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blkhatwhtdog t1_j6ap8en wrote

Reply to comment by Albs610 in eli5: Why does cheap alcohol taste worse than nicer alcohol? by Chase_The_Dream

American beer is mostly barley flavor rice sake. Literally the cheapest beers have the most rice. That's why people are surprised by their first taste of a European beer.

In the old days before I could drink, breweries usually only had one product and the flavor varies with the price of commodity barley, hops etc...and the marketing price they were aiming for. I read about the implosion of Schlitz when the brewers decided to go cheaper but the marketing department decided to go upscale, and nobody knew what the others were doing. In the 50s n 60s you had to plan 6 months ahead. Your advertising was locked in 3 months in advance (my dad used to tell me about shooting summer fashion in the winter)

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lewisj75 t1_j6asvwp wrote

This is not true.

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blkhatwhtdog t1_j6ba72i wrote

Easy just look at the ingredients on the nutritional label. Case closed, thanks for playing.

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nutsotic t1_j6bey8e wrote

Lol beer doesn't have nutritional labels

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TremulousHand t1_j6buhqh wrote

I almost never drink the American macrobrews, but I was curious about looking into this. While rice is common, corn is actually more common (especially in the form of corn syrup). Hilariously, many companies pass both ingredients off as variations of "fine cereal grains" without actually specifying what they mean exactly.

Of the 13 most popular beers in the US (rankings based on what I found in a USA Today article), three have rice, nine have corn (usually syrup), and there's only one with no rice or corn.

Rice: Bud Light, Budweiser, Michelob Ultra

Corn: Coors Light, Miller Lite, Corona Extra, Modelo Especial, Natural Light, Busch Light, Busch, Keystone Light, Miller High Life

No rice or corn: Heineken

I do think calling them barley flavor rice sake is a bit unfair to sake, which has a much more complicated fermenting process than beer. In any event, I had no idea how much corn syrup goes into cheap American beers.

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