August 2007

As a continuing effort to keep my palate in reality-check, I’m spending some time with the more common American beers, and today it’s Michelob’s turn to try and surprise me.

So if Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser is the “king of beers,” and they “know of no other beer” that is better, how do they explain their own Michelob line of “premium” beers which, by definition, are plainly meant to be better?

I didn’t realize this was a “light” beer when I picked it up. All I saw was “ultra” and “amber.” In much smaller words underneath, in a color that blends well into the background of the label, there’s the proclamation of its lightness.

It has a pleasant enough bouquet, nice and heavy on the sweet malts. Well … maybe it will surprise me? Here’s hoping. I’m about to take my first sip.

It’s light, alright. Watery. But the initial wave of flavor is quite good, a kind of dusky malty foam with some hop notes floating on top of it. It fades quickly, though, leaving an unpleasant, watery bitterness tinged with a kind of metallic chemical tang.

There is a hole in the flavor of this beer. I have the distinct impression that something vital is missing from the mix. The more I drink, the less agreeable the experience.

It lacks the horrid Beachwood-aged disaster of Budweiser, but it does have a subtle repulsiveness all its own. After finishing the bottle I feel distinctly ill.

My brother was about 14 years older than me and so by the time I was 5 he was in college and throwing college parties. My brother and all his friends were drinking this foaming stuff out of tall white cans and I wanted in on it. So I asked, and someone laughed and handed me one. A Bud.

Here I am sitting at a restaurant some 40 odd years later, and I just ordered one and the same. A genuine Budweiser.

I’m doing it as a kind of sacrifice. I need to reset my palate. After too many awesome, fantastic beers, I’ve decided I need a reality check. This is, after all, the self-proclaimed “King of Beers.”

I hated it when I was 5 years old. I hated it as a teenager. Will I hate it now?

Taking a sniff from the open bottle, there’s a very weak hoppy scent and not much else. First sip, I’m not surprised at all. After all these years I still recognize the distinctively weak, over-carbonated barley water masquerading as beer. The predominate taste is that of bitterness. A deep, low bitterness followed by a high light bitterness, finishing off with a nasty cold-cigar-butt aftertaste.

In my opinion, it tastes like they mixed a tiny bit of really cheap vodka with water, then stirred in dirty straw and maybe a bit of lawn clippings, and let it sit in a refrigerator for a few weeks.

I’m not sure what is worse, though, the beer itself or the complete bullshit they print on their label: “This is the famous Budweiser beer. We know of no brand produced by any other brewer which costs so much to brew and age. Our exclusive Beachwood Aging produces a taste, a smoothness and a drinkability you will find in no other beer at any price.”

What in the world are they smoking? I mean, where do I start? Even if it really does cost more to brew than any other beer in the world — which I challenge — how do they justify stating it’s the acme of beers when they themselves brew beers they market as even better?

Budweiser sucks. That’s my opinion. It’s the crappiest beer I have ever had, as bad now as it was 40 years ago.