Craig Bergren wrote:

> On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 18:10:49 -0800, mainunderdawg wrote:
>
>>I know many of you may shun these, but for us beer drinkers with budgets,
>>what do you say? It's hard to say, but I think I prefer budweiser.
>
> Bud is brewed with rice, Miller with corn. This makes Miller the more
> American of the two because corn comes from America while rice is an
> Asian import.

Nope. Rice is grown in California and Louisiana, among other places.
Budweiser uses a specific kind of rice, brewer's rice, and it's all
American-grown.

> I think the taste you like in Bud is the flavor of the
> beechwood aging.

Except that the "beechwood aging" process adds virtually nothing to the
flavor of Bud (well, what little flavor the stuff has, anyway). Bud's
"flavor" comes from its specific blend of pale malted barley and rice,
its not-quite-at-threshold-perception blend of hops, and the qualities
of A-B's house yeast strain(s).

> Some people think they can taste the corn in Miller,

That's a pretty neat trick, since Miller uses mainly corn syrup (and
some brewer's corn), and the corn syrup is mainly sugar, so it ferments
out fairly cleanly. If you taste "corn" flavors in beer, it's due to
something else.

> while the rice contributes practically no taste at all to Bud. Both are
> about 90% fermentable, contributing alcohol while adding practically
> nothing to the body.

This much is quite true.

> As far as freshness goes, both Bud and Miller are quite religious about
> removing out of date beer from distributors and retailers. What
> constitutes old? Beer that is 120 days old.

I'm not sure A-B lets Bud sit on the shelves even that long.

> When it comes to my favorite, it's Blatz. It has a skunk taste just like
> Heineken and Becks.

Yum, mispackaged bottled beer that's been overexposed to bright store
lights. My un-favorite.
--
dgs