Maybe you recall InBev’s $52 billion acquisition of Anheuser-Busch. There was a lot of talk about a Belgium beer company now owning an American beer company. That’s kinda silly because the shareholders own a company, not the country, but I digress.
According to a beer blog, InBev has decided to stop using a hop variety called “Hallertauer Mittelfrüh” in its Budweiser recipes. Usage was minimal, but this hop variety has a specific “spicy aromatic lemon taste.” While I’m sure they can figure out a way to not change the flavor, it goes against what they told people after the acquisition:
Budweiser the beer will continue to be brewed in the same breweries by the same people according to the same recipe. We understand that is so key to the business, the brands and the consumer, and therefore to us. [ref]
Apparently the hop growers are pretty pissed, but I imagine this might be a bad PR move for all those who think of Bud as a “Great American Beer.”
[via Tandleman Beer Blog]
Related posts:
Tagged as: alcohol, Beer, brewing, bud light, Budweiser, change, inbev, recipe, same
sobriety before Budweiser- the choice is clear.
best tag line gets eternal fame
I don’t understand the beer snobery. I have never meet a beer I didn’t like. I long for the college days of drinking nothing but warm natty light all the time. Delicious.
Everyone is unhoppy about this decision, but at yeast there was barley any of this variety in the recipe.
OOOH a competition.. how about these:
New Recipe Bud…. or you could just drink your own chilled piss.
Budweiser… yes,it tastes fucking awful but you’re a Redneck so STFU
New Budweiser – you’ll be none the wiser, bud!
@3
I’m the same way. I’ll drink damn near any beer.
@7 @3 – we are elitist, but also drink bud . it’s kinda hip to hate on things and love them at the same time.
It’s good on a hot day but seriously, America settles for watery beer with not much flavor. I dream of one day seeing rednecks drinking Chimay. Out of one of those special glasses.
Why would I like every beer? I don’t like every wine or type of booze. I’ll drink miller or PBR if it’s offered but not Bud.
If it’s the king of beer, then it’s time for the peasants to revolt.
Budweiser. Is. Not. Beer.
they make it with rice, for chrissakes…
linkypoo
linkypootwo
/not really a beer snob, per se, but rice beer gives me horrendous headaches (not hangovers, almost instant headaches)
@11: Ok, so I guess I’m not getting Bud for our beer pong/flip cup games Friday…
MGD and PBR are perfectly acceptable cheap beers
/likes a good cold bottle of MGD on a hot hot day…
I don’t live in Belmont so I’m not hip enough to be drinking PBR.
I’m not hip enough to be drinking PBR.
I think that is the first time in the history of the universe those words have been used in that exact combination….
You obviously don’t hang out in Belmont or with hipsters.
Belmont yo I know, Belmont hipster’s- not so much-
I’ve have been to Mas- was my waiters the hipsters?
Belmont hipsters? You mean the fixed gear indy yoga bourgeoisie? Please. They don’t represent.
In real belmont, we drink forties of malt liquor, and maybe shots on payday. Can I get a what what?
They’ve been running uber patriotic commercials for a year now, I doubt the change of recipe will alter the market any.
which hop variety makes budweiser taste like piss? maybe they should take that one out instead.
i think that’s actual urine. authentic american red/white/blue urine.
/should see a doctor about that
For everyone who claims Budweiser is so terrible… I’d like to see you come up with something that becomes the number one selling product in its category for so many years! It’s quite obvious that AB is doing something right or Bud Light & Bud wouldn’t be the #1 & #2 Beers in America. The reason heavy beers will NEVER outsell Budweiser or Bud Light is because (drum roll please) ITS NOT EASY TO DRINK! The drinkability factor is key here folks. Who wants to sit outside on a hot day or at a baseball game and drink a Chimay!? Gross. Americans clearly want a beer that is easy to drink and is refreshing. Hence the popularity and sheer volume of domestic light beers sold here.
Finally, those of you that describe Budweiser as “piss” not sure why you know what piss tastes like (that’s your problem) but you’re certainly among the minority in the beer drinking demographic. Millions would disagree with your poor taste (and your knowledge of the taste of bodily fluids, I’m sure).
@22 are you a paid social media spammer of budweiser?
@22 Yep… millions drink it and those millions probably watch Jerry Springer and buy Billie Mays ‘miracle’ products from QVC. Your point only serves to prove that this country has a very high proportion of fucking idiots.
Now go away. I don’t like you at all.
@22 easy to drink = more like water than beer. Well if bud will never be outsold would you care to explain how it’s share of overall sales keep dropping? Or how the company got in such poor financial shape that it’s not even an AMERICAN beer company any more? When I’m out west, I can even get a Fat Tire ale at a ball game and it’s real drinkable. Bud’s millions spent on ads would have been better been spent on making a good product then a great american image. They are being reward for years of feeding watery, tasteless, rice beer that would lose a blind taste with any AMERICAN owned beer company. You reap what you sow.
