The Great Mediocre Beer Experiment, Volume IV: "Smooth as a Busch."

Beer: Busch Beer
Brewery: Anheiser-Busch (St. Louis, MO)
Type: Adjunct Lager
ABV: 4.7%

Before I get going with this one, I'd like to point out something utterly hilarious that's on the can. Underneath the massive BUSCH (heh heh) logo and the badass American Eagle emblem, the beer promotes itself with a fun little slogan. For some reason, a lot of mainstream brewers like to push the fact that their beer comes from mountain streams or springs or whatever, and this one is no exception. But someone, and I mean anyone in the marketing boardroom should have maybe spoken out about this particular slogan, because it's fucking stupid:

"Cold as a mountain stream, Smooth as its name."

Smooth as a Busch, you say? I can literally take this comment in so many directions, most of which will get this blog labelled as pornographic, but let's not even go there. So, this beer is "Smooth as its name", the name being "busch." What, exactly is smooth about that name? Have you ever encountered encountered a bush (I'm really struggling here...) that was smooth? Do people use "busch" as a synonym for smooth, like: "Dammit, I got a ticket for crashing into a cop car." "Real busch, dude." or, "How as the drive in?" "No problems whatsoever. Busch sailing the whole way." No, they don't. Not ever. In fact, there is nothing remotely smooth about the word 'busch' in any possible connotation. I have no idea what they're trying to convey here. At least they spelled 'its' properly.

And we're off to a grand, fantastic start...

Doing a little internet searchery, I discovered something horrible about Busch Beer. It's brewed by Anheiser-Busch, of course, but - get this - this is their discount beer. In other words, this is a step DOWN from Budweiser. And how again do brews become cheaper? Cheaper ingredients and packaging. Lovely. So, without further adieu, I'll dive right in.

Busch pours an incredibly pale straw colour, paler than most of the other competitors. Lots of visible carbonation. To Busch's credit, the retention isn't bad. The head has survived as a thin ring all the way through, which is better than some brews I've sampled thus far. Still, looks like an adjunct lager.

The nose is, well, non-existent. I suppose if I was blindfolded, I could identify the smell as 'beer', but other than that, I've got nuthin. Pale malts and tin, that's about it. The website claims that it has a "pleasant hop aroma," but trust me, she don't.

The taste isn't much better, but I'll say this: it is surprisingly smooth. I've blasted through 3/4 of the can so far and haven't really noticed it. The reason, of course, is that there isn't really any flavour to it. Pale malts, a bit of hops and some cereal, finishing with tinny hops. Pretty boring stuff, but I'm not retching, which is a plus.

The mouthfeel is pretty thin. Watery thin. Initially, the carbonation was spritzy and seltzerish, but now it's completely gone. After five minutes, the beer has gone flat. Oy...

I'm sure there are occasions when a Busch would be ideal (heh heh-STOP IT!! Get a hold of yourself!). I mean, as far as drinking goes, this has been about the easiest way to inject 4.7% of alcohol into my bloodstream, because I am pounding this sucker back and not even trying. I suppose that if you want a cheap way to get drunk, or you're at a St. Louis Cardinals game, this would be ideal. But man, is this sucker bland.

So far, PBR is leading the American brew charge, tune in next time for Labatt Blue, aka: Matt's First Beer!

*By the way, if any of you women folk have been upset by how many bush jokes I've tried not to make thus far, I direct your attention to the Store at busch.com:

It's not just me.

The Great Mediocre Beer Experiment, Volume III: Tastes Just Like It Sounds

Beer: Schlitz Genuine Gold
Brewery: Schlitz (Originally Milwaukee, now Woodridge Illinois)
Type: adjunct lager
ABV: 5%

Part of the hold up on the Great Beer Experiment has been trying to find singles of all the different beers I want to try, 'cause I'm not buying 6-packs of this crap. I was fortunate to come across a random single of Schlitz, waiting sadly in the Aisle of Misfit Beers for someone to put it out of its misery. I was that someone. Then it turns out, this isn't actually Schlitz's flagship brand, it's an export version for Canada and brewed by Stroh's in Guelph.

It also turns out that this beer is just...awful. I'll try to find a bottle or can of genuine Schlitz lager, but for now...ugh...

Poured a very light golden into a pilsner glass. A very thin head (survived as a thin ring), remarkably a couple flecks of lacing. Visible, fizzy carbonation. Doesn't look too bad.

The smell is predictably boring. Corn, light malts, sugar, tin.

The taste is all kinds of bland. A kind of soul-crushing blandness that, suffice to say, makes for a bland experience. My heart is starting to hurt because of all the bland. The tinny, chemical taste becomes more potent as you work your way through it.

Mouthfeel is thin, watery, with spritzy carbonation.

This is one of the most boring beers I've ever had. Awful beer, at the very least, has flavour. This is....just...nothing. There is exactly nothing to this beer. I can't describe it, because to describe something, it needs to have qualities. Buddhists could use 'describing Schlitz' as a meditative technique.

