Re: Bud commitment commercial

"John S." wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com:

Their first change from the lager recipe Aldolfus brought back from Germany was to add rice (later it was claimed this added to "drinkability"). America 6 row barley does not produce enough starch to convert to sugar as compared to British 2 row. The second was a substitution of hops varieties. Next came pasteurization. After prohibition, it was deemed a bit to strong a drink and the alcohol content was cut to help increase audience acceptance. After WWII it was cut again as returning GIs were used to drinking the watered down crap the Army provided. In the 70's, it was cut again, but this time they called it a light beer. This was made to appeal more to women. It is also no longer aged in wood barrels, so forget the "Beechwood aging" as that is a myth.

Today their recipe consists of American 6 row, rice, water, yeast and an assortment of hops. The goal is no discernable hop taste or smell, no malt taste and no adjunct flavor, and a consistency on each batch, bordering on dullness. It is a beer only for the reason that it is made from cereal grains (wine being made from fruit).

To be fair, both Miller and Coors changed their recipes for many of the same reasons, with the exception of rice malt.

snipped-for-privacy@see.headers (Joel) wrote in news:g118kp$m4r$ snipped-for-privacy@badger.ncsa.uiuc.edu:

And that's only to what they will admit. They have changed it several times. It is one thing if the recipe stayed the same, but the ingredients themselves modified (soil differences, climate, genetic mutation, etc). But the recipe has changed. Get a bottle of Budvar and taste from where Bud came. They are not even close.

Budvar is a different recipe. I suspect it may have been the result of trying to sell Bud under the German 'purity laws' which had nothing to do with purity.

In most of sub-Saharan Africa, beer must be made with grain Sorghum rather than malt. So everything brewed there tastes different than it would on tap here.

Dick

Actually, there is a place and history behind American Light Lager, and anybody who wants to really learn about beer can find something positive in it. For example, I've toured the main Bud plant several times now, both public tours and one private tour given by one of their brewmasters where we saw their really sweet research pilot plant (they have *two* pilot plants). After the public tour, you end up in their tasting room and can taste several of their beers and other beverages. One very illuminating thing to do is to taste Budweiser and Michelob side by side. Bud is made with rice and a higher percentage of 6-row barley, while Michelob is made with no rice and more 2-row barley. The difference in character of the grain flavor in those two beers, consumed as fresh as they can be right at the breewry, is very educational, and can give you a real appreciation for the ingredients that go into beer in general.

(But since all I do is bash big brewers, don't believe a word of the above. ;-)

You do the same, to prove your point. Quotes from news articles and from Anheuser-Busch brewers themselves have been provided as counter evidence. You have only your own assertion. Or just keep on with your conspiracy theories. Your choice. It's as simple as that.

Um, no, it isn't. The beechwood aging process has nothing to do with barrels. It has to do with adding beechwood staves to the beer to assist in clarification, by creating attraction sites for flocculating yeast and other particles. A-B doesn't claim that their beer is aged in beechwood barrels.

The facts will set you free:

That's the reason that ANY beverage is considered a beer, sport. Since Bud has malted barley, water, yeast, and hops, along with the rice adjunct, yep, it's a beer.

You're not going to claim that the only good beers are adjunct-free, are you? Or that only good beers have discernible hop bitterness?

A-B's Budweiser was originally brewed BEFORE Budevoicky Pivovar started brewing. It's kinda hard to base your product on one that came a few years later, isn't it? A-B based the "Budweiser" name on the town's brewing tradition, not on any particular beer, and back when it was first introduced, it wasn't the only "Budweiser" brand produced in the USA.

Of course they're not. They've never been the same beer. Nor did A-B's Budweiser come from Budvar's Budweiser. They're two entirely different beers, just as Michelob and Anchor Steam are two entirely different beers.

And, as pointed out elsehwere in the thread, A-B brewed a beer called "Budweiser" years before Budvar was produced.

-Steve

A-B have never in my lifetime claimed to age in wood barrels. And Beechwood aging is not a myth. Beechwood is still added during the lagering process. Its use, if I remember correctly, is more as a yeast flocculator than a flavor component.

Do they leave the impression in their advertising? Of course. Advertising is an exercise in putting the best possible spin on reality. It's really not much different than Stone pretending that drinking their beer makes you something special.

Nearly all brewers adjust their recipes. Look for more of it with the current hop shortage. It's not just a big brewer thing. Nor is it inherently a bad thing.

Steve Jackson wrote in news:W2__j.9092$ED6.4082@trnddc02:

Which dates are being used here? 1265, 1532 or 1895?

1895. The company that brews Budvar was founded in that year. Earlier years are irrelevant as 1) light lagers did not exist in either year and 2) "Budweiser" is simply the German word for denoting "from Budweis". It's the same as calling something "Londoner".

A-B started selling a beer called Budweiser in 1876. If Wikipedia is right, they registered the trademark two years later. A different Budejovice brewery sold a Budweiser beer in the States a bit before A-B, but that's not the same company as Budejovicky Budvar.

Really, the only (and better) case to be made is that "Budweiser" is a generic description just like "Pilsner", and that A-B's product is a poor example of the style, much as Miller Lite's a poor example of a pilsner.