The Calorie Conundrum

Type "light" in the search bar and 718 results pop up. I can pretty much assure you all the reviews sound the same, "not enough flavor, too watery, not bad..... for a light beer" and so on. If thats what you're looking for just add water to your craft beer.

 

I don't think 99% of craft brewers are going to intentionally make beer that is doomed from the start to be boring and tasteless.. that's the polar opposite of what they are all about.

I personally would not buy low calorie craft because I care about taste. Plain and simple. I exercise in some fashion most days and just consume smaller amounts of alcohol. I'm no fitness model but my weight remains constant. The whole low calorie beer to me is kind of a waste anyway. It's my understanding that alcohol (regardless of calories) brings your metabolism to an almost a complete stop while your body focuses on ridding it from your body so a difference in 50-100 or even more alcohol calories is not all that important if you have your overall diet in check.. Don't pig out on junk food during or after drinking , exercise daily and drink good beer in moderation. no need for gimmicky, tasteless, low calorie beer.

 

It has been said many times here and I say to all my non-craft friends, Quality over Quanity. I usually say that to defend the higher cost of craft beer but it easily translates to calories as well. 2-3 quality beers a week satifies me far more than 2-3 crappy beers a night, same price, same calories, greater pleasure and quality of life!

 

The solution to calorie-related problems in the US is 1) eat less, 2) eat better, 3) don't sit on your ass all day. What particular kind of alcohol anyone chooses to consume is irrelevant, excepting how much of it they consume.

 

Calories are not the issue. Guinness has less calories than Budweiser and Budweiser FAR outsells everything but Coors Light and Bud Light. Until this past year in fact, Bud was number 2 in the country. It's 150 calories/12 oz. At the moment craft beer does not need to go after the light beer market, craft beer is still rapidly expanding while BMC is either stagnant or slightly declining in sales. What craft beer needs to do if they want even more sales, is increase MARKETING......not decrease the flavor/calories in their beer.

 

This thread has gone on for quite some discussion time but the ‘answer’ was provided by several posters. I will quote just one of the posts: “Drink session beers. I made a mild that had roughly the same calories as a regular light beers (not the ultra lights).”

The US craft breweries are fully capable of making low calorie beers that also happen to be flavorful. Several people posted about Berliner Weisse beers but since this beer tends to be rather tart they will not appeal to a mass market (not even a mass market of BAs).

An example low calorie commercial craft beer would be Stewarts 60 Shilling Ale: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1754/67393

60 Shilling Ale is only 2.7% ABV but that beer has lots of flavor!

So, perhaps the next question might be: why don’t US craft breweries make more low alcohol yet flavorful beer? I would venture that the answer to that question is that craft beer drinkers (e.g., BAs) in general prefer to drink BIG beers where BIG = lots of alcohol and tons of flavor/taste.

So, US craft breweries could make lots of low calorie beers that are still flavorful but who would buy them?

Cheers!

 

Fair enough, let's point the discussion in another direction: price. Another reason Americans love light beer is because it's cheap. We can drink a ton of it for very little cost because the breweries that produce it do so via high volume low margin business models. The craft guys can't compete with these breweries on price because the produce low volumes. So if a consumer sees a 6pk light beer at $5.99 and a "craft" light beer 6pk next to it @ $9.99, which one do you think they will choose? To go after the light beer drinker, I think you really do need to compete on price because a marginal improvement in flavor alone probably won't entice someone to switch. And I think that's a losing game for craft breweries.

 

Wow, seriously? Do you not even consider that this is because it's fairly cheap because BBC is so big? Besides that, you have the biggest craft beer company in America making a light beer, advertising it (or at least they used to), and it still doesn't put a dent into macro light lagers. What more, exactly, do you want them to do?

 

We can't stop "pushing" exercise because it's one of only 2 solutions that makes sense (the other being to drink more mild, lower abv, sessionable brews). You searching for another answer is like trying to find a car that gets 100 mpg, costs $17,000 and still does 0-60 in 4 seconds. It's not happening.

 

Ultimately, alcohol converts into calories but the "caloric" intake IMO isn't as much as the issue as what alcohol does to your metabolism and your body's ability to create testosterone as well as increasing insulin.

Sessions are great. Stick with them if you're thinkin about caloric intake, if not freakin enjoy those Heady Toppers and screw Lance Armstrongs favorite beer.

 

Such a great beer!

Also, this has to be one of the lamest discussions I've read on BA. I vote we change the discussion to awesome, low ABV beers.

 

Because you keep harping on a watered down solution to the problem when others have postulated much better ideas which only involve educating consumers on several beer styles. You asked, people answered, and you've been peeved at the responses because they weren't exactly what you wanted to hear.

 

Yes, that is not the most logical way to do it. Craft beer has been taking market share away from macros for a few years now, why do you think they need to change tactics? They're already doing what you want!

And, really, if some craft brewer made a shitty light lager, got it on the shelves of every supermarket and liquor store in the country, sold it for $10 a case, why would it matter? It's still a shitty light lager. Most people on BA want craft to dominate because they want good beer to dominate. It doesn't matter who's making swill, it's still swill.

So, fine, say that they make a mild or some other tasty-but-low-calorie beer, like all the ones that cbeer has mentioned. Those already exist! What's the plan for taking over market share with them? Seriously, what would you like a brewery like Notch or Moonlight that pretty much only makes low-ABV beers to do?

The reason you're getting so much pushback is that the ideas you're putting out here just don't make any sense.

 

craft is all about flavor...you can't make an 80 calorie 12oz beer that's gonna have much flavor so that's why the craft market doesn't pursue it. If you're looking for flavor you have to add calories which is why even the low abv craft beers pack quite the caloric number.

 

I don't drink filler beer. I drink craft beer, and enjoy every minute of it. If I find that I had a few too many good delicious high calorie beers in a sitting I'll cut back calories the next meal or the next day.

 

The answer for me is the sampler flight. Variety, taste and built-in portion control. Unless you're drinking to get drunk, this works well.