Here's an experiment that will show you what I mean: Describe the taste of water to me. Just an ordinary glass of tap water. Or Dasani, it doesn't matter. You can't do it can you? That's what drinking Schlitz Genuine Gold is like. You know something should be in there, but your tastebuds simply can't find it. This is what they drink on the Neutral Planet.

Pictured: Schlitz' target demographic. Tell them I say...hello.

This is just watered down beer substance. At least Coors Light has less calories (I think).

Damnit, Schlitz! You made me recommend Coors Light!

Fuck....

The Great Mediocre Beer Experiment, Volume II: Mountie's Choice

Beer: Molson Canadian
Brewery: Molson (Toronto)

Type: Adjunct Lager

ABV: 5%

Despite the foregone conclusion of the women's hockey tournament, the final was truly epic, and our girls deserved to celebrate their success in style. Also, they looked totally badass doing it. Hopefully, the men can deliver in kind tomorrow, but we'll see...

A victory of the kind we witnessed two nights ago will always taste sweet, even if it happens to be toasted with Molson Canadian, apparently our nation's official beer. I, for one, have long held the position that Molson Canadian sucks, and vigorously upheld my position by never buying it and by scoffing at every pompous, nationalistic advertisement they put out. On the back of the can is a nice example of the "true Canadians drink Canadian" argument, which naturally pisses me off: "Only Molson Canadian has True Canadian Taste.* (Whatever the fuck that means.) It comes from over 220 years of brewing experience. A unique cold brewing process (lagering is cold brewing) and only the finest ingredients this land has to offer (I doubt it.) The result is a premium lager (at less than two bucks a can, hardly "premium") that pleases the world's toughest beer critics - Canada's beer drinkers. (Somewhere, a Belgian is laughing his ass off)."

Ugh.

I tend not to buy Molson's out of principle. As shareholders in Brewers Retail (i.e., the Beer Store), they've nicely made a habit of pushing aside craft brewers from beer store shelves, making it exceedingly difficult to order anything that isn't their product. (Try ordering a micro brew in the Beer Store line and watch the clerks roll their eyes as they try to find it "somewhere in the back"; meanwhile, dozens of angry customers behind you attempt to make your head explode with their collective impatient wills.) In brief, Molson's is everything I hate about macro breweries, so I've tended to avoid their product whenever I can.

But now, as part of my Grand Experiment, to give them another try. If I'm going to continue to scoff at Canadian, I should at least make sure that I actually dislike the beer. Of course if I like it, I can still hold true to my principles and not purchase it, but I still need to know. So, here goes...

After pouring into a lager glass, the beer doesn't look half bad for a macro lager. Pale golden, but certainly darker than others of the style. It leaves a fairly generous foamy head, that dissolves in to a surprisingly persistent ring. Some lacing, but this doesn't last long. Not a bad start.

The nose is pretty predictable. Corn, light malts, sugar, a bit of wheat, with the standard chemical tinnyness. Nothing too exciting or damning here.

After the first few sips, I've come to the shocking revelation that I don't actually hate this beer. It's actually fairly drinkable. It doesn't taste like urine or water-beer. It is, of course, incredibly boring; it's got the standard corn, malt and light hoppage of the adjunct style, but it tastes a little better than some of the others. This is, however an initial assessment; as I work my way through the beer, the true character of the brew comes forward. The finish is alright at first, but when the beer is allowed to warm, it gets more and more offputting. There's a chemical character to the finish that is making it increasingly difficult to drink. The last sips were quite bad. By the end, I'm fairly disappointed with it, but not as much as I'd initially anticipated. 

The mouthfeel is thin, but not watery. About right for the style, and with decent carbonation that lasts throughout. 

So, Molson isn't a great beer, but it certainly isn't a terrible beer. It's quite drinkable, and given the right atmosphere (a hockey game or an outdoor concert), it's not bad. But don't, under any circumstances, allow the beer to warm up. Drink this sucker as cold and as quickly as you can. Savouring is not an option here.

.

We'll see how Molson stacks up with the other macro brews as the Great Beer Experiment continues!!

The Great Mediocre Beer Experiment, Volume I: "Enter the Hipster"

It's a point of contention for some people (read: the most important thing ever) whether Canadian beer is better than American beer. It's a stupid argument, really; just part of the Great White North's pissing contest with its louder, wackier, older brother.

Pictured: America.

We have such a hilarious inferiority complex it's almost cute. We have to be better than Americans at some things, and when any of those some things are called into question, we get pissy and make loud, mindless commercials about it. After men's hockey, women's hockey, and junior hockey, beer is our number-one source of Canadian pride. (Also, we're bigger. And way better in bed. Seriously, ask Sweden.) It's truly amazing; ask almost any Canadian about American beer, and you'll usually get a response peppered with phrases like "hot dog water", "toilet water" or "those yankee pussies." It's so unbelievably stupid how entrenched Canadians are about the quality of American beer, which completely explains why the number one selling beer in Canada last year was Budweiser.

Wait, what?

