburger."

 

This is always the thing that interests me the most with the GI experiment and other acquisitions. I know how they operate and I just don't think they can pull such a thing off with the consumer base, even in the least. Cut back on quality ingredients in that arena and consumers will definitely notice. I kind of feel they have to stick with having a stake in the craft arena and leave GI alone. Just owning it does provide some leverage in the industry. But I could be wrong and we may be drinking BCBS Light in few years.

 

That would be risky, but might make sense without having to dedicate precious resources that cut into the Bud Light tanks. They haven't fucked up BCBS stout yet, but that was a no brainer with demand bigger than production. The question is what's in it for them if they say buy Sly Fox who makes a great Pils? Guys who like Sly Fox will still buy it, so how do they expand the interest in that product and still make money? Might not make much financial sense, Sly Fox will probably always be a regional kinda brew.

 

They don't have to change anything with BCBS, want still exceeds production and distribution, and they don't need to dumb it down, they have a terrific distro network that will allow them to get it to market cheaper and more effectively, making the product more profitable without screwing with the brew.

 

Lagers do need to get more love - to properly lager a beer and have a clean finished brew is not easy (off flavors cannot be considered contributing factors to a beer's "complexity"); they are delicate but most palates are not, unfortunately.

To be on point: it is probably true that there is no reason for macro brewers to brew traditional pilsners; drunk drinkers would not like the recipes - recall that people swear that Guinness tastes different here than it does in Ireland (it doesn't) - and we wouldn't buy it on principle. No way they'd win.

 

And big ups to Jack's Abby for only brewing lagers.

 

I'm not sure they've brewed beer before, so it might be difficult to brew a "proper pilsner" on the first try.