Categorized | Beer Tasting, Breweries, Commercial Breweries, Video

2 Comments For This Post

1. Curtis Says:
   November 15th, 2008 at 8:58 pm

   I have to thank you for this review. I happen to dislike Budweiser beer with a passion…but when I saw the commercial on TV for their new American Ale, I kind of wanted to try it.

   I’m not a beer snob by any means, everyday kid of beer for me is Miller High life, but I do like a good beer.

   You managed to convince me that the their new American Ale really was something worth a having a taste.

2. Curtis Says:
   November 19th, 2008 at 9:40 am

   I finally got the chance to seek out and try the Budweiser American Ale (on
   vacation this week) so here are my thoughts as promised.

   First off, just to let you know I am an adult, have been drinking beer for
   25 years and even brewed my own for about a decade before running out of
   room and time as children and jobs got in the way. I’m am not a professional
   taster but I know what I like. I am also not a beer snob, during the week I
   might drink anything from Busch to Miller High Life. I do however appreciate
   a good well made beer (it can just get a little too expensive for me).

   One thing that I have to get straight is that I DETEST Budweiser beer…
   Detest might not even be a strong enough word…who ever thought of the
   beech wood aging thing…yuck. Budweiser just has a flavor to it that I do
   not like. I went into this taste test with a very strong idea that I was NOT
   going to like this beer.

   On to my thoughts:

   The first thing that struck me was…uh…it’s not a twist off? Is there
   really anything wrong with making a beer easy to get into? C’mon it’s
   BUDWEISER for gods sake…but I digress.

   I cracked open the beer and poured into a glass. It has a nice amber brown
   color, very clear. It’s pretty. Head wasn’t bad but didn’t last long, but
   did lace the glass until the very end. Looks like they got that right. The
   carbonation in the glass looked a little finer than normal mass produced
   beer and the mouth feel proved that.

   The first taste was quite a surprise. It has that ale fruitiness with a
   bitter finish. Not a real strong hop aroma or taste, but the bitterness is
   there at the back of the mouth. There seems to be something lacking though,
   something was not quite right. By the time I had finished the glass I
   figured out that it isn’t quite balanced. Not enough malt sweetness and body
   to offset the bitterness of the hops. Although the flavor is there in the
   beginning, it doesn’t finish with anything but that hops bitterness. It left
   me feeling somewhat unfulfilled.

   Don’t get me wrong, this is NOT a bad beer, in fact I am pretty impressed
   that this is coming from a HUGE beer company and is being mass produced. It
   is certainly NOT what I expected. When you put it against other micro brewed
   craft beers (or even other mass produced craft beers) it just doesn’t quite
   stack up, in my opinion it’s just okay. I would drink it again if offered
   and probably enjoy it, but at $6.99 a six pack at the local grocery store, I
   probably wont buy it again. I WOULD however recommend it to someone who
   wanted to try something a little more flavorful as I don’t think it would
   scare them away from tastier beers. It would be a good introduction to the
   potential that better beers offer. My wife who does NOT like “heavy” beers
   thought it was very good, so there’s a god example.

   When I was in the grocery store (the local beer distributor is about 30
   miles away so I don’t get there that often) I figured I would pick up
   something similar to compare it to. He closest thing that I could find to
   what I would consider an American Ale was Sam Adams Boston Ale ($8.99
   6-pack). The taste of this was VERY similar, although there is more hop
   flavor and aroma and it had the malt sweetness in the finish to balance it
   out. This beer reminds me of the stuff I used to make when I was brewing my
   own. It seems worth it to me to pay an extra $2 a six pack for something
   that to me at least, tastes the way I think it should.

   So…I have to rate the Budweiser American Ale two ways. On a scale of 1-10
   based upon other Budweiser products I have to give it a 10. They went out on
   a limb on this one and made something completely unlike anything that they
   have made in the past. On a scale of 1-10 based upon other craft brewed
   beers I have to give it a 5. It’s obvious that they wanted to cater to the
   Budweiser drinker, and I think they did that successfully, but they might
   not be able to lure in the average craft beer drinker when there are other
   competitively priced beers that are much better (at least in my opinion).

   I would certainly recommend that anyone that has ANY interest in this beer
   to go out and get some and give it a try, I think they will be pleasantly
   surprised.

   I think that this beer will be a good addition to the Budweiser family of
   beers, I think it will be successful for them and it might just be around
   for a while. I also think that this is good for the industry and beer
   drinkers as a whole, as it might just get people who normally prefer bland
   American Lagers to try something different (just because the Budweiser name
   is attached to it), then, who knows, they might be out there buying better
   beers more often.

   Thanks for listening!

   Curtis Brown

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Or add a Video Comment

with

« Back to text comment

Short Pour Video

Short and sweet video updates from the field.

Happy New Year From Beer Utopia

Popularity: unranked [?]