That's right: fucking Budweiser is the top selling beer in the Great White North; Molson is number two. Coors and Bud Light aren't too far off the map. As we go around bragging about the quality of Canadian beer, we're not-so-secretly drinking our mortal enemy's swill by the bucket load. Molson and Labatts have got patriotism so intrinsically linked with beer sales that we automatically respond to the beer question with "duh...Canadian Beer, Eh?", but our tastes (or lack thereof) are different. The fact of the matter is this: we drink macro lagers based on what the hot, big-boobed commercials tell us to do, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. We drink Budweiser because the hot cheerleaders and the NFL want us to. We drink Blue Lite because some guy in a blue pantsuit guarantees us sexy action after he solves some stupid dilemma in a mildly amusing fashion. We drink Molson because if we don't, the ghost of Don Cherry and the covert operatives of the CBC demand that we do.

"You know who drinks good beer? Bobby Orr."

Of course I know full well that the beers we use to decide the Cold War of Beer are pretty much all the same. In fact, they're all the same style of beer (pale lager, or American adjunct lager), and are owned my multinational corporations, often with increasingly diminishing connections to their country of origin. In other words, these are the name brands, or as they are sometimes derisively referred to in the beer community, "macro lagers." Same shit, different bucket. Sometimes you'll see the term "adjunct lager" to describe them. "Adjunct", in this case, means that the beer is light, fizzy, crisp, and probably made with rice or corn, rather than barley or wheat, in order to cut costs. (Fun fact!: Budweiser, not Uncle Ben's, is the largest consumer of rice in the United States. Eww.) Cheap, bland lager for the masses, and a truly a terrible way of determining brewing pride. Seriously, Belgians and Germans piss this stuff out.

I personally feel that if American and Canadian crafts and micros could bring their products to the table, Canadians would realize full-well that Americans do not suck at brewing. They are in fact quite good at it, and they have significant advantages: there's more people to sell to, and there's more people to brew it. If you check out beeradvocate.com, one of the web's largest beer review websites, you'll find under their "Best of BA" section that there are a lot of American brews in the site's top 100. Granted, a great deal of the website's users are Americans, but you'll still find incredibly high reviews from folks in Europe, Australia and Canada, all in praise of these American brews. (Don't worry, there's quite a few Canadian brews on the list too). We're completely basing our "American Beer Sucks" mentality on their big name brews, which isn't really fair, considering how much a lot of us despise the Canadian big name stuff. It's like comparing their kick to the gut with our kick to the head. Nobody's winning here.

But craft brews are going to have to go by the wayside for a moment, because the battle truly comes down to the forces of General Labatt and Field Marshall von Pabst. In the red trunks, Freddie Molson; in the silver trunks, Charlie "The Kid" Coors. The heavy hitters. El beeros grandes. And so, it is with great pleasure that I announce the beginning of Matt's Great Mediocre Beer Experiment, a month-long project in which I pit the continent's finest (read: highest selling) brews against one another in a no-holds barred competition!! The rules will be like the Westminister Dog Show: I'll get an initial look at each entry, check out its coat and muscle structure, make sure it doesn't poop on the stage, and then try them all at once to determine which brew reigns...average! Just like the dog show, only with more drinking. Actually, the way I drink, it's about the same. No light beers though; my tastebuds can only handle so much mediocrity. I'll only be drinking from cans, if I can manage it, just to keep things level.

Here are the heavy hitters!

Molson Canadian
Labatt Blue
Kokanee
Moosehead

Pabst Blue Ribbon
Budweiser
Old Milwaukee
Busch
Schlitz

First on the agenda, because it went on sale, we start with the Hipster's Choice (later renamed PBR)!


Beer: Pabst Blue Ribbon
Brewery: Pabst (Chicago, IL)
Type: pale lager
ABV: 4.8%


As you can see, this one pours like a "beer". It's golden, it's clear, it's fizzy. I'm amazed I was able to catch any of the head on camera, because it dissolved fairly quickly to a thin rink. Pretty much no lacing, which I can't say I didn't expect.
The nose is corn meal, a bit of light hoppage, and perhaps maltiness, but it's hard to tell. You can see where I'm going here.

The taste is surprisingly (read: not surprisingly) inoffensive. It's extremely light, crisp, certainly refreshing. Corn meal, hops and water. Boring though it might be, there's a light, airy character to this brew that makes it quite drinkable. You know how some people claim they drink light beer because they want something crisp and refreshing, whether it be after practice or on the beach? This one does a pretty good job in that respect, and it doesn't have the "light" attached to it that so often leads to vicious taunting and abuse from your fellow drinkers.

Mouthfeel is, of course, thin and watery. The brew is very well carbonated. Like a beer-spritzer, I guess you could say.

Like I said earlier, this beer isn't that bad. I'm very eager to see how it'll stand up to Canadian and other brews of that kind, but as far as I'm concerned, I could drink this one if need be. It's cheap, it's boring, it's a beer-like product. And it isn't skunky. I'll delay giving this one a proper grade score until I'm done the bunch, but generally PBR passes the test.