Why do craft lagers look "gorgeous" while macro lagers look like "piss"?

I think it is all mental. If someone told you a macro lager was actually a craft lager, my guess is that you would think it is 'better' looking.

Either that or there is some care that goes into the craft

 

As @Vitamin_Hop points out part of it is mental bias against AAL. There are some very nice craft lagers that look just the same.

But then its been known for years that the name of the maker on the label and the price of the beer can have an effect on people's judgments of how much they like or dislike a beer or a wine.

For that matter there's some evidence out there that if take a while wine and add the appropriate food coloring to make it look like a red wine, people will even taste a difference and beging talking about experiencing some of the classic red wine flavors that make reds different from whites. Blindfold them they can't tell the difference since the food coloring has no detectable flavors.

So let people see the color, brand and price, however....

 

Macro lagers tend to be lighter in color than paler colored "craft"/European lagers (pilsners, Helles lagers, American pale lagers). Also, macro lagers tend to have no head retention. I can think of a couple "craft"/European lagers that also have no head retention, but most of them I've ran across have at least a decent sized lingering head.

I don't care what anyone says, there are few things in this world that are as beautiful as a Miller High Life in the bottle.

 

It's probably the high percentage of adjuncts used which don't really contribute much towards color and flavor, as well as the base malt which is made to specifications which also lead to less flavor and color. An all-malt lager is naturally going to look and taste richer, especially if made from continental malts.

 

rice or corn are often the adjuncts in aals. They dont have the same SRM as barley or some types of adjunct grain does. so you end up with a more pale color basically.

 

Good post. Animosity towards AALs is immature to say the least. They exist. Move on.

 

Some look perfectly alright, some have really well straw colors... sometInes minimal carbination, and a Styrofoam sizzling head with hardly any retention... at least the poor ones I think do. Some of them really aren't appealing... to me.. some don't care what a beer looks like.

Heck the brew I had that most resembled "that" to me was a lambic I had from Cantillon to be honest

 

I don't compare AALs to craft, because I don't compare any beer to any beer, I judge a beer for what style it represents. I'm sorry, but in summer I do drink shitty cheap beer, and I happen to have a nucleated shaker pint that actually makes my shitty beer look just fine -- constant, slowly rising bubbles, light soapy lacing, a constant wisp or at the very least a collar of foam ... it looks like beer to me.

 

You've really over thought the issue that you really just like "craft" lagers better because they are not made by a bmc.

 

Dundee Honey Brown has a very nice color to it and its supposed to be a "macro lager" I think.

 

Proximity bias.

 

I understand. To perhaps confuse your statement- I recently bought a sixer of 'Gansett lager pint cans. I poured one into a washed, rinsed pilsner glass, and hey, guess what? It looked pretty. Yes, it's an AAL, but it's a craft version. So.... there.

 

1. Colour
2. Viscosity
3. Head Retention (protein content)
4. Lacing
...
...

 

For the same reason that a bland craft lager is well crafted to taste that way and budweiser tastes like piss.

It's a little thing called bias.

 

Why ask why, try Bud Dry.

 

Possibly because most macro lagers taste as if they were filtered by the kidneys of either a panther or a skunk.

 

It's because the vast majority of beer drinkers are not members of BA. You do realize that if every beer drinker in the US joined and voted for their favorite beer, the top beer here would be Bud Light.

 

And with that in mind, there are some macro lagers that are all malt, and they're quite good. There are a few that I'd choose over the locally brewed craft stuff in my home state.
I agree with an earlier comment that a lot of it is just bias (sometimes justified, but sometimes not) against the big brewers.

 

No doubt about that. I guess the question can be interpreted pretty broadly, but what immediately came to mind for me were the big sellers, Bud Light and the like.