Craft Adjunct Lagers

About the best I have had lately was Zilkers (Austin) Icy Boys. Beer made with pilsner, rice, and carafoam hopped with saaz. Very clean drinking lager with a light body and a good dry finish. Collab with a spicy chicken place and I can see why as this would definitely help cut thru the spice.

 

When the Craft Brewers started making AALs I was very resistant as they were only marginally better than macro AALs but 3-4x the cost. I thought it was kinda a joke. I’ve started to warm up to many however in the last year or so, as I’ve found them exceptionally better than many macros (whether AAL or American lager style), and many craft brewers are pricing them at least considerably less than their hoppy and higher ABV offerings, so I’m fine to try a single can or 2 from time to time from retail stores for <$3 a can. There is a local brewer to me called Olde Mother who makes a light lager called “Hank” that they sell 4 pack/16oz cans for $8.99 and Im good with that as it’s a nice tasty beer at a good price.

 

No.

 

I just got the Moonlight mixed and although the store showed it including the Old Combine, it was not included. I've had the Side of Rice and it's a fantastically done rice lager, but I'm not really a fan of paying a premium for that. At least I know what one of the best rice lagers can taste like.

 

You should contact the brewery if you were genuinely not given what you ordered. I would think they’d try to remedy the situation in some way.

 

They have added a disclaimer. I wasn't being completely serious. I could have locked it in had I selected the mixed lager pack but it included 2 four packs of Reality Czech and Death & Taxes which I have drunk quite a bit of already this summer. It's all good. Moonlight is a quality establishment.

 

If I want an AAL I’m simply buying an AAL. If they’re going to use rice or corn whatever and low hop is as appropriate, why should I pay an elevated price? Hard to believe that any brewer would spend a lot of money trying to better something like Budweiser using the same playbook. AB has everything in place, best prices for quality components, a first rate distribution network. Why do I want to bang my head into a wall? So who's their target buyer here? Me? No. A dedicated AAL drinker? No, they have their favorite beers, they don’t care about craft for the most part. Such a big risk, with very little reward. Imo of course, but if I want that style I just buy Budweiser, imo they do it right, simple, clean with never any off flavors. Whether you like it or not is immaterial we’re on the BA sight, were the vast vast vast minority of beer drinkers, so much so I doubt we count for much in the big beer world. Bud Light is king, so that kinda says it all.

 

I guess we’ll see here, a good many craft guys look sideways at simple lagers and Pils to begin with. When things were normal the local beer bar had over 40 taps and I can’t ever remember a craft lager or pils from any brewer on tap. If it’s a lager it’s Yuengling or Bud Light only, always on sale by the pitcher. I’m skeptical that it’s a financially sound business decision, which means I’m probably wrong. I guess we’ll see, maybe my bias comes from the fact that I don’t think that Budweiser is a crap beer. Don’t get me wrong it’s not Pivo, and the difference there is imo vast, but still...

 

Bingo!

And considering that the hopping rates of these type of beers has been steadily going down since the 1960s, I think it's great to have to available versions to enjoy that taste the way it's really meant to be.

There may be a few big time commercial examples out there but you could probably count them on one hand and have fingers to spare. And no, I don't include Budweiser on that list.

 

I started drinking US specialty beers in the 70s, and almost none of them were all malt (exception Anchor). There were fine tasting examples of mixed grain beers then. Then most tasty British ales weren't all malt. Today there are examples of all malt brews that seem to lack the full malt body I would expect. I would say that adjunct additions of up to 20 percent don't necessarily have a negative impact on flavor. I'm most interested in the flavor of the final product.

 

Completely agree, the beers of my youth certainly are uninspired, but I don’t suppose that’s their niche. To me they’re neither fish nor fowl, not bad not great, but their do have millions of devotees. Consider this I offer you two beers, you choose which one you want in your personal portfolio, choices are Bud Light, and being from Cali how about Pivo. There’s no comparison as to quality there can be no doubt, one makes you rich, the other not so much. It’s kinda today’s beer market.

 

I hear the hops got replaced by corn!

 

I am probably not going to throw money down for a craft version of budweiser, I don't begrudge them enough to buy their product when i feel like it. Many of the craft lagers mentioned here with corn or rice or other adjuncts are not trying to but that in my opinion. For example the Icy Boys that I mentioned which was a lager brewed with rice and hopped with saaz was more in line and drank like a German Pilsner. In my opinion it was worth the $$ for he 6 pack I bought. When I finish off a six pack in my fridge and find myself rooting around for more, hoping one fell down or something, then that was a good purchase. Way better purchase than those few stragglers that are looking at me saying "you need to drink me I am going bad" and I ignore them.

 

Actually, since Repeal:

And, that was a continuation of the pre-Prohibition hopping rate history in the US brewing industry (tho', that was so long ago, I barely remember it ).

 

Maybe the hops have become better (= bitter ) ?

 

The focus of Hop rrasesrch until of late was the Holly Grail of high Alpha Acid hops. More bang for the buck. There are some data out there that the IBU level in those beers was declining at the same time.

 

Well, to a certain extent and for a numbers of reasons - yeah. Transportation and storage conditions are better, resulting in fresher hops. A stabilized hop market (at times) meant fewer hops remaining from previous harvests. Increased use of pelletized hops and hop extracts also meant better preservation. And increased use of newly developed higher alpha acid strains of hops, results in a beer of the same bitterness using fewer hops*.

BUT "pounds of hop per barrel" are the historic stats we have, not "average IBUs".... (plus they're much more dramatic ),

* As @hopfenunmaltz just noted about a minute before I finished my reply...

 

In my market we have tequila barrel aged beers being sold as "Mexican lagers" we also have ones with just lime added some have lime and salt and some don't have any lime.
There are other breweries that model after Negra Modelo with a more amber version. Then there are some breweries that try to make their Mexican lager into a Bock with 6+% abv.

The title "Mexican lager" is meaningless to me unless it's actually a beer coming from Mexico due to the lack of concensus.