The Beer of Last Resort
Pale Lager. Not familiar with the style? That’s fair. Among beer geeks, it goes by many other names – swill, crap, macro lager, adjunct lager, piss. While there are sometimes complaints about the lack of a wider vocabulary in reviewing beers, beer lovers have yet to reach the upper limit of words for brews they don’t like.
Here’s how RateBeer.com defines the style.
The colour of pale lager ranges from light bronze to nearly transparent and the alcohol anywhere from 4-6%. Adjunct usage may be quite high, though in some cases the beer is all-malt. Carbonation is typically forced, though not always. One thing that doesn’t vary is that neither the malt nor the hops make much of an impression on the palate. These beers are brewed for minimum character, though faint traces of hop or malt may show through. More likely though is that adjuncts like corn will show through, or you’ll find notes of higher alcohols (fuel notes) due to the use of high-gravity brewing. The body will be thin and watery, and the finish is typically non-existent.
So the criticism isn’t unfounded, right? It says it right there. “Brewed for minimum character.” “Carbonation is typically forced.” “Adjuncts … show through.” “Thin and watery.” The beer, when brewed to style, isn’t a beer most of us would subject ourselves to.
Frustration about the macro lagers sets in for a couple reasons. One is the fact that, one suspects, the macrobreweries could make a beer that is much better. The brewers hired for companies like InBev and MillerCoors are some of the best trained and educated in the world. The big guys boast brewing on a scale that they could probably get quality ingredients for less money than craft breweries, and a network of distribution so that the beer can go anywhere in the world. The big guys also get points for consistency – ever pint of Bud tastes the same no matter where you get it, which can’t be said of most craft brews. But, unfortunately, any efforts to enter the “good beer” space seem halfhearted at best. Brews like the American Ale and Bud Light Golden Wheat aren’t craft beers, but pale lagers that are being forces into a craft-shaped bottle.
Another reason for frustration is, of course, is the popularity. Currently, the microbrewery share of U.S. beer sales stands at 6 percent, imports account for 14 percent, and the large U.S. breweries hold 80 percent. Four out of five beers sold in the states come from a handful of breweries. If you consider that the brewers of imports are often also the big boys (sometimes, owned and distributed by the same big US brewers). things cap out at well over 90% of the market. You can watch Beer Wars for an in-depth look at what this popularity means for beer availability, but it’s pretty easy to tell anecdotally. Ever bar has something on tap from big brewers. Ever sporting event does too, and every beer store has something macro on sale. The smaller the brewery – and often, the better the beer – the harder it is to find.
So, the question on my mind after all this is; what is your beer of last resort? Big beer is everywhere, and often the only option to a discerning drinker. At a baseball game or the local five-and-dime, do you completely eschew beer if it isn’t good, or is it any beery port in a storm? When do you drink PBR or Budweiser, or do you just not do it?
Personally, I’ll cop to having a love of macros in the hot weather. Yes, an amazing pilsner or kolsch is preferable. But when it comes down to it, hot weather beer drinkin’ for me is more about refreshment than taste. When PBR is so much more like sex in a canoe than a sticky hop bomb, I’ll take it. It is brewed for minimum character. It is thin and watery. Sometimes, that’s the right beer for the moment.
Is that OK, or do I have to turn in my beer geek card?
10 Comments to “The Beer of Last Resort”
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Of the 14% import share, I’d wager that 80% of that is pale lager. Heineken and Corona are the two biggest. Becks, Red Stripe, Stella, and Harp all do serious volume. Only Guinness and Bass come to mind as widely availible non-pale lagers. So really the market share of pale lagers (both domestic and imported) is more like 90-92%.
This is the reason for the frustration. Far too many bars exist in my part of the country that have 8-12 taps with a lineup including Bud, Bud light, coors light, stella, harp, shocktop, guinness, smitwicks and then a craft handle or two. Is there such thing as a “Harp drinker?” I doubt it. More likely the rep from the distributor that sells guinness says “you want guinness? Give me a handle for Harp too.”
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I’ve personally got nothing wrong with pale lagers. When brewed properly they’re inoffensive, light to minimal on the adjunct contributions, and – most importantly – have a hugely engaging mouthfeel. You can’t drink a 7% IPA the same way you can a 4.5% lager; alcohol affects things.
I’m not going to go out and support the big breweries anytime soon, and most craft breweries don’t even want to go down the pale-lager route, but I can enjoy them and most certainly prefer them to a trainwreck of a craft beer.
Blue Moon, Guinness, and Sam Adams Boston Lager are my last resort beers. Even the diviest bars will have them on tap or in a bottle, even if everything else is crappy.
Enjoy what you like. Beer geeks shouldn’t judge you for your preferences, and if they do, they’re the ones in the wrong.
Great article.
I believe that expectation for the big industrial brewers are both high and low. High because of the talent, brewing equipment and basic ingredient access and low because they have dissappointed us for so long.
My last resort is Sam Adams lager. Not because it is bad but because I can usually find it anywhere.
Oh and my term for the style is “water lager”
My beer of last resort is also Sam Adams – Lager or Seasonal or Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. They are available almost everywhere.
In rare case if they were not available I would drink wine. I would not drink macro Pale lager.
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On a hot summer day, like you said, a nice cold pilsener or kolsch does the palate good, however, if the only options made available to me were the macros, I’d go for a glass of milk or water to hydrate my body. I know I don’t want to rap on anyone that does enjoy these beers, but I wouldn’t subject my body to that kind of suffering. Besides, people only drink these macros because they either don’t understand what beer is (should be), or they just don’t know what else is out there.