its brewed for me. im a person. i even buy some on occasion to see how they are or if i want a cheap beer.
that aside, i thought this would be a fun thread from people who are aware of the processes of homebrewing and some or all of the processes of commercial/industrial brewing. i am not making a petition to send to BMC…
so, should i cease and desist thinking theoretically about beer?
really? i had it once or twice and i thought it was pretty bad. whats the appeal?
I like the idea of the hypothetical “what would you do” of this thread - not to actually brew a revised lager but to contemplate what a homebrewer would bring to the situation given the constraints and mission laid out in the OP.
For my personal tastes I’d dial back the adjunct and pump up the IBU a tad - I find them generally too sweet to enjoy in much quantity. There are situations where a generic cold American lager is what I want. Not often, but sometimes - right place, right time.
It was one of the better “NAIL” lagers back in the day. I haven’t had it since early very 2000’s. Not sure they even still make it. It was also one of the beers I drank in the 80’s in high school days.
What’s to think about You’re saying you want NAIL to be a different beer. But it’s no brewed for you. It’s brewed for 10s of millions of others and they’re fine with it the way it is. To them there’s nothing wrong with it so nothing needs to be changed.
its brewed for me. im a person. i even buy some on occasion to see how they are or if i want a cheap beer.
that aside, i thought this would be a fun thread from people who are aware of the processes of homebrewing and some or all of the processes of commercial/industrial brewing. i am not making a petition to send to BMC…
so, should i cease and desist thinking theoretically about beer?
Ok, this is what I can say about this thread.
I don’t usually drink beers from the big 3 but when I do I will drink Budweiser. I like the sweetness from it and it goes great with my favorite and only place I eat wings. Besides they don’t have any craft options. Real blue collar dive and seriously the best wings in a 50 mile radius.
If I’m not drinking my own beer, which is 99% of the time, I keep Peroni and Stella on hand along with a variety of craft beers that friends bring when visiting to drink my beer. I guess they feel obligated to do so.
So, to your point, I would like to see BMC brew a simple original beer without adjuncts. No rice syrup, no corn syrup. I would love to have tasted an american beer prior to the industrialization but maybe they always used those adjuncts.
Finally, NEVER cease and desist! Say what you want and if it offends, so be it! Not that anyone has been offended least of which, me.
I like the thread! I wish a MacroLager brewer would make something like Bittburger here. I guess we have Sam Adams Lager and Yeungling but I don’t love them the way I would a nationally brewed adjunct free lager.
yup, my first thoughts before i made this thread was “add some crystal malt at 3 to 5%”, i think that could still work, but upping the IBU seems to be the number 1 idea itt.
two half measures could count as one - ie. up the IBU by just 5, reduce the adjuncts by half.
so far the best answer though i think was that they return to actual cereal mashing. the really horrid off-flavours i bet are coming from various corn syrups, glucose syrups, etc. actually mashed corn and 6row couldnt be as bad as they taste. thats probably one part of the secret of the popular 1940s to 70s regional beers’ popularity.
im tempted to look into the labatt brewery in my city and ask them some questions by email now.
oh yeah. the german basic lagers are always fine with me. not sure what the concensus is on warsteiner, but i love it for a widely available beer. even when theyre bad theyre not that bad.
These are both decent examples of a good, gold lager that are not top tier gold lagers with Peroni being a little better than Stella, IMO. Peroni has a distinct CRISP taste that you can pick out. I know that Stella uses corn/maize and Peroni probably does too. I went to some kind of Italian Fest here in Chicago one year and they had Peroni on draft and it was fresh and delicious.
Definitely an interesting thread, as a theoretical exercise.
Unfortunately, for me, I stopped drinking any and all of these NAIL’s at least 30 years ago. Miller Lite being the only one I could stomach back in the day. Come to think of it, except for the occasional SA BL, I really don’t drink lagers at all anymore. Yuengling Lager was a go to in the late 80’s-early 90’s but I wore that out and have no desire to go back to anything with that type of caramel/crystal presence. My favorite beers from anything resembling BigBeer is Genny Cream, Genny 12 Horse and Yuengling Lord Chesterfield.
So I guess my one upgrade to NAIL’s would be to use an Ale yeast. ;D
Fun to think about.
+1 on both the Bittburger and Warsteiner. Both are beers I really enjoy, the Bittgurger when I want something more sharply bitter, the Warsteiner when I crave deeper Pils malt flavors. They are readily available and for my tastes they’re yummy!
To all my German friends, Bitt was considered a mass marketed national brand beer much like BMC is here in the US. They all preferred, and by extension I learned to prefer, lesser known, smaller brands.
Hausbrauerei (what we would consider brew pubs) or the small regional brands in a local Gasthaus were the beers we preferred over the national brands. This is where I began to really appreciate a well crafted pint in an awesome atmosphere with friendly people.
Just like our national brands, they aren’t bad beer, it’s just when I have access to so much better IMO, I seek it out instead. I haven’t had BMC in years.
Yuengling Pottsville still used cereal mash, at least up until a year or two ago. Dicks daughters are running the place now so who knows what they did. The Florida plant didn’t, or stopped using it, and their version was always, IMO, crap.
Edit: Found this Oct 2019 tour vid and at 3:02 you can see a cooker.
And their website still mentions this at the beginning of the process.
https://www.yuengling.com/brewing-process/
Peroni Nastro Azurro uses what they call “Nostrano dell’Isola maize” but then everything sounds better in Italian. Never the less, this beer has wonderful corn flavor if you can find it fresh.
I think I remember seeing that. But there is something else that stands out about that beer and I don’t know what it is. The variety of hops, whichever yeast strain they use… not sure what it is but if you put 10 gold beers in a glass next to each other I’m pretty sure I could pick it out from that crowd. Probably not so much with Stella.
cant stand stella, ive had such horrible experiences with it. its probably a NAIL in all its attributes. seriously tastes like it, they just have a powerful marketing voice, the “european” name.
some of the worst beers on earth are from netherlands btw. they make some horrendous chemical tasting, insanely gross, easily single digits IBU industrial piss.
Next time you’re in the Netherlands, check out Brand. Everything from pils-ish to IPA. All the ones I tried were very good.
lol, likely won’t ever visit there in person, unless im flying into amsterdam airport for a transfer.
by no means is all dutch beer bad. but they have some horrible big brewing consortiums. i used to be able to get christoffel bier with their extremely unique bottles here, but havent seen it for a long time now.
Bavaria is a rather nice pils from Holland when found in the can less than ~3 months old.
And speaking of excellent lagers at bargain prices… anyone with an Aldi store nearby who hasn’t yet tried Wernesgruner really should. Check the date on the carton though and grab the freshest stuff you can since this comes in bottles which don’t stay pristine long.
Around here the trick is to find it, the secret is out and it flies off the shelf at the local Aldi.
I found a 6 of König Pils that was well within it’s end date. That was my go to Fernseherbier in Wiesbaden. Lovely when fresh. The pizza place had thsse ranked in my preference - König, Bitburger, Warsteiner. A fresh fass of König was so good.
Likely due more to the importer than the brewery.