Budweiser has been promoting its latest entry into the American Beer Market: Budweiser American Ale. From what I can tell through my research this is going to be a knock off of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, the granddaddy of the craft brewing craze.
It makes me sick.
Brewers like Sierra Nevada and the Boston Beer Company took big risks when they invested heavily in their craft beers and expanded their markets. Today there are certainly better beers to be had than Sam Adams and SNPA but you have to honor the courage and influence those beers have had. Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi started off as home brewers who launched a micro brewery in 1979 and Jim Koch worked hard to establish his Samuel Adams brand derived from his grandfather’s recipe. Both beers are explosions of malt and hops that are so assertive most beer drinkers are taken aback. It’s just too much beer for some people, which is why craft brewers, in spite of their tremendous creativity, hold such a tiny share of the market. Their following is loyal, but the market segment is small.
Anheuser Busch is not hurting for money. They’ve dominated the global beer market for decades. There are simply more people who enjoy their bastardized pilsner than there are people who enjoy a complex ale. That’s fine. I’m not going to rage against popular opinion. But over the years AB has taken cheap shots at craft brewers, the art of making a good ale and now, since they can’t convince craft beer fans to come back to Bud, they’ve opted to invade the craft beer market with their own entry.
I haven’t tried this beer. I thought about it because I try to review beers on this site but I can’t. Anheuser Busch has done nothing to advance the art of brewing. They don’t encourage home brewing like the craft brewers do. Jim Koch so admires home brewing he invites people to submit their best recipes to the Boston Beer Company to have it bottled and distributed nationally. Other craft brewers, like Rogue, offer home brew kits online so you can replicate your favorites in your own home. That’s what craft brewing is all about. It’s about loving beer, and the people who brew it. It’s about respecting other craft brewers.
Anheuser Busch would gleefully destroy the craft brew market. And that’s what American Ale is all about. Maybe a few Budweiser fans will try it and like it but the real target are all those beer snobs who spend $10-15 a six pack on craft beers.
American Ale. As if they invented the concept. It’s long been understood the quintessential American ale is the more complex version of pale ale crafted by our best and brightest microbrewers. Nobody in that market has the audacity to claim it as an original style but along comes Anheuser Busch and its marketing team. Now they claim they’ve created a new style. Yeah, after taking 8 years to reverse engineer Sierra Nevada’s flagship beer.
I’m positive I would find this beer lacking. AB always has some corporate hack doing something to render a style impotent and this won’t be an exception. I won’t review this beer, however, because I don’t want to spend one thin dime on this product. It’s shameless. It’s just rude. Budweiser stands for everything that is wrong with beer and I refuse to take part in their attempt to undo everything good about it. I love craft brews and I won’t stand by and watch the likes of AB invade their niche.
Where was Budweiser back in 1980 when all of this started? Now that there a lot of great independent brewers make a decent living selling great beer you want to come sniffing around? No thanks, Bud. Take your bottles full of corporate swill somewhere else. You’re not welcome here. Not now, not ever.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Cans can
I believe that bottles are superior to cans and I'm not alone. However there are great arguments to be made in favor of cans. Cans allow ZERO exposure to light, they are lighter, consume less space and recycle more easily. Some even claim that cans offer a better seal. All these arguments make sense and being a green weenie I can back cans on the environmental argument alone.
It's hard to find good beer in cans. There are some decent European imports that are available in four packs featuring pint sized cans. Most of these cans contain a nitrogen widget that replicates a pub pour. If I'm being honest I'm not a big fan of nitrogen. I don't mind hand pulled beers but for some reason the nitrogen seems to mute some of the flavor profiles. Unless I'm drinking a cask conditioned stout, I like some carbonation. Maybe that's just me.
Domestically speaking, crap comes in cans. Bud, Coors, Miller, Iron City, Schlitz, Pabst. Bleh. No thanks. I don't know if it's the crappy beer or the can but often when I drink out of cans, which is a rare occasion, I get the sense of something metallic in the beer. It's almost as if the acid in the hops picks up a tinny flavor from the can. Now this might be because there isn't enough body in the beer to protect the hops or maybe the beer is in the can too long. Perhaps all the rice and corn used by the mega "brewers" is to blame. I'm not an expert on the subject I just know that this is what I taste. I'm happy to blame the beer, but I don't find mega brews nearly as objectionable when they come from a bottle or a keg. As objectionable. Budweiser still makes me want to punch somebody.
Not too long ago, I tried some beer from a can that was pretty damned good. In fact it was excellent beer. It was from a little brewing company in the Twin Cities knows as Surly.
