Yes, you were on topic. Perhaps Great Antibob started composing before your post appeared and hadn’t seen your answer when he hit “Submit.”
To take it a step further, it seems to me the implicit follow-up question to the OP is, given that there are some taste differences between Bud and Busch and between Coors and Keystone, etc., what makes the difference? Some difference in ingredients (is the rice different between Bud and Busch?), some difference in brewing technique/procedure (is the brewing temperature different between MGD and Milwaukee’s Best?), or some other aspect?
Beer has 4 basic ingredients, Water, Barley, Yeast and Hops, corn and rice are adjuncts used to lighten the flavor.
It’s a recipe, you use less barley and more rice, you get a different flavor, and reduce the cost. You use cheaper hops and fewer hops you get a different flavor and reduce the cost.
It’s probably also true that some “better” macrobrews don’t cost any more to make than their cheaper counterparts, they just have a better marketing cachet.
Me, I think it’s the beechwood aging. MMMMMMMM, beech.
Also, since one is pricier than the other, is it generally regarded as tasting better? Apparently, they taste different, but I haven’t seen anything showing a general preference for one or the other. Is it just the marketing that accounts for the price?
Actually, is it true that both use the same ingredients? Coors, at least, uses both rice and corn as adjuncts. What adjuncts are used in Keystone? Does it use more rice to bring the cost down?
I have to say that here in Utah, Coors, Coors Light and Keystone Light (the 3 primary Coors products sold here) all taste virtually the same to me.
Since they are all 3.2% beers, (Utah’s infamous liquor laws strike again) that might have something to do with it, but in a blind taste-test, I am willing to bet that 90% of drinkers could not taste a significant difference between the three beers.
I agree on the low taste part, but rice and corn beers need not be low alcohol. In fact, most of the American macrobrews clock in at around 5%, which is pretty much what you expect your average lager to be at. A typical pilsner-style lager (as opposed to a lager like a bock) doesn’t usually get much higher than 5.2% ABV or so. A Budweiser or Coors, at 5.0% ABV, has more alcohol than a Bitburger (4.8%), Warsteiner (4.8%), Pilsner Urquell (4.4%), etc.
Well alcohol is a flavor carrier - the lower the abv, the less flavor you’ll get and less differences in flavor you’ll be able to pick up. It’s likely that the low alcohol content is preventing you from picking up on any differences that may actually be there.
Well, I suppose I can somewhat agree with this, as I have been bored before and conducted some fun, “educational” do-it-yourself experiments at home, and I can readily taste the difference between a Utah 3.2% Coors, Budweiser, or Pabst Blue Ribbon and a Coors, Bud, or PBR that is from another state, with an alcohol content of 5%…
Since a private citizen caught bringing ANY alcohol into Utah is charged with a class A misdemeanor, let’s just say that I brought the Utah 3.2% beer with me into Nevada (or Wyoming, Arizona, Idaho or Colorado) to conduct my tests, as opposed to loading up my car with $200 worth of discount booze and bringing it back home to drink, in defiance of sacred Utah state law…
In my opinion, ‘cheap’ beers (of which I would inlcude ALL the beers noted in the OP) generally taste the same. The premium you pay is NOT worth it. Stick with the cheaper stuff if you want a ‘cheap’ beer.
That said, if you move up to a true premium beer, many of which are listed upthread (As a Western Canadian, let me include the Big Rock line of products, which are awesome), there is a great difference between beers and are often well worth the investment.
There is a bit of a difference, but not much. In my fraternity days, we used to buy pallets of whatever was cheapest. Peils, Natty Light, Wilwaukee’s Beast. Sometimes random brands that just happened to be on special. Most of that stuff tasted pretty gross compared to a can of Budweiser. But not by a whole lot.
The OP was specifically talking about higher priced Macros VS lower priced macros. Not quality craft brews like Sam Adams and such.
Both low priced macros & higher priced macros appear to use the same ingredients, yet the price difference is significant. Why? Are the ingredients the same but of a different quality, or is it just pure marketing?
I can tell a difference between some higher priced macros, like Stella Artois, and generic shit like Labatt’s Blue. The Stella’s a smoother beer, less aftertaste, more balanced flavour. Cheap beers taste like medicine.
See some of the posts above. Apparently there are differences in taste, though many beer drinkers have difficulty determining which is the ‘better’ beer between a higher and lower priced macro.
It’s not even necessarily the quality of the ingredients. It’s not like there are that many ingredients in any type of beer.
If the brewing process is different between two beers with exactly the same ingredients, you’ll end up with a difference in taste. Simple as that. So, even with the same ingredients, it’s possible to make a superior or inferior beer. Many homebrewers never manage to successfully duplicate a particularly fine batch, no matter how they try.
As for price, I’m sure marketing plays some role. Probably a major role. A beer snob I know finds Budweiser very bland (but drinkable) but Busch slightly repellent. So, there may actually be some slight differences in quality, too.
I suppose some of us will have to man up and experiment on our own bodies. It’ll be a challenge drinking several beers, but I’m sure we’ll manage somehow.
Ginjo sake tends to be in the 15-20% range, but it can vary more widely if you expand it to all commercially available varieties of sake. Amylase process sake is much less common and has a very different profile, as does nigorizake, which is simply unfiltered sake. Having homebrewed both nigorizake and amylase process sake, I can tell you that sake can still taste like sake and have significantly different abv percentages.
As for macrobrewery beer brands, there is a decent variety even if you limit it to domestics available. Within Anheuser-Busch, you have Budweiser, Shocktop, Michelob, Landshark Lager, Busch, Natural, Rolling Rock, Redbridge and Wild Blue. (This doesn’t include the imports they distribute, including Kirin, Beck’s, etc.) Budweiser, Michelob, Busch, and Natural would fall under the “generic American lager” category, with Rolling Rock and Landshark Lager being related lagers with a different flavor profile-- RR is meant to be a “pale lager” and LL is a “premium lager” that’s meant to imitate the flavor profile of Caribbean and Latin American lagers. Redbridge is a sorghum lager meant for gluten intolerant folks, which will change the flavor profile significantly, Shock Top is a witbier (Belgian-style wheat ale) with citrus (and apparently now raspberry-- I hope this is a popular trend, as I like raspberry wheat beers) notes, and Wild Blue is a blueberry-infused lager. You have quite a few varieties in one segment of the market, many of which are easily available in the average grocery store and all have different flavor profiles. One good thing I can say about macrobreweries is that they are good at producing a consistent flavor, which is difficult to do when brewing. Mind you, more complex beers are often sold at a higher price because of the problem of consistency between batches.
I like the “fancier” beers when they are available.
If not, I’ll gladly drink a Miller Lite or two.
If Pearl Light (now made by Pabst, apparently) is all that’s available, I’ll have a Dr Pepper. Hmmm. Olympia is now brewing Buckhorn; Texas Beers are improving!
Just a couple days ago I was telling someone that appreciation was very situational and the best tasting beer I’d had was standard Budweiser (not normally at the top of my list), but it was after helping someone move apartments in the heat.
See, in those instances I used to try to decide whether I wanted a beer or a shower first. Now I don’t decide-- I drink beer in the shower. Try it, man; it’s wonderful after a hot sweaty day of work.
