Why no "American adjunct ales"?

Genny cream ale?

 

Has nothing to do with the cost of any particular ingredient. It's based in the history of brewing in the States, equally before and after Prohibition. Immigrant pioneers set the bar, the populace became accustomed, and the bottleneck around the Noble Experiment guaranteed that most beer that made it out the other side was going to be lager.

 

I believe Spotted Cow uses corn.

 

maybe they are just stuck on the idea that beer has to be super crystal clear and there shouldn't be any yeast flavor or bitterness. or maybe they have perfected the art of making lager super fast and cheap as fuck, so why bother trying to get to that level with ales since most customers don't even know the difference between ale and lager in the first place. basically i have no idea.

 

I don't think it uses corn as an "adjunct" because they probably aren't using the corn as a cheap replacement for malted barley, but rather to achieve a certain flavor. besides, we are talking about BMC here.

 

I think you may be a little confused about the term "adjuncts" There are in fact a whole lot ( if not the majority) of craft ale adjunct beers

 

^ I don't think the point of the thread is concerning adjuncts. I think he's wondering why the lager style is more common in mass-market beer than the ale style. I believe it's because lager has the "crisp and clean" (aka easy drinking) taste that inoffensively lets the consumer drink beer without drinking anything overly complex. The reason they use adjuncts is to save money, but I don't think that's the question at hand.

 

Corn is an unmalted grain, and Genny Cream Ale is not a BMC beer.

 

I kind of got that, but my long winded Edit got timed out.
Short story is the after the repeal of prohibition large lagering facilities got the upper hand through many ( some downright nasty) routs. Plus the lighter less flavorful beers became more popular, Remember, this was a time that refrigeration was a novelty and considered high class and desirable

 

People can't seem to distinguish between adjuncts (unmalted grains) and additives.
One reason for widespread use of adjuncts is so that domestic barley not normally regarded of brewing quality can be used.BMC can use all-American ingredients.
Regarding clarity , as long ago as the 1700s brewers like John Courage came to realise that a good, well brewed ale is clear and bright and with the advent of glass drinking vessels clarity came to be the sign of quality which it still possesses.

 

There were hundreds (< ah, probably? - certainly in the 3 digits) of US adjunct ales in the post-Repeal era. The survivors - most mere shadows of what they were only 2 or 3 decades ago - include Ballantine XXX Ale, McSorley's, Lord Chesterfield, Rainier, Genesee Cream and 12 Horse, Schoenling's Little Kings. Other notably US ales included Carling Red Cap Ale and Black Horse Ale (originally a Canadian brand brewed by at least four US breweries in the northeast). Sterling Ale and Drewrys Ale both had large markets beyond their mid-West home. Besides Ballantine (once tied for second with AB for US breweries), Pabst was probably the largest US brewer that made ales - in their case, Pabst Ale and Old Tankard Ale. The later was the longest-lived, and was last brewed in the early 90s.

As for AB and MC, Miller had a shortlived Miller Ale in the 60s, AB brewed Regal Ale for a brief time in the late 50s (a label they got when they bought American in Miami only to have to sell it due to anti-trust violations) and had a short-lived O-Doul's Ale in the 70s. Since ale in the US was primarily a northeast product (most every major and local brewery in New England, NY, NJ and PA brewed an ale), Coors' first ale that I can think of was Killian's in the early 80s, which, of course, was later in the decade converted to a lager.

As for yeast, many US brewers of both ale and lager maintained separate facilities (brewhouse, fermentation, aging) to keep their ale yeast and lager yeast separate and their house yeast strains pure. Later, the so-called "bastard ale" style was developed to get around that costly method, which were "ales" that were fermented at higher temps but with the brewers own bottom fermenting lager yeast. Notable examples of the survivors included Rainier Ale, Yuengling's LCA and, probably, the Miller-brewed, Pabst-marketed imposter labeled "Ballantine XXX Ale".

 

Americans by and large drink lagers. BMC despite having their panties in a twist over craft can't get themselves to brew a counter brew. So instead they have bourbon-like adjunct lagers

 

Bozo Beer has a lot of adjuncts.

 

Kuhnhenn Double Rice IPA.

 

In theory, anything in beer but water, malt, hops & yeast is an adjunct. And to answer the question about why so many lagers, it's simple. The big brewers, both past and present, have spent too much money "educating" the beer drinker about how great lagers are, if they changed now and started to produce adjunct ales, they would essentially be competing against themselves.

 

I don't think that's the problem.

 

Not in brewing industry "theory" and practice.

All the fruit, spice, and other flavoring additions that have of late become popular among so-called "craft" brewers are not adjuncts in the brewing sense of the word.