Having written about beer lately and chided beer critic Kent Palmer earlier, I want to point out a piece by Andrew Leonard up at Solon.com called "The King of beer mergers" which addresses the hostile takeover big by InBev of Anheuser-Busch. Leonard quotes a column from a nearby town which is essentially an encomium for A-B. He then launches into a wonderful screed.
But hold on just a minute.
The best of the brewer's art?
The heritage that we hold as common?
We must fight to keep the Eagle flying?
I know these are dangerous waters in which to tread, and that I will soon be pilloried as a coastal elitist beer snob, but I must be true to my own deeply held beliefs. Anheuser-Busch, the controller of half the U.S. beer market, symbolizes everything that is wrong with America. With special emphasis on the foul stain upon the brewer's tradition that goes by the name, Bud Light. Great-tasting? Have we all gone mad?
For true beer-lovers across the world, Budweiser is a joke. It's embarrassing. Since when does America mean watered down pablum, forced down the throats of an unthinking populace by sheer power of mass marketing muscle? Since when does America stand for homogenized, lowest-common denominator swill?
Unfortunately, America has stood for homogenized, lowest-common denominator swill for some time. I believe the trend started after Prohibition was lifted when it was decided that folks who used to drink beer with flavor just couldn't hack it any longer. More proof of America's love of swill comes with the news that Miller (which looks like it's going to flee Milwaukee after its merger with Coors) is introducing MGD Light 64.
The brew is a 64-calorie version of Miller Genuine Draft Light with 2.4 grams of carbohydrates. MGD Light 64 will replace the 110-calorie Miller Genuine Draft Light in designated markets.
No beer has a lower calorie count than MGD Light 64, but Miller contends that the beer has the full taste of the original Miller Genuine Draft Light. By comparison, Bud Light has 110 calories, Coors Light 102, Heineken Light 99, Miller Lite 96, Amstel Light 95 and Michelob Ultra 95. Regular Miller Genuine Draft contains 143 calories.
And the decision to go with a wide release for this stuff came after it was test marketed here in Madison. Where did they have this stuff available? Sororities? If using adjuncts and Emka malts wasn't bad enough, they've now essentially started bottling water. We need some American equivalent of the Rheinheitsgebot purity law establishing that a beverage needs to have more than mere traces of grain to actually be called beer. One part per billion of malt does not a beer make.
Lastly, I have read the Madison Beer Review's review of The Malt House. It saddened me to read it as the author expressed a desire for the joint to be infested with televisions. (Or a pool table.) Too bad. It's disheartening to find out that someone is unable to enjoy being with good beer and an interlocutor for more time than it takes to drink one glass. No wonder you can't swing a dead cat in this town without hitting a bar that doesn't already have 40 big screens loudly blaring most of the time and every fucking restaurant has music that is usually cranked up to 11. Being able to give another human being your focus and attention is now strictly passé and I feel stupid for having had 4 beers all without having watched a lick of TV during that time. Instead it was wasted on chatting with a trio of wonderful co-drinkers. Silly me.
Count me in on the no-TV-at-The-Malt-House side. There are times when I'd like to go out in public and not have a constant stream of background noise courtesy of the idiot box. I don't need a distraction from the people with whom I choose to chat, I don't give a flying fuck about sports scores, and I don't want to have some talking head blaring at me about the latest bellicose statement by Dubya or trying to sell me something.
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