This workweek , The Wall Street Journalpublished a Q&Awith Rob Naylor , “ the brewer who could create the next Bud Light . ” The article wonder , “ Could Bud Sour Ale be next ? ” I sure hope not . In fact , we ca n’t let it happen .
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Bud Sour Ale is not a real beer . It ’s an idea that Naylor , the brewmaster for Anheuser Busch ’s Research Pilot Brewery , discuss with a journalist . ( I made the above rendering of a Bud Sour Ale can in Photoshop just for fun . ) That aver , my own patronage for the idea of a Bud Sour Ale strain way beyond my disdain for moody beer in universal . ( I intend it tastes like gall . ) Rather , the idea that Budweiser want to explore the weirdest and most obscure fringe of the craft beer macrocosm vex me . Big beer companies are hefty enough . We ca n’t allow them buy our weirdos too .
Do n’t get me wrong . I like trying new beer , interesting beer , and on occasion , weird beers . My favourite beer isa wacky East Coast - mode IPAthat tastes ever so slightly like a hoppy mango . But Naylor and his cronies are creatingshit like the Mang - O - Rita . It ’s Mangifera indica - flavored malt liquor . Naylor himself is also the co - creator of Shock Top Spiced Banana Wheat and Shock Top Strawbanero Wheat . In discourse the time to come of the world ’s expectant beer maker , Naylor mention beer - making experiment that involved such exotic ingredients as honey , tea , and oatmeal cookie .
This is beget out of paw . Anheuser Busch and its parent company AB InBev SABMiller must be stopped . It ’s easy to see why this gravid beer caller is tapping into the unearthly beer grocery store , though . A Bay Area workmanship beer bar visit Rosamunde spread out a Brooklyn outpost a couple years ago . On my latest sojourn , I stared at a card that included several sour beers , a pair of nitro beers , and something called a “ wild ale ” from Portland . A enceinte bottlecosts $ 32 .
Craft beers — especially the weird ones — are expensive , but people buy them . As the phone number of small breweries continues to develop in the United States , more and more people are feeling adventurous about trying something unexampled or different . If companies like Anheuser Busch can latch on to the trend and slew produce novel brands , they tend to loosen people off from hunting down unknown microbrews and towards the convenience of a concatenation grocery store . After all , big beer companiesbasically own the aisles there .
I get it . That ’s how the beer industry giant defend their chokehold on the market , despite the success of craft brewery . The astoundingly Brobdingnagian AB InBev SABMillernow ownsover eight out of the 10 most popular American beer brands . That gives the monumental corporation a hell of an advantage over smaller breweries when it resolve to branch out and , say , make something that resembles a craft beer . That , or the corporation justbuys up the most popular craft breweries .
AB InBev SABMiller — a terrible name , by the mode — is take over the humanity . As Gizmodo ’s own Alissa Walkerpointed out recently , one out of every three beers consumed on satellite Earth is made by this sprawling corporation . You might even cogitate a beloved brand name like Goose Island comes from a little brewery in the Midwest , when it ’s actually just another tentacle of the deadly Cthulhu that is AB InBev SABMiller . There is no leak from this natural monopoly .
The problem with AB InBev SABMiller ’s craft beer aspiration is n’t just a capitalist one , either . As any beer enthusiast will tell you , batch - produced craftiness beer is an oxymoron . Shock Top Wheat beer does n’t savour like a sumptuous hefeweizen from Bavaria . It savour like orange tree - flavored butt . Blue Moon does not taste like a Belgian witbier . It savor like chemical . ( Blue Moon ’s Cinnamon Horchata Ale tastes like chemicals mixed with Cinnamomum zeylanicum - flavored rump , by the way . ) Can you suppose what a Bud Sour Ale would taste like ?
Thankfully , you may assist put an closing to this foolishness . grease one’s palms your beer from actual craft breweries . Go ahead and pay the extra $ 2 for a six - pack of the really good stuff and nonsense , too . Heck , pay $ 32 for that Portland - brew unfounded ale if you want . The money will go to a good cause ! Because the more tempted you are to buy into the restroom of Budweiser or Goose Island or really any AB InBev SABMiller brand , the most likely they are to brew forged ideas like Bud Sour Ale .
prototype : Budweiser / Gizmodo
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