Craft Beer Decides Adjunct Lagers Are Cool, Actually

Hamm's is a summer time staple in my fridge. It seems the older I get, the more I'm gravitating back to simple styles of beer. I've started drinking a lot more pilsners and helles lagers lately too.

 

Same here, but I still haven't reverted back to the Coors habit of 1985 or the Old Style habit of 1980 -- too many good Pilsners and Helles using all malt to choose -- and at decent prices to keep me from blowing the budget.

 

Like most beer styles, when done right, they are delicious!

 

It seems everyone loves High Life but no-one ever mentions MGD..it's a dying label I think. I think it's a better beer. Back in the 80's when MGD came out they were supposed to be the exact same beer but MGD was the draft version. Now, I have my suspicions they have cheapened the High Life beer. It just doesn't match up to MGD when I've had them side by side this summer.

 

Not had MGD in a lot of years. I would try I’ve if I had a chance but at the price of High Life MGD would need to be stellar good to move into rotation. Going to look for a single next time I shop.

Enjoy

 

Good article. Better than most.

Corn was, is, and always will be an inferior adjunct. It's not trending. It's not cool. It's not good.
Nobody who likes beer or even anyone who sort of kind of likes beer is a fan of corn.
If it's not a good Cream Ale, corn is a sin. Let's not pretend otherwise. Nobody has ever said "This beer would be better if some of the malt was replaced with corn"

So other than that, the craft beer business is just as restless as ever.
Cheers

 

Hmmm... "Nobody" ? Paraphrased (and maybe with a German or some other "foreign" accent in some cases) during the era of the dominance of six-row barley malt in the US, I bet you could find quotes from Anton Schwarz, John Siebel, Robert Wahl, Max Henius, AB and Pabst brewmasters like Irwin Sproule, John Metzler and Fritz Theurer to that effect. And "better" ? Well, for brewery owners like Adolphus Busch and Captain Frederick Pabst, saving money by using some rice or corn as malt adjuncts sure was better ---- for their bottom line (emphasis added below).

Here's what Wahl & Henius said about ol' Anton:

As for the very light modern AALs, and then the low-cal Light Beers and whatever stuff like Michelob Ultra, Bud Next and Yuengling Flight are, it should be remembered:

American Handy Book of the Brewing, Malting and Auxiliary Trades

 

My initial reaction was that it was due to either:

A. It’s cheaper. So let’s con gullible consumers into believing it is the new, edgy, retro, old school latest trendy thing and they will clamor for it.

B. Brewers went through all the Pop Tart flavors, ran out of ideas and needed a new, edgy, latest trendy thing to placate gullible consumers who require constant beer novelty or risk the horror of boredom.

My subsequent reaction was tempered less cynical by this comment from an above post which seems reasonable, “I wanted to show that corn as an ingredient is not bland, it’s a recipe or a goal that makes it bland,” he said. “The corn or rice is not the culprit, it’s the structure of the beer.”

…But it’s still probably A. or B.

 

I wish I could find Founders Gold by me, that was such a great lager! That and Sierraveza, loved those on hot summer days!

 

My son and daughter in law have just moved to Denver; the latter remarked that Coors seemed to taste better out here (I'm visiting from Philly). So yesterday after hiking in and around Genesee (near Golden), some friends and I stopped at a nice little cafe and had lunch. And I had a Coors (Banquet) for the first time in over 20 years. Once again, it's all about set and setting: on a torrid day in the Colorado mountains a Coors is wonderful with a tasty lunch, certainly better than a heavy hoppy beer.

 

I can almost understand it when looking at beers that are heavy on what would be perceived to be expensive ingredients but when it comes to these craft AAL’s; while I am willing to pay slightly more than I am for a macro, I’m not going to break the bank to try a shiny new beer of this style.

 

One of my favorite AAL craft beers is the rice beer Icy Boys from Zilker brewing in Austin. It is clean, has just the right amount of hoppiness and goes well with spicy food. It is real easy drinking in the summer heat.

 

I'm all for rice, used in moderation of course.

But corn? Chicken feed is for chickens. It is difficult to assert that corn is anything other than a useful cost savings. Europeans of course (mostly) do not eat corn to this very day, as they see it as a food for farm animals.
Cheers

 

I think that's part of the appeal to American brewers (from what I've seen with American craft beers made with corn). It's a distinctly American grain. I've tried a number of beers made with local (to the brewer) heirloom corn.

I generally agree with you though, I've had a number of beers where rice was distinctly additive. The best thing I've seen from corn is a pleasant pink hue that a Fonta flora beer picked up from their use of bloody butcher corn

 

I drank a very nice, well-brewed (if not rather mundane), corn lager at a brewery just outside Interlaken Switzerland some years ago.

And not a micro/craft brewery. This was a long established production and distribution brewery in that area. I'd heard it was one of their best sellers, too.

https://www.rugenbraeu.ch/en/brewery/products/Oberland/draft-oberland.php

 

Well, that's why (some) European brewers call it "Maize".

Ol' Adolphus, previously mentioned, kinda felt the same way. From his testimony in front of Congress, during the Pure Food Hearings of 1902-1903:
"Mr. Busch, president of the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association, states that the beer of this company is made entirely of barley malt, hops and yeast, except that some rice is used in order to make a very pale beer of the Bohemian type. This company has never used any corn or glucose or preservatives or coloring matter*. Corn does not make a high grade of beer, because of certain oily substances which it contains. They are partly transformed into fusel oil after fermentation. The quantity of fusel oil is not large enough, in Mr. Busch's judgment, to be injurious to health.

Rice is used not to cheapen beer, but to produce a very pale beer of the Bohemian type. It is twice as expensive as barley malt. Mr. Busch is not opposed to the use of corn, though he uses none himself. He does not think that there can be any good evidence that the use of unmalted grains in brewing is unwholesome."

* Of course, he couldn't promise that later generations might not have a different opinion of corn and should the impossible happen and they sell his company, well, all bets are off.

 

And in contemporary brewing AB uses corn to produce beers:

“Corn

Corn is an important ingredient in many of our value beers. We buy roughly 14 million bushels of corn each year because it is a critical ingredient in Busch, Busch Light, Natural Light, to name a few.”

https://www.anheuser-busch.com/community/initiative/our-farmers/

Cheers!

 

Do you pass the same judgment on bourbon?

Corn is an ingredient that is not inherently inferior. It has a long history of use for beer and many other well regarded foods. There could be an argument that corn is the most American ingredient you can find.

Aye, there's the rub. The big brewers do the AAL style so well already that I'm not doing craft 4-pack prices for marginal differences. It's a tough place for craft brewers to compete without the economy of scales of the big national brewers. I'll consider a more economical 12 or 18-pack volume from a craft brewer, but it's still a tough call when other AALs that I enjoy are so much cheaper.

 

Sly Fox is pricing their Reading Premium six-packs (16 ounce cans) at around 10 bucks. Is that a price point you would be willing to pay?

On a related note a few weeks ago I purchased a 12-pack of Yuengling Lord Chesterfield for $15. Is that something you would be willing to pay?

Cheers!

 

Nope, I buy 12 packs of Warsteiner for $17.99 with a best by date of 12/22 and various other German 1/2 liter 4 packs for $6.99. I drink cheap Bud 25oz cans and $16.99 cases of Hamm's when I drink AAL's