Rice vs. Corn Syrup in Beer

I know of natural food producers that use non-GMO corn syrup in products. It's a pretty fair bet most CS and HFCS is from GMO corn...but it's definitely not 100%. A lot of organic producers that make "copy cat" products organically (cereals, fruit gummies etc) use organic, non-GMO corn syrup.

There's definitely an association between CS and HFCS in people's minds though, I agree.

 

While long, this would be an excellent reply for MillerCoors to Bud Light's commercial.

Summed up, corn syrup doesn't end up in your beer, and is no different than using rice.

Corn syrup is not high fructose corn syrup.

Enjoy!

 

They've got all that info (and more, re: hop extract usage) in several posts at the MillerCoors Blog site.

Oh, and a video, too-
https://vimeo.com/johnroachprojects/review/316181044/7a3fa5a19e
(for whatever reason, I can't embed the above).

 

This made me think about your earlier post where you stated:

This makes me curious. By one third do you mean one third of the total fermentables? If a corn syrup contains say 40% dextrose, and that syrup makes up around a third of the total fermentables (I am unfamiliar with the percentage of adjuncts which is actually used in modern adjunct brewing, so maybe I'm lowballing it here?) in a regular lager beer recipe (i.e not light beer), would this not be a concern as long as the dextrose percentage stays below a third of the total fermentables? Or are there higher concentrations of dextrose in the syrups that are actually used in brewing so that I am underestimating the potential dextrose content of a syrup (and of the wort produced from that syrup) when used at a normal/average/typical percentage/ratio?

 

They might want to drop Bud Lite Lime from their portfolio before trying that approach

 

Nah that's one of those subpar brands like the one's ABInBev has that use corn syrup.

They would never put a lime in one of their "premium" brands like regular Bud and Bud Light.

 

In case anyone missed it Samuel Adam's Jim Koch has apparently decided to join the fray with his own take on things, making the case for all-malt beers instead (among other things). I'm not sure if any of this really has an impact on sales, either for ABInbev or MillerCoors (too early to tell maybe), but I can imagine that it must be frustrating to see a debate being had between the two macros on the virtue of rice vs corn syrup used for a light beer when you yourself is selling a beer like Boston Lager which is in decline. Then again they are different propositions, and Koch himself seems to admit as much;

"And because adjuncts make the beer lighter and less flavorful, the beer is more refreshing and easier to drink in larger quantities."

It's easy to imagine what the market might look like if x million barrels of beer was switched over from light beer to other styles of beer, but then again maybe the overall market for specialty beer has started to hit a ceiling, and even an approachable beer like Boston Lager is too much for alot of the people not already drinking that beer, or any of the tens of thousands of other craft beers out there.

But is it possible for another revival of the all-malt marketing that was originally at least partially used to differentiate the craft beers from the macro brands? And could it be used effectively? I wonder. It would be ironic though if the ABInbev ads inspired a successful marketing push of that kind.

 

You may not like the man but if you two had a "home brew face off" his stuff would landslide clean house vs your beer.

 

Well, to be fair, Bud Light/Miller Lite/Coors Light are in decline as well, correct?

Wow, I don't think I've ever seen you swear on these boards (not that I care, I'm pro-swearing!). This really riled you up.

Understandably so, he did basically make up a bunch of stories to try to market Boston Lager from what I read in your reply.

 

I don't know - the "Koch as homebrewer" story always raised my eyebrows. The claim didn't turn up in the earliest press about Koch and SABL from what I remember or have researched (but there was a LOT of press in those early days of 1985-1990 - see link below). Plus some of the more important aspects of the beer - which Koch has claimed to credit Joe Owades for like true kraeusening (not just bottle conditioning) and decoction would have been pretty difficult in Koch's kitchen in the early 1980s, by the standard of homebrewing at the time.


According to one industry article:

I think I'd vote for the homebrew from @JackHorzempa over Koch's (but I'd have to recuse myself from the actual vote, since I've already had it ).

Also this implication that the beer brewed in his kitchen was sold to local bars - well, besides being illegal that's pretty unbelievable, too. (Other interviews note that the sample beer in his briefcase was from the initial batch brewed at Pittsburgh Brewing Co.)

Check out how the early "craft" brewers view Koch in 1988, via a Village Voice article. (No mention of homebrewing, either ).

 

That's some super interesting reading.

One funny story given how obsessed he apparently was with differentiating himself from imports. In probably 1991, I was in California and there was a bar advertising $.50 domestic beers. I asked the bartender if that included the Sam Adams and he said "Nope, that's an import"

 

In college in Texas in the 2000's Shiner was listed on all of the bars "Import" list.

Those lists mean nothing except what price is charged for the beer. It's definitely not a request from the brewery. Especially not if they were all the way across the country like your request in California for a East Coast beer.

 

Yeah, well, that was pretty common right up until recently (used to be a regularly occurring complaint here in the BA forums, f'r'instance, but now that you mention it, it's been awhile...), and not just a problem with BBC's beers - since, for many bars in the era, there were just two pricing segments named "Domestics" and "Imports", regardless of where they were brewed.

Similarly, you can still see even craft-oriented bars here on the East Coast with menus that list things like "Blue Moon - Denver" "Sierra Nevada - California" "Samuel Adams - Boston" or even "Budweiser - St. Louis" "Miller Lite- Milwaukee" "Bass Ale - England" when it is very unlikely the beers served there come from the breweries in those states/cities.

 

Oh I know. My question was actually more in the form of "I'm assuming SA doesn't count as a domestic in this case, right?"

It's just a bit funny that after putting all that effort into separating himself from imports (as described in the articles above) he gets lumped in with them for pricing purposes.

 

Adding to that thought... Early American brewers used adjuncts, like corn and rice, to lighten the American 6-row barley into a pilsner type beer similar to the 2-row barley they were accustomed to in Europe. Koch holds up the German tradition of Reinheitsgebot over the American tradition of using American-grown 6-row barley, corn and rice.

 

I've had a few of Jack's beers, too, and my money would be on him as well.