Rice vs. Corn Syrup in Beer

Beats me as far as sales - but it's been around for a while, as you note. Records show it's been sold in PA since the mid-90s - a recent ad below. MillerCoors Nutritional Info pdf shows the difference - 0.1% less alcohol, 11 more calories and twice the carbs as "Miller Lite". And, as the ad shows (same price as Genesee products), it's sold in the "popular-price" segment.

As for "light/lite" - it's because they've always consider "Lite" a brand name, just not a descriptor.
.

 

Thank you for your detailed and informative response. So I guess it makes sense then that MillerCoors would tend to use maltose syrups for their regular lager beers, if this is the closest corn syrup equivalent to the sugars created in a cereal mash process? I'm now curious how dextrose relates to maltose vs glucose? And additionally, seeing as how Coors Banquet is apparently using dextrose, along with Coors light and Miller Lite, would you expect there to be a noticable impact on the flavor of a regular calorie lager beer using dextrose vs maltose syrup?

 

Excellent post! Thank you, it really explains a lot that I have wondered about- my early home brew experiences in the 80s had that 'cidery' quality, and they coincidentally also had a good deal of corn sugar included in the kit.

 

It would simply be an extra step/expense for no reason.

Edit: I mis-read that - you meant corn vs rice not syrup vs. grain.

The whole reason Budweiser used rice initially (and by proxy, bud light) was not because of the starch in rice, but rather what wasn't there. Rice, as a brewing adjunct, has very low oil and very low protein. This makes it easier to drop bright and promotes better freshness. Before modern filtration techniques, you had to lager a beer until it dropped bright naturally, and this could take anywhere from 6-12 weeks. By lowering the protein (by using some level of rice), you helped ensure it would drop bright more quickly and it would have a more crisp profile.

Corn, by contrast, is much higher in both oil and protein.

 

The marketing team for High Life Light wont be happy I'm guessing, having failed to make you aware of its existence since 1994 .

 

Many major brands in various sectors are in irreversible decline. I dare say that's the ultimate fate of every brand. That doesn't mean there can't still quite a bit of profit to be rung out of them. There are in fact marketing professionals who specialize in slowing the rate of decline of brands, including, presumably, many people who work on Bud Light or Budweiser marketing campaigns. Also keep in mind that AB InBev has numerous other brands across the world besides Bud Light. All that said, AB InBev's stock price has declined more than 40% since its 2016 peak in a bull market, something likely at least partly attributable to the continued decline of its dual American flagships, and surely neither investors nor upper management is happy about that.

 

Right, I think there's a two part story to this, a recent history of the market accepting to an extent a narrative of a structural decline in the market of domestic beer, with the company's competitors in the same boat more or less. But then you have the Mexican import category (and its premium pricing) increasingly gaining momentum, which puts the previous narrative in a different light, and the market might start to think that the structural decline story has become a bit too convenient of an excuse for continually declining volumes. So far they appear to have partly atoned for this by increasing the profit margins (particularly under ABInbev). But that might only go so far, and maybe there will come a tipping point in the near future where greater urgency will be felt, especially with a tanking stock price and a heavy debt load.

 

I'm sure AB InBev would love to have retained the U.S. rights to the Corona and, if I recall correctly, Modelo and Pacifico brands but was forced to sell them to gain anti-trust regulatory approval of the Grupo Modelo purchase (as you may well already know). In other words, the federal government won't let AB InBev compete for the American consumer of Mexican lagers with major established brands.

 

Thanks for the response! That would make a lot of sense as this professor is Canadian. That does bring up an interesting question then... is Bud being brewed at those Canadian breweries with syrup and if so, can an experienced AB taster reliably distinguish between the beers brewed at different breweries with the syrup?

 

Okay so feeling a bit less lazy this morning I did some reading and from what I could gather dextrose and glucose can be considered one and the same. So when MillerCoors uses dextrose we can think of this as glucose. Looking at the maltose side of things Cargill has a bunch of different corn syrups for brewing, among which is a "high maltose corn syrup" for "the production of full-bodied beers. Its unique carbohydrate profile, i.e., high maltose and low dextrose levels, is ideally suited for the brewer looking for an adjunct to match wort from malt.". This syrup contains 43% maltose, 12% dextrose. They also have a number of other syrups with a slightly lower maltose content and increasingly greater dextrose content up to one, Clearbrew 63/44, where the maltose content is 31% and the dextrose is 36%.

From this I gather that when MillerCoors use a maltose syrup they are talking about a high maltose syrup which likely still contains some dextrose, or glucose, but the maltose content is elevated for the purpose of achieving a certain sugar profile in the wort and fermentation profile in the finished beer (I am sure they also control these aspects via the mashing and fermentation process, but I try to keep the focus on the corn syrups here).

And it also seems as though even a syrup containing a larger amount of dextrose will still contain a relatively large amount of maltose, unless Cargill is producing syrups which are very different from those actually used by the big brewers commercially (something which I find hard to believe).

 

I take it this is a question of percentages, how much is used, so that basically as long as the brewer keeps the percentage of syrup within a certain limit of the total grist they can brew with either a high maltose syrup (which still contains some glucose, say around 12%) or a "high dextrose" syrup (which contains a good deal of maltose as well) without much of a problem?

So that maybe one could posit that MillerCoors are able to use a syrup high in glucose/dextrose for Coors Banquet without much of a problem due to them keeping the percentage at a "safe" level, and that they choose to use this syrup for this brand since its produces a desired sugar and fermentation profile (a lighter beer) that is different from what would be achieved via a high maltose syrup.

 

If I were them I would hammer home the fact that Bud Light doesn't need a lime to make it palatable.

Maybe the "Light" stands for the level of advertising invested in this beer?

 

Well if you're concerned with GMO corn, I believe the correct number would bee 100% the time you find corn syrup as an ingredient in anything, it would bee GMO corn. Also high fructose corn syrup has a bad rep with people (it's pretty much a guaranteed gout attack for me -- I haven't touched it in years and haven't got gout in years) and corn syrup sounds like HFCS too so there's the association in people's minds right there (half of them probably don't know the difference)

 

Good thinking, I'm starting to sense a marketing opportunity here. Miller Lite is famously triple hopped. What if High Life Light is "triple light" instead; light on calories, light on the advertising and light on the pocketbook .

 

No simple searches on Google will help you find Non-GMO corn syrup if that is what you desire.

 

I think I could agree with all of that. If it were me, I would try and completely avoid fructose because of the flavor impact, but beyond that, yeah - if MillerCoors is hitting their regular mash with glucogenic enzymes then the syrup use is a non-issue with respect to fermentation performance. Or, as you say above, if they stay below a certain critical percentage of sugar ratio, they can also sub it in with no problem. The syrup could really be from anything - corn, cane, beet, potato, cassava, etc., the starch source doesn't matter to the yeast once it's all hydrolyzed. I guess corn is only common because of all the agricultural subsidies and GMO work that's been done on it?