Macro Lagers: Refreshing when cold, but what am I missing?

Me too. I drink the seltzers often. Light beer just really reminds me of a beer flavored seltzer.

 

I agree, it's ok , some are better than others. It doesn't taste like shit, nor will drinking one kill you. You can still be a good BA and admit you like a cold AAL every now and then. It's not flavorless shitty yellow fizzy water, don't get the analogy to seltzer either.

 

I love a good macro beer. Emphasis on the good. Budweiser is not good. Corona is not good (I only recently tried Corona and sent it back because I thought it was off. Everyone laughed at me). Get some vodka, fill it with ice water and you have a drink that's more refreshing, more flavourful, as cheap, and as alcoholic as a Bud or Corona.

But there are plenty of good macro beers available, just none of them seem to be from America (I'm Australian, so I will admit I haven't tried them all). Does Sam Adams count as macro? It's not awful.

Budweiser Budvar (Budejovicky Budvar for licensing reasons iirc) from the Czech Republic is a delicious and flavourful pilsener-style pale lager. So is Pilsner-Urquell. Or Peroni Red. Or Asahi. Or Kirin. Or Estrella Damm. Or Viru. Or Chang. Or Stella Artois. Kronenbourg has it moments - Kronenbourg Blanc is an absolutely thirst crushing wheat beer from a Macro brewery.

All of those are easy to pound down at the end of a hot day full of hard work and there are dozens of others. And here in Oz they all cost about the same (or less) than Budweiser, and wayyy less than Corona.

 

I'm sorry, but there's nothing refreshing about Budweiser.

 

I beg to differ. The beer snobs are far more boisterous in their opinions, but the "red wine" drinkers opinion of white wine is as strong if not more so than most beer snobs opinion of macro. Ask a guy that drinks Silver Oak what he thinks of Riesling and you will see what I'm talking about. Riesling is undeniably one of the great wine of the world. But not to a philistine.
Everyone likes to wear their opinionated ignorance on thier sleeves. Even me(working on that).
"My opinions matter" and all that shit.

 

has alcohol, doesnt taste like alcohol.

I dont think folks drink this beer for tastes, and if they do, do not be friends with them....

drink, drank, drunk.

 

I have never heard anyone claim that inexpensive jug wine from any winery in CA are flavorless. In fact most of them are packed with flavor.

 

Disagree that it isn't "Pilsner" like. It uses a similar pilsner malt base (if cut by the rice) and Saaz hops. So the flavor profile and aroma is quite similar, if more watered down. It's definitely a pilsner style.

 

That is not the case. AAL beers are brewed with North American 6-row as a base malt plus maybe some North American Pale 2-row malt on occasion.

Pilsner Malt is not used to brew AAL beers.

For the situation of AB brewed AAL beers:

"There are two basic types of malting barley. One produces two rows of kernels on each stalk, and the other yields six rows on each stalk. The flavor of the two varieties differs. Two-row barley malt produces a smoother, sweeter-tasting beer, and six-row barley produces a crisper, snappier flavor. The combination is adjusted by brewmasters to produce the right balance for Anheuser-Busch beers."

Cheers!

 

Narragansett is my favorite AAL.

 

If you say so. Recipes I saw online called for 2-row or Pilsner malt. But when I smell it, I get Saaz hops, and it smells about the same a Pilsner Urquell. Hop flavors are about the same as well. It is definitely very similar.

 

What AALs are you talking about?

 

Can't you modify 6-row less to make it pilsner malt? Or is it only made from 2-row?

 

Budweiser. Not all of them use Saaz hops.

 

I have never seen any Malting Company label their 6-row malt with the term "Pilsner".

I have brewed with about a dozen different malts that the varying Malting Companies have labeled as "Pilsner Malt" and every one of those malts were produced from 2-row barley.

Cheers!

 

Probably Bud Light... but Budweiser would be a good guess too.

 

Thought I'd pour myself some Bud Light and White Rock Seltzer... and take everything far too seriously or not seriously enough depending on your point of view.



I haven't bought many Bud Lights before and I actually had a hard time spotting it in the store because of the new can art. It's a very sharp looking package regardless. The White Rock label always takes me back. As a kid, the topless art stood out to me as a logo. She's covered up now.

The Bud Light formed a very nice soft head, but it didn't linger. The seltzer formed no head at all. The seltzeradvocate members will be embarrassed by this comment, but the seltzer tasted like carbonated water. There was a slight minerality and/or salinity, but no salt was added to it by the beverage company. The carbonation resulted in nice big bubbles. The big bubbles in Pellegrino are much nicer though.

The Bud Light's carbonation was more prickly. The beer was impressively clear and bright. The taste was much different than carbonated water. It was a very clean tasting beer. The malt character wasn't bad at all. It was somewhat sweet but it (thankfully) didn't have the same level of corn-ish sweetness found in some other pale lagers. I'd go so far as to say that there was a very restrained fruitiness to it. The hops provided some needed balance, but didn't register as a blip beyond that. The lack of any hop character is the Achilles heel of an otherwise "nice for what it is" beer. It was a modest pleasure to drink despite being a little too sweet. Compared to the character of the Gaffel I had a few days ago (if you can forgive the comparison), the Bud Light was much less appealing.

The seltzer was far more "refreshing" and the Bud Light was pleasantly malty by comparison.

 

Didn't you detect the beechwood?

 

If someone were to brew an American macro lager with several times the bittering hops they customarily use, and sell this at a comparable price point, I would cheerfully make this my daily table beer.

 

To be fair to other macro lagers, Bud is probably the most flavor neutral of them. It has some flavor, but it's super mild.
To me I feel it tastes a bit like unripened bananas and white bread. The texture is definitely too soda-like for me.

If you want a macro lager with at least a little more character, give Coors Banquet (or especially Extra Gold) a shot. If you want texture, give High Life a spin. PBR even has a little bit of a hop note to it.