: In article >,
: Blair P. Houghton > wrote:

: > rst > wrote:

: > >There's a lot of sugar in Miller.
: >
: > Bud, too.
: >
: > Sugar and rice.

: Beer is made with barley and hops. Cheaper beer adds rice. The barley
: is sprouted, which makes an enzyme that changes the starch in the barley
: to sugar (maltose). There is an excess of enzyme, so rice can be added
: and its starch will also be converted to sugar. The hops are just a
: flavoring agent. When the yeast is added, it converts all the sugar to
: alcohol. Thus, the final beer should contain no sugar or starch.

: There are lots of exceptions, but I doubt that Bud or Miller have many
: of them.

: If you have some different cites, I would be very interested.

The statement "When the yeast is added, it converts all the sugar to
: alcohol." is false. Yeast will only convert sugar to alcohol until
it dies or something else stops its fermentation. Once the alcohol
level reaches a certain percentage yeast will stop the fermentation
process regardless of how much sugar is left. Chilling can also slow
or stop the fermentation process. Also, there are several types of
sugars not all of which are easily fermentable by yeast. So as
you can see, it is easy to obtain a sweet beer if that's the style
that is desired.

Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors products (so-called "premium" beers)
all have rice ("cereal grains") in them in order to lighten the body
so by your definition are all "cheaper beer".