dgsyd1

Can somebody please explain to me how on earth Bud Light is so popular, and yet tastes like diluted cats piss? Whenever we go anywhere it seems to be the alcoholic beverage of choice, and I can't bloody stand the stuff. Neither can the missus for that matter, at least not since I introduced her to Stella.

tonrob

The populace will buy whatever the marketers tell them to...

In the meantime, can somebody please explain to me how on earth Stella is so popular, and yet tastes like distilled cats piss? Whenever we go anywhere (especially in the UK) it seems to be the alcoholic beverage of choice...

sime303

You answered your own question. They have great commercials LOL

another bloody yank

Spuds Mackenzie.


http://http://www.google.com/search?...kenzie&spell=1

TruBrit

that's it i think, the peeps that drink bud light have never tried anything else except maybe cats piss

Paul S

I worried about you two.....

Can't you leave the cat piss in the litter tray and stop diluting it or distilling it or whatever it is that your doing to it

Leyther

I Completely agree, Bud, Coors and Miller all seem to be the drinks of choice here and they tastes like gnats piss but then again I have never been a lager drinker. I much prefer Guinness or the real ales but here they seem to cost an arm and leg in most places so I tend to stick to 90 Shilling which is a micro-brew from Fort Collins and the rest of the stuff is far too 'frutiy' for tastes.

ugacrew

Here's the reason. The taste that most associate with the American lager is a result of lack of ingredients during WWII. Anheuser-Busch had to make due with the ingredients at the time and introduced rice into the recipe in order to give it taste but to help with the shortage. Over time the American palate grew accustomed to this new style of lager and it took off. Having said that there is a huge explosion of micro-breweries across the country that thumb their noses at the big three manufactures by making artisan brews. The big three of Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors are now having to compete with their own 'micro-brew' labels. I do know that AB is coming out with a few under their Michelob label which is the flagship of the brand in order to stay relevant for customers who are about quality as opposed to quantity. To answer your question about the availability, AB is known to have an extensive network of 12 factories and distributors around the country that can provide fresh brew preservative free to establishments that serve it draft style. The logistics make it easier. The same could be said with the other two large manufacturers. However if you want a good quality brew I suggest that you find your local micro-brew pubs for quality artisan beer. Skip the big three all together.

I come with this information having worked for Anheuser-Busch myself.

Optimus Prime

Interesting to read this as I sup on a nice pint of Greene King I.P.A

Duncan Roberts

Because Stella was once a quality product. The UK stuff is brewed under contract in the UK but the American stuff is still brewed in Belgium so is a little better. The problem now is InBev have cut down on everything that made it a quality beer so it is not that great anymore. At least it's not made with a bunch of rice. You know something is wrong when one of the worlds largest single consumer of rice (and GM rice at that) is a brewery.

ugacrew

Mmmmmmm..... You said IPA.....yummmmm...

tonrob

I think that one problem I have with Stella is because it's Belgian. Line up all the beers from Belgium in a row and I'd be pretty drunk before I reached for the Stella...

RoadWarriorFromLP

I briefly studied the beer industry (and not just at the bottom of a bottle.) This is what I learned:

-Before Prohibition, the US had a thriving craft beer industry. Lots of local producers and low-volume quality beers, with few large national brands.

-But Prohibition wiped most of them out. The largest concerns got into alternative businesses and waited for it to end (it seems that everyone at the time knew it was temporary), but the little guys folded and never returned.

-With the end of WWII, newfound prosperity and demographics allowed the large brewers to expand rapidly and consolidate. Demand for beer grew rapidly between the 40's and the 60's, as the US population exploded and people in post-Depression America were able to afford more beer.

-The large brewers took advantage of this by introducing mass production techniques to beer making. They focused on shortening brewing times and on producing products that could be shipped long distances (which increased their production capacity and expanded their markets.) They also cheapened the ingredients, and worked out distribution agreements to dominate the shelf space in the supermarkets that were emerging after WWII, which kept out new competitors from entering.

With all that, beer had been transformed from a fragment local concern to a national near-oligopoly that was difficult for outsiders to enter. (If you couldn't get shelf space, you couldn't sell it.)

Over time, this has changed as beer drinkers began to demand more variety, but the dominant brewers still own a lot of the market, and the microbrewers are just a small niche.

That explains why the large brewers were able to become dominant. It doesn't explain, though, why people actually keep buying it. I guess that if you grow up with it, it is what you know and it seems alright (although I grew up with it, and I never much liked it. When I figured out that beer didn't have to taste like that, I started drinking beer more regularly.)

Roland Hulme

I went to a place in Princeton last night with my colleagues and had the MOST delicious Pale Ale. There are some great microbreweries around and decent beers...

Yet when I go to my in-laws to watch the game, it's normally Bud or Bud light. Sometimes Coors (not too bad) or occasionally Heinekin Light (what was the genius idea behind that? Let's take a decent beer and 'Americanize' it by making it taste like 'diluted cat's piss.')

But before we judge:

Carling Black Label.
Harp.
That 3.2% Heinekin crap (think they've ditched that now.)
Carlsburg.

Folinskyinla

Hi:

I don't like the stuff also. But then I have the belief that if you are going to have something bad for you, do the real thing and not a pale imitation -- but in moderation.

It should be noted that there is no accounting for taste -- quite often one likes something, or not. There are some things about English food that strike me as "strange" or I just don't like it. But then I'm not English. If I don't want peas in my "chips", I don't have to order it. But I do like it and do order it. However, when in Quebec,I don't like what they do to chips and won't order it.

BTW, last year, I often drank Stella in the Czech Republic -- it was quite palatable since it tasted like -- US Budwieser.

It is fairly well known that American tastes run more to lager than ale. And I think it relates to the other discussion on ice. Lagers taste a lot better when they are cold. I can still place the most wonderful beer I ever had [a peak experience] and it was a draft Budweiser after being out on a very hot day and the thing was ice cold.