In Australia, we often see American movies and TV shows where the guys are sitting around drinking “Bud”. From what I can gather, that appears to be one of, if not the most popular beer you can get in the States.
So a friend of mine decided to try it out. We headed down to the “Bottle-o” and sure enough they had some Budweiser. Genuine, as it had ben imported.
I must say, it was a mighty fine beer. Very smooth, excellent flavor, an all round winner.
However, I noticed on the label that Budwesier claim to not know of any other brewer which spends as much money making their beer as Budweiser do.
“Huh?” I thought.
Which made me wonder if Budweiser was considered to be high quality lager, not just something drunk at the pub or when you have a few mates over.
So my question is, is Budweiser, in America, regarded as a high quality beer normally drunk on special occasions with a high price tag?
Or is it a very common, affordable beer that a lot of people drink regularly?
Sorry about the ramble, this post was a bit longer then I had anticipated.
As common as it gets. I like Budweiser myself, but it’s common enough to be pretty plain, blah and uncool. Frankly, it’s cheap and American, just like me.
As someone from the US, and an drinker, perhaps i am qualified to answer this… Budwiser is VERY common here. You can get it anywhere, it’s just plain average beer. I used to like it in my teen years, but now i drink mostly Guiness (Draught, not that Extra Stout shit ). It is regarded by many here in the US (myself included) as cheap beer. Take that FWIW…
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The CEO of Guiness and Budwieser were arguing over who had the better beer. So, they each took samples and mailed them off to a lab for analysis… The results came back, and the Guiness man opened his first… They described the content of the beer (water, hops, etc) as well as a nice review of it’s taste and appearance. Excited the Budwieser CEO opens the envelope containing his results, only to find a note that read: “Your horse has diabetes”.
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> However, I noticed on the label that Budwesier claim to
> not know of any other brewer which spends as much money
> making their beer as Budweiser do.
I find this sentence hard to parse. Could you quote the exact claim made on the bottle? This sounds to me like it’s saying nothing more than that the company spends more money making beer than any other company. If the company is the largest beermaker in the world, then of course it does. It also makes the most revenue and the most profit.
Well, of course. They’re the largest brewer in the world. When you make more than anyone else, you use more ingredients. If I use one carload (traincar, that is) of hops on my little private blend brewery per week, and budweiser uses a few TRAINLOADS of hops, OF COURSE they are going to be spending more.
It is a fallacy to assume that fancy beers are necessarily more expensive to produce than lower priced beers. The greatest expense of brewing is the sterilization process. Budwieser, I have heard, does have a higher alcohol content than other standard American beers; such as Miller High Life, Coors, or most south-of-the-border beer. The proce is determined by what people are willing to pay.As far as price, it is in the mid range. We pay more for Bud than the above beers, but less than so called “specialty beers.” When “Red Dog” came out it cost more than now. I drink it because it is a good, cheap beer. In Texas, you used to get Shiner (a little brewery in Texas) cheap. Then the so-called microbrew revolution happened and the price jumped. I really do not believe the brewing process for Shiner became more expensive.
Well, actually economy of scale would make it much LESS expensive per unit of production (ie, Budweiser is so large that they can afford to purchase higher quantities of ingredients at a much larger discount.) As for the taste…well, that would be a matter of opinion. Personally, I pretty much agree that there’s nothing particularly special about it…then again, when I made the move up from Beast…it counted as higher level beer…but now that I’m a “beer connoisseur”, well, it surely does not suffice Personally, I enjoy Canadian beer and the local Erie Brewing brews.
Budweiser is a drinkable beer and better than a lot of other mass produced American beers. I prefer Canadian beer, Kokanee or Molson or Australian beer, Fosters.
Around the time they raised their price I read in the paper that they were doing it because they were starting to sell it in new places outside of Texas and they thought that if it cost more people who had never heard of it before would think it was a “premium” beer. I used to really like Shiner Bock around 1990, but now I can’t stand it. I don’t know if they changed the recipe or if my tastes changed.
Anheuser-Busch may or may not spend more money than anyone else actually making Budweiser, but they very likely spend more on advertising it.
BTW, there’s an “original” Budweiser brewed in the Czech Republic. Do not be fooled by imitations, but good luck figuring out which is which.
Now, here’s a return question for you jolly swagmen: Foster’s advertises heavily in the States, and their commercials are pretty funny, too (“Foster’s: It’s Australian for beer, mate”). But their major trademark is these gallon-size (or so they appear) cans. Is Foster’s really the most popular brew in Oz, or is this just advertising? Are these really Aussie-sized cans, or just more advertising? And is the stuff really worth buying?
I seem to remember some lawsuits flying back and forth across the Atlantic a few years ago. I guess they settled.
For Elvis and Fletch from: http://www.tastings.com/beer/canada.html
"a considerable amount of beer from other countries is brewed under license in Canada: Foster’s of Australia and Carlsberg of Denmark are two well-known brands. Consumers may often not be aware that they are drinking Canadian-brewed beer, as, typically, these brands have the word “Import” emblazoned in larger characters than the words “Brewed in Canada.”
I doubt AB follows this. Too dang much rice, dextrose, preservatives, extracts, and artificial carbonation do not make a great beer, it makes a consistent beer. You can open a container of Bud and, like McDonalds, it will be the same whether you are in New York, Detroit, Dallas, or San Francisco.
). It is regarded by many here in the US (myself included) as cheap beer. Take that FWIW…
Personally, I enjoy Canadian beer and the local Erie Brewing brews.