Please settle an argument.
Is Malt Liquor beer (like OE, Colt 45, et al)?
Formerly unknown as “Melanie”
I’d have to say the answer is yes. Webster’s defines beer as: an alcoholic beverage usually made from malted cereal grain (as barley), flavored with hops, and brewed by slow
fermentation. It defines Malt Liquor as: a fermented liquor (as beer) made with malt . Since they are both esentially malted, I’d say that they are both beer, although I’m not sure where the differentiation occurs. Perhaps malt liquor contains more barley.
Yes, malt liquor is beer. It brewed in exactly the same fashion as other beers.
The laws of many states require that beer that exceeds a certain strength (usually 5% abw, although of course this varies from state to state) be sold as “malt liquor” or “ale”. In case of certain beers, you will that the designation of “beer” has been blacked out after the fact, and “malt liquor” printed on the label.
Of course, in the case of cheap, strong beers typically sold by the quart (as, e.g., Colt 45), they are so labelled from the beginning, since the brewer doesn’t expect them to be exempt from the law.
It is often said that “anything is possible”. In fact, very few things are possible, and most of them have already happened.
Related question: why has malt liquor advertising shifted towards blacks?
I remember Schlitz Malt Liquor’s ads from the 70’s, with the bull crashing onto the set when someone opened up a fresh bottle.
Then sometime in the 80’s Billy Dee Williams started doing ML ads. Ever since then, all the TV and print ads have had all-black characters.
Doesn’t this seem rather insidious aiming a higher-alcohol beverage at one ethnic group?
Judges 14:9 - So [Samson] scraped the honey into his hands and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it; but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey out of the body of the lion.
I’ve heard that the Republican party somehow ups the shipments of malt liquor into urban areas with large African-American populations just before elections.
But this seems alarmist, even to ME.
Uke
On a related note…
I have a friend who used to be a Jose Cuervo salesman (selling to chains of liquor stores). He also sold the drinks everyone calls “wine coolers”. I had never noticed, but he told me that they’re not really wine coolers, they’re malt beverages. The alcohol doesn’t come from grapes, but from grains.
He explained that they used to be wine coolers, but they changed them to malt beverages, because there are thousands of stores in Texas which can sell beer but not wine.
I don’t know about other states, but I can confirm that in Texas, the bottles are labelled as “malt beverages”, and that there are many stores which can sell beer but not wine.
I didn’t think malt liquor was beer.
The reason: I have always heard that there are strict purity laws in place for brewing beer. And with the cost and quality of malt liquor, I couldn’t believe that it would be considered in the same class.
WIGGUM: Those are the differences I’m trying to find.
Akatsakami: Do you know if the ingredients the same?
Also, can anyone supply a link to show that malt liquor is (or isn’t) considered beer? (I did a search but didn’t find anything)
I was suspicious that the bottles don’t have the word “beer” printed anywhere. And the fact that I can drink a 12 pack of beer and feel great and one sip of malt liquor will make me head straight for the toilet.
Formerly unknown as “Melanie”
Melanie, you may be thinking of the Reinheitsgebot, the Bavarian “beer purity” law of 1516, which mandated that the locally-brewed beer be made of naught but barley, hops, and water (it was later amended to allow the addition of yeast, the existence and necessity of which was not suspected in 1516). It is really not an attempt to regulate the brewing of beer, but rather to prevent brewers from using valuable edible grains in it (barley was considered fit only for animals in its native state – compare Sam Johnson’s attitude towards oats).
The Reinsheitsgebot is, frankly, raather trivial in terms of purity. Back when I was healthy enough to be a homebrewer (it would be courting disaster for me to now attempt to lift a kettle full of boiling wort), I was able to brew many different styles of beer, including some that were considerably more alcoholic than any commercially-available malt liquor (that is, the brews intended to be malt liquor, not some high-alcohol beer that gets the label to stay within the confines of the law), using Reinheitsgebot ingredients. Many of the worst beers in the world are Reinheitsgebot beers; again, many of the best beers are not (no lambic is, no weizen is, and Guinness is not). This is not a claim that commercial malt liquors are “pure”, in any sense of the word, merely that it’s possible to brew a “pure” beer that is as bad as a malt liquor 
I think that this link to the rec.food.drink.beer FAQ may answer some of the questions about beer purity, malt liquor, and the like. Check especially part 2, sections 2 through 6 (I think) on these points.
