While Miller High Life is heat pasteurized in the bottle or can, Miller Genuine Draft is not pasteurized but is cold filtered in “clean room” aseptic conditions prior to bottling.
If you are ever in Milwaukee, be sure to take the Miller tour. They have free samples after the tour, and it tastes quite good when you get it fresh at the brewery or even at the baseball stadium across the freeway.
So is the fact that I think Genuine Draft is a pretty good beer, and that Milwaukee’s Best tastes like horse piss lite mean that I am simply a whore to corporate advertising, and that there really isn’t a difference between the two?
Wow.
I’ve been drinking Nastro Azzurro for years and all that time I thought it was privately owned. Same goes for Stella, although the arseload of advertising dollars Stella gets should have told me different.
Definitely riding the same market segment. We’re in Pabst-land here in Portland, and every hipster bar has a $2 selection of PBR, High Life, Hamm’s, and Rainier.
I blame David Lynch and Blue Velvet. (Well, not “blame.” I actually like all of those beers occasionally.)
No, I have no doubt that there are differences detectable by some/many/most people. I think the point being made is the price point has more to do with marketing strategy than with production costs.
I’ve seen High Life, Natty Light, National Bohemia and Schaeffer as the drink special at a few places. Its not bad on a hot summer night.
Just so I understand you, you are stating that such differences in taste are unintentional, or at least not a function of the cost to produce the beer, right?
If so, then those differences in taste are not necessarily good or better for the higher priced beer and worse or bad for the cheaper beers, yes? Could be the opposite depending on the individual taste of the beer drinker?
Okay, so that being the case, why does almost anyone who can afford it drink premium beer? The only people I know who drink High Life, Best, Natty Light, and Schaffers are drunks and college students. I doubt you would see any of these brands at a swank party in Palm Beach.
There you will see Heineken, Corona, and other imports. Is this a function of people bowing to corporate mentality?
In other words, if what you were saying was true, I would expect to see a substantial number of multi-millionaires drinking Natural Light just because they like the taste…
Do you consider Budweiser a “premium” beer? Most people can afford better but don’t buy better.
I think volume has something to do with it, too. When I was 16-22ish, Miller Lite was my beer of choice because I usually wanted a 12-pack. Now I’m 25 and I usually don’t drink more than 2-3 beers in one sitting. If I go out, I buy a six-pack. SinceI can reach my optimum level of drunkeness with $9 worth of tasty beer instead of $11 worth of blah beer, I go with the tasty beer.
I’ve noticed the same trend among my 20-something friends, too - we all drink more expensive beer now, but less of it.
Sort of. I know several people who are quite wealthy who drink High Life.
I would agree that it is one of the best domestic “macro brews” around.
And lately I see 10 High Life commercials (“Step aside Mon Ami”) for every MGD ad I see, so there’s been a big push for people to buy more High Life. It’s always on sale at the store too, $3.50 for a sixer of tallboys.
The Last Beer in the Fridge (Relevant Youtube link)
Is barley really much more expensive than rice these days?
You’re missing the point. Milwaukee’s Best costs perhaps $0.03 per bottle to make. Hight Life probably costs $0.035 per bottle. Miller Lite costs $0.04 per bottle and Peroni costs about the same. The cost of making the beer is so negligible that it has nothing to do with the price. Milwaukee’s Best is intentionally made as a very bland tasting beer for the entry-level crowd, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s worse product, just that older, experienced drinkers prefer bigger tasting beers these days.
If you think Heineken and Corona are better beers than MGD or Bud, then yes, you have bought into the “corporate mentality” as you phrased it which really means that you’ve bought the marketing they are feeding you.
Imported Macrobrews and American Macrobrews are essentially the same product made to the same standards with subtle differences in flavor. Imports technically are worse beers to drink because they are necessarily older products due to the transit required. Anyone buying Heineken because it’s “better” is simply adopting the image they cultivate. That’s not to say that a person can’t prefer the flavor of those imported macros, just so long as they aren’t deluding themselves into thinking it’s somehow objectively better.
I think Heineken (which I don’t generally like, although I have had a decent pint in the Netherlands of it) is definitely better than Corona and MGD, but I just can’t stand the corny flavor of those particular beers. Or maybe it’s something else I’m tasting, I don’t know, but I dislike the entire Miller line. I don’t like Bud, but I could tolerate the lightness of it better.
My GF and I believe Miller brainwashed us at the tour. We only drink Miller anymore, preferably High Life. They explained on the tour why the budget brands were cheaper, but I can’t remember why. It was obvious after seeing how they make MGD why it was more expensive. It was like one of those Intel commercials.
I’ve always thought Heineken had a bit of a skunky taste. Corona is tolerable with a lime, but not without. I love Yuengling when I can get it. I’ve had some beers in Argentina I really liked, like Quilmes.
Yuengling is perhaps the best inexpensive beer I’ve ever had the fortune to try. I desperately wish they distributed it out here.
A lot of Heineken does have a bit of a skunky taste, but not all of it. Miller uses, if I remember correctly, some kind of hop extract in their beers that does not skunk. Corona is the most flagrant skunky beer of the bunch.
The price of hops has soared in the last year or two, leaving many microbreweries in the lurch. Beer prices have been going up. (Granted, Miller and the like probably don’t require much hops to brew.)
So based on this thread I grabbed a sixer of High Life tonight as the beverage de jour, and I have to agree that it’s the best of the cheap macrobrews. I hadn’t had one in a long time, but it’s smooth and while not exactly complex, it’s certainly better than Coors Light in the flavor department. It’s an American lager, but there’s still a bit of flavor in there. All in all it’s a pretty decent deal for the $3.99 price point. I’d certainly do it again over other beers in that price bracket like Icehouse or Red Dog or Busch. This is totally classic American “lawn mowing” beer. When it’s hotter than hell, this goes down nice and easy without the total sacrifice of taste. I might even get some more of it in case it gets too hot for Guinness again. As a matter of fact, it’s just as good as the beers in the next price point like Bud or MGD. Next party I go to I’m arriving with some High Life under my arm for the sharing beers.
The only difference is that one is free and the other costs like a million dollars. You’re lucky to get change back from a hundred if it’s your turn to buy a round for your buddies at the ballgame.