Surly Brewing Company offers a number of really nice beers. I was particularly pleased with Furious which is an aggressively hopped ale featuring Golden Promise malt, a popular malt found in a number of premium Scotch Whiskeys. The beer is what you would get if a Scottish Ale hooked up with an IPA and had a bastard love child. It's sweet, it's bitter and doesn't always play well with the other kids. Go ahead and laugh but don't try to follow a Furious with something lighter like a wheat beer. You won't taste it.
Surly also makes a refreshing session beer called Bender. This is truly a blend of several styles with influences coming from brown ales, porters and traditional pale ales. It's got a lot going on and you'll want more. Fortunately it's not too high in alcohol at 5% ABV so you can indulge.
When I was up in the area I managed to sample a limited release of Bitter Brewer. This is an English Bitter that is dry hopped for 14 days. The dry hopping gives it more edge than you'd expect out of a traditional English Bitter which really drives home the point of Surly. These people don't follow rules. They brew beer they like and let you have some. If you don't like it, they don't really care.
All of the Surly beers are offered in cans and the can doesn't seem to diminish the quality of the beer. Part of that is because these beers don't stay on the shelf for long and part of it is because Surly doesn't hold back on the flavor. A four pack of 16 ounce cans is going to set you back about what you'd pay for a 12 pack of domestic swill but you get what you pay for. I'm sure the guys at surly would be happy to piss in a few cans and cut you a deal. It might taste better than Bud too.
Does this mean everybody should use cans? I don't know. Surly's beers aren't being shipped across the country the way Sierra Nevada's beers are. Surly doesn't even have a regional market like Great Lakes, so maybe cans aren't out of the woods yet...but if you happen to get up to the twins, go ahead and snap one of these guys open. You won't be disappointed.
It's hard to find good beer in cans. There are some decent European imports that are available in four packs featuring pint sized cans. Most of these cans contain a nitrogen widget that replicates a pub pour. If I'm being honest I'm not a big fan of nitrogen. I don't mind hand pulled beers but for some reason the nitrogen seems to mute some of the flavor profiles. Unless I'm drinking a cask conditioned stout, I like some carbonation. Maybe that's just me.
Domestically speaking, crap comes in cans. Bud, Coors, Miller, Iron City, Schlitz, Pabst. Bleh. No thanks. I don't know if it's the crappy beer or the can but often when I drink out of cans, which is a rare occasion, I get the sense of something metallic in the beer. It's almost as if the acid in the hops picks up a tinny flavor from the can. Now this might be because there isn't enough body in the beer to protect the hops or maybe the beer is in the can too long. Perhaps all the rice and corn used by the mega "brewers" is to blame. I'm not an expert on the subject I just know that this is what I taste. I'm happy to blame the beer, but I don't find mega brews nearly as objectionable when they come from a bottle or a keg. As objectionable. Budweiser still makes me want to punch somebody.
Not too long ago, I tried some beer from a can that was pretty damned good. In fact it was excellent beer. It was from a little brewing company in the Twin Cities knows as Surly.
Surly Brewing Company offers a number of really nice beers. I was particularly pleased with Furious which is an aggressively hopped ale featuring Golden Promise malt, a popular malt found in a number of premium Scotch Whiskeys. The beer is what you would get if a Scottish Ale hooked up with an IPA and had a bastard love child. It's sweet, it's bitter and doesn't always play well with the other kids. Go ahead and laugh but don't try to follow a Furious with something lighter like a wheat beer. You won't taste it.
Surly also makes a refreshing session beer called Bender. This is truly a blend of several styles with influences coming from brown ales, porters and traditional pale ales. It's got a lot going on and you'll want more. Fortunately it's not too high in alcohol at 5% ABV so you can indulge.
When I was up in the area I managed to sample a limited release of Bitter Brewer. This is an English Bitter that is dry hopped for 14 days. The dry hopping gives it more edge than you'd expect out of a traditional English Bitter which really drives home the point of Surly. These people don't follow rules. They brew beer they like and let you have some. If you don't like it, they don't really care.
All of the Surly beers are offered in cans and the can doesn't seem to diminish the quality of the beer. Part of that is because these beers don't stay on the shelf for long and part of it is because Surly doesn't hold back on the flavor. A four pack of 16 ounce cans is going to set you back about what you'd pay for a 12 pack of domestic swill but you get what you pay for. I'm sure the guys at surly would be happy to piss in a few cans and cut you a deal. It might taste better than Bud too.
Does this mean everybody should use cans? I don't know. Surly's beers aren't being shipped across the country the way Sierra Nevada's beers are. Surly doesn't even have a regional market like Great Lakes, so maybe cans aren't out of the woods yet...but if you happen to get up to the twins, go ahead and snap one of these guys open. You won't be disappointed.
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