It is often said that “anything is possible”. In fact, very few things are possible, and most of them have already happened.
The way I see it, Malt Liquor is a subdivision of beer. Kind of like your Lager’s, Black and Tans, Stouts, and Malts
Akatsumaki: Fabulous reply - thanks.
Wiggum: yes indeed, you’re right.
I’ll admit I was wrong and buy the turkey a 40.
Formerly unknown as “Melanie”
Akatsukami…
I remember reading that one of the tests of the Reinsheitsgebot was to pour it on the seat and sit on it to see if it adhered to the pants. Is this true?
Those tequila salesmen are tricky. I was at a place in Texas that just had a beer and wine license so they could not sell mixed drinks. They were selling margaritas made from wine.
AWB -
There have been some massive protests in the past about exactly what you’re talking about. My understanding is that for some reason Malt Liquor caught on with blacks in the 50’s and 60’s and thus became know as a “black” beverage. So then breweries started marketing towards blacks and it just became a self-fulfilling strategy.
I don’t know if the breweries made a conscious decision to debilitate blacks (i.e. “sell 'em more liquor and keep 'em in the ghetto”), but quite a few black advocacy groups have interpretted it all that way in recent years. Especially when the marketers started coming out with these virile-sounding names like “Power Master” and “Raging Bull” (or whatever)- the protestors interpretted those names as attempts to get young black males to equate drinking alcohol with being manly.
I remember seeing a movie about the subject in a marketing class in business school. There were quite a few interesting oincidences and viewpoints in the movie… And they did have a good point - some of those ads were pretty blatant in equating Colt ‘45 with being a ladies’ man, etc.
I have no opinion either way, but I do know that the stereotype when I was growing up was that blacks didn’t drink beer, they drank malt liquor. Whatever.
Banks writes:
HUH?
I’ve never heard of this, and I can’t imagine what it could be a test of (except, perhaps, whether one is foolish enough to sit in a pool of beer).
A Reinheitsgebot beer will probably contain enough unfermented (and unfermentable) dextrins, oligosaccharides, etc., to make it sticky as it dries. But would a beer given a good shot of sugar syrup when Sergeant Schultz…err, the Reinheitsgebot inspector…is looking the other way.
It is often said that “anything is possible”. In fact, very few things are possible, and most of them have already happened.
Hey, Malt liquor is the drink of unemployed and college white guys too. The goal of American malt liquor is to make it as cheap and as strong as possible.
As for just advertising to blacks, I remember 38-Special and Marshall Tucker band in a Schlitz Malt liquor commercial in the 80’s. Just because I am white does not mean I don’t drink it. The fact that I am employed makes me willing to drink something that tastes better.
Akatsukami…I solved the problem of the heavy brew kettel by adding a spiggot to the botom of mine. If plumbing isn’t your thing, I suggest a clam steamer that has a spiggot…Re: Rehinesheitsgebot, German Weiss Bier, made with wheat in addition to barley, complied, I have read…Uncle charlie Papazian?
Zymurgist
I have not seen this mentioned yet, but I don’t think that malt liquors have any hops in them. Also, the vile Zima is a malt beverage.
If I was discussing Lucy Lawless but I wrote Lucy Topless, would that be a Freudian typo?
The OP as posted by Saxface was
Wiggum responded
Works for me.
Livin’ on Tums, vitamin E and Rogaine
I’ve read the bit about the beer sticking to pants in some fairly reputable beer source–maybe “All About Beer,” but it struck me even then that this might be a BL (Bavarian Legend).
Beer doesn’t have to have hops, either. Welsh ale is traditionally brewed with heather, and in England until at least after Shakespeare’s day they wouldn’t call it beer if it did have hops. They would preserve and flavor beer with things like juniper berries, bark, etc.
Egyptian beers were made with honey, no grains in them at all, so they don’t always need grain.
So what the hell is it? I dunno, just pour me one that’s dark, creamy, and with some malt in it!
Bucky
Oh, well. We can always make more killbots.