Could you pass me a Yuengling?
There are plenty of germans, irish, english, chechs, etc who drink more beer per capita than us and .. guess what.. their beer of choice is not BUD.
ew ew ew.
11 Mar 2009 at 9:00 am24Floozy said:
@22 Yep… millions drink it and those millions probably watch Jerry Springer and buy Billie Mays ‘miracle’ products from QVC. Your point only serves to prove that this country has a very high proportion of fucking idiots.
Now go away. I don’t like you at all.
Holy shit, this is the best thing i have ever read – thank you floozy!
What the hell is drinkability? How is Guinness or Blue Moon not easy to drink? I’ve honestly and literally had a gag reflex from cheap beer. As far as affordable and mass produced American beer goes, I’ll agree with Dieter that Yuengling is pretty good. Even in college when I barely made any money, I still preferred to spend a little extra on Yuengling over Bud Light or some shit.
Also, I think Billy Mays is awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lftTkFacM3I&eurl=http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/espn360-billy-mays.html
So what?
They change the recipe in very subtle ways 5-10 times a year, based on the combined taste of the malt and hops. Hops (and malt) taste differently from year to year (and in the case of malt from maltster to maltster) and (especially) as they finish one year’s harvest, they do extensive taste testing and sample brewing to make sure the overall taste doesn’t change. This isn’t exactly news or (neccessarily) a change in the Budweiser recipe.
They do extensive taste tests against established Budweiser samples dating as far back as the mid 80s from cryogenicallly frozen samples.
(That being said, I prefer the taste of the Michelob family of beers, or almost any New Belgium brew to Budweiser).
from cryogenicallly frozen samples.
They drink beer from Walt Disney’s head?
“They drink beer from Walt Disney’s head?”
Hmmm… A-B and Walt are both from Missouri….
Mmm…I can taste the magic.
Honestly, I’m a beer snob and I can tell a major difference in Budweiser now. I typically opt for imports like Stella, Newcastle, Pilsner Urquell, and the like. Heineken seemed to realize that they were up against a fierce US micros a few years back and stepped up quality signifigantly. Still not the same Brown Bottle Heineken you get in Europe (lucky bastards…). But I can say that Bud is ten times more drinkable than it was before. That “spicy lemon” hop that they took out is precisely what made it rancid. Strangeley enough the wikipedia article deems that hop as a highly regarded one. Goes to show that the correct ingredients beat the superlative rank of ingredients any day of the week.
It’s all in the aftertaste.
Bud doesn’t have that sour residue that it had before that made your breath smell like dead animals. It has more character because of which. Tastes like a proper post-prohibition beer aimed at a population that forgot what beer is supposed to taste like. Very mild taste, slightly punchy midtones, and a very light but crisp bouquet. Budweiser finally finishes as clean is it once claimed to.
SO why was Bud loosing sales? The soaring popularity of the microbrew markets in the US finally meant a top shelf beer without the extreme price tag. Sam Adams Boston Lager (which can no longer be refered to as a “Microbrew”) and other seasonals, Bells Oberon and Two Hearted Ales, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Summerfest, and even more exotic brews like Magic Hat, Fat Tire, and Pyramid started making their presence known among American beer enthusiasts. Since the mid 1990’s, they began enjoying a very steady growth into the market, and are starting to pick up steam overseas.
The US had some killer beers before the prohibition, but had a 60 year gap in getting the ball rolling once the prohibition ended. That’s why US beer has a bad rep even though it’s been 15 to 20 years since we started demonstrating serious know how again. If you seek proof of this, the next time you’re in Philly, be sure to pick up a Dock Street Pilsner. One of the best beers on the face of the planet, IMHO. They started brewing in the late 1600’s. By the early 1800’s (before we had anywhere near 50 states) the US was trumpeting over 100 operational brewing companies. By the early 1900’s, it was over 1,000. We are just now getting back to the roughly 1,500 companies operational prior to the US prohibition.
Bud’s (very poor) attempt to break into this market was the American Ale, a great looking ale that has no flavor whatsoever, so I guess it was true to form. No doubt they tried to buy microbrews around the country, but since those companies are largely private entities, they don’t have to cave in even to a juggernaut like Anheuser-Busch. Instead, they took solace in chipping away at the single biggest icon of beers in the western hemisphere.
I don’t care what anyone says, I forever trust the Belgians to know how to brew a damn fine beer. So no doubt they instantly spotted errors in the recipe. But they need to understand that since the rebirth of the American Microbrews (Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Bells, etc), the US once again has several beers that can once again compete with the best in the world…
You’re buying? Fun and yummy microbrews.
I’m buying? The cheap crappy s***.