From: gak@wrs.com (Richard Stueven)
Subject: Re: Coors & High-Gravity Brewing (long)
Reply-To: gak@wrs.com
Organization: Wind River Systems, Inc.
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 20:10:33 GMT

In article 26892@news.nd.edu, ulick@angelico.helios.nd.edu (Ulick Stafford) writes:
>In article <Bu9q60.4Fs@wrs.com> gak@wrs.com writes:
>>I don't drink either of these beers, and I can't even think of a good use for them.
>
>Can someone tell me why there is such a great desire to bash producers of
>American light lager?

Mostly because what they produce is an awful excuse for beer, but they
flog it to people who don't know any better as the best thing since the
discovery of yeast.

But like anything else, if you like it, drink it...that's up to you.

>>"Finished" Coors Light has a SG of, what, maybe 1004?  So if the
>>"high-gravity" brew is diluted 1:1 with pure water, the high-gravity
>>brew's SG is around 1008.  That's high-gravity, all right...
>
>Is this an attempt to be stupid?  Coor's light is about 4.3% alcohol, and 
>has 110 calories.  If you can make beer like this from a 1004 wort your
>name should be Jesus Christ.

Wanna see the holes in my hands?  :-)

I guess I should have been more clear (although I did say "finished")...
SG here is "specific", not "starting" gravity.  A beer that ends up at
1004 could very well have 4.3% alcohol.

>>>WHAT SHOULD CONSUMERS DO?
>>>
>>They'd decide to drink Sierra Nevada Pale Ale...
>
>Has anyone compared the price of Natural Light and Sierra Nevada recently?

The original article didn't invite the consumer to compare prices, only
taste.  (Actually, it didn't even invite them to compare that.)

>I know that it is part of the homebrew thing to knock the bulk brewers, 
>but like it or not, they are supplying the product consumers want to buy
>at a cheap price.

No, they're telling the consumers what they want to buy.  It's
advertising at work.  Nothing wrong with that per se, but I think it's
laughable that A-B should publicly take pot shots at Coors' quality,
when in reality the two products they're comparing are
indistinguishable.

It would seem more realistic for A-B to learn from Coors' money-saving
techniques and figure out how to use them themselves.  (Not that it
would help their product.)

>The brewing processes that they use are very advanced
>and we all benefit from their research.

Agreed.

>One of the reasons American Light
>Lager is big is that it was the beer style best suited to American 
>ingredients in the last century i.e. 6-row barley and cluster hops.

You don't have to brew that style with those ingredients.  You can use
the same stuff to brew beer with Actual Flavor and Character.  American
Light Lager is big because it's very cheap to make and because American
Beer Drinkers (in vast majority, anyway) have been trained to drink it,
even if it does contain rice and corn and who knows what else.

>Very
>few homebrewers can brew as clean a beer as the major brewers,

I don't deny that the major brewers are talented.  It's not easy to
turn out 2,500,000,000 gallons of such consistently bad beer, like A-B
did last year.  (Source:  1992 Brewer's Resource Directory)

>and I 
>actually find a nice chilled brew of this style to be a refreshing tipple
>on occasion.

That's your taste.  It's even possible that you'd like that kind of
beer if you hadn't been exposed to all their propaganda.  Would you be
happy with it if it was the only kind of beer you could buy?  A-B,
Coors, Miller, etc sure would...

>And please admit, if you didn't like beer, probabley of this
>style in the first place, you'd never havce investigated further?

If I didn't like beer, I wouldn't be brewing my own, would I?

>I have never tasted a beer that tasted worse
>than, say, a rum and coke.

I'll agree that rum-and-cokes are pretty nasty.

I'll always take water over an industrial beer, both for reasons of
taste and politics.  It's that simple.

have fun
gak

---
I don't know what system you use,  you might try vodka in Evian bottles.   Some
people like  cream in  their morning coffee,  I spike  mine with  a little  JD.
Mickey's Big Mouths are an excellent choice, you can use the empty bottles as a
desktop vase.                               -Hoodlum Empire "Get Drunk At Work"
Richard Stueven        gak@wrs.com         attmail!gakhaus!gak        107/H/3&4