Anheuser-Busch Resurrects Faust

Wondering if AB is the devil Faust made his deal with?

 

I think the Joel Boisselle and I have much different definitions of "full-bodied", looking at the color of this lager.
Certainly not much crystal malt, and I would doubt they are using a bunch of Dextrin malt.

 

I've had a lot of full-bodied Blonde Doppelbocks that were lighter in color than that beer.

@jesskidden A lot of back story on Tony Faust in that essay, but I couldn't find the malts being used (admittedly, I grew bored into the second page) -- any word of "rice?"

 

Yeah, I agree it can exist - I just doubt it in this case. But I guess it's a sliding scale. You can only get more full bodied when moving up from Bud Light.

The Mitch Steel blog that was linked, indicated that the 1995 iteration was all malt:

The re-introduced Faust Lager was my favorite of the first 3 American Originals. It was all malt: American 2 Row malt and a malt called Hi-Dried Malt, which was a 6-Row malt that was kilned to about 20°L, similar to a light Munich malt. We called the Hi-Dried Malt “dry-roasted” in the marketing materials, which I always found odd (we could have called it kiln-roasted), and expressed concern that people might think we were using peanuts in our beer. Faust also used a blend of German, Czech and American Hops. Unfortunately I don’t remember all of the hops used, but I know Czech Saaz and Cascade were part of the mix. This beer, when fresh, had a nice toasty malt character, and a pronounced floral hop aromatic, and pretty substantial bitterness for the time (especially for AB). If I remember correctly, the IBU target was 28, and the color target was 7-9 dL. Unfortunately, this beer aged very poorly in the bottle. The hops faded quickly and the toasty malt character evolved into a very grainy and harsh note.

 

On the untappd page for the beer the blurb mentions two row and caramel malts:

"This is recreation of our early American-style pilsner originally brewed in 1884 for Tony Faust’s St. Louis Oyster House and Restaurant. A dark amber beer brewed with two-row and caramel malts. Includes a combination of European hops to deliver a malty yet refreshing beer with a crisp, bitter finish."

Since the AB Inbev page is officially managed I guess the information should come from AB-Inbev (or rather their marketing department), but it's not guaranteed I suppose.

 

No argument there!

 

With all its resources, I bet Anheuser Busch could brew some world class beers but too bad their mentality of running on a bottom line interferes with their quality.
If they can make money on this beer, they will eventually bottle it.

 

There are plenty of world class beers out here already.

 

Nice glass!

 

It's more likely to do with a corporate culture of making sure that the beer put out offends noone, and excites an equal number of people, than number crunching. Hence the buy out of Goose Island (etc.) and the push behind Bourbon County Brand Stout, they let someone else take the plunge and see if there's a market and consumer for a less mainstream product, once the ball is rolling, and people have displayed their willingness to pay a premium for that product, they are there to buy the brewery and help expand production.

 

You are using the "artistic" defintion of quality, not the the definition of quality in the manufacturing sense:

In manufacturing, a measure of excellence or a state of being free from defects, deficiencies and significantvariations. It is brought about by strict and consistentcommitment to certain standards that achieveuniformity of a product in order to satisfy specific customer or userrequirements. ISO 8402-1986 standarddefines quality as "the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs."

 

I don't know about the beer...but that can is gangster!

 

Why brew world-class beers when the money is in... other beers?

Also, why brew world-class beers when you can just buy world class breweries?

 

I wonder if one could take Adolphus Busch's testimony about only using rice for a Bohemian type beer in the 1901 hearings about food purity as an indication that Faust was all-malt?

 

This has been my concern; that a small brewery with quality beers grows to the point where the bottom line becomes more important than the quality of the beer. Maybe I'm being a little selfish.