This is not a thread to debate the quality of Bud Light, American beer etc. I just want to inform people about the basics of beer brewing, adjuncts, sugars, fermentation, etc.
So many of you have likely seen the terrible Bud Light Corn Syrup ads tonight during the super bowl.
This ad campaign is horseshit for a few reasons.
1. Bud Light is an adjunct lager, just like Miller and Coor's. It uses rice and/or rice syrup as an additional fermentable sugar. Many other American adjunct lagers use rice or corn, or the syrup forms as an adjunct. An adjunct is the addition of any non-malt fermentable sugars. In regards to the big American macro beers, that means sugars from corn or rice. This is primarily a cost saving measure (there are some other technical benefits, eg less haze when using 6-row malt but that is a different topic) but throwing in some corn or rice with your malted barely saves money, especially at the scale of a macro brewery. If you want to get into the whole beer purity thing, you typically wouldn't use any adjuncts.
2. Corn Syrup is a highly fermentable sugar. That means when it is added to beer, yeast easily ferments it into C02 and alcohol. You are not drinking corn syrup when a beer utilizes it, it ferments out. Some sugars don't fully ferment like dextrins and others don't ferment at all, like lactose. Corn and rice sugars will primarily dry a beer out, not make it sweeter. Some forms of corn can yield a slight sweetness in the final product. This is not the same thing as having super sweet corn syrup in a fake maple syrup. Yeast loves that simple sugar and chews through it.
3. Corn Syrup =/= High Fructose Corn Syrup. Bud Light is leveraging the current backlash against HFCS and it's link to the obesity epidemic in america to scare uninformed people in to thinking they are drinking the big bad boogey man, HFCP in their favorite macro beers. This is bull shit fear mongering. Moreover, even if HFCS was used in a beer, it is still 96% fermentable so you would not be drinking gobs of HFCS like in a Coke, you would be primarily drinking the resulting alcohol after fermentation. Drinking a bunch of beer is not healthy, but if you drink a Coor's you are not drinking any HFCS like in a soda.
There are lot of other details about the brewing process and I am happy to try to answer as many questions as I can. But at the very least I want to inform people that sugar additives in American macro beers are there to be a low cost form of fermentable sugar to be consumed by yeast and make alcohol.
Here is a very basic crash course in how beer is made.
1. You mill malted barley or other malted grains
2. You steep these crushed grains in hot water for a hour or more. Enzymes convert the complex sugars in the malted barley into simple sugars during this time.
3. You seperate the grains from the liquid and then boil this sugary water for an hour or more. During this time you add hops for bittering and flavor at various points during the boil.
4. You cool down the hot sugar water to room temp (this varies by style) and put in in a fermentation vessel. This can be as simple as a plastic bucket with an air lock.
5. You add yeast and wait.
6. Anywhere from one to several weeks later, your happy yeast has consumed the sugars and converted them into alcohol and CO2
7. Carbonate and package your beer.
8. Drink the beer.
There is a tremendous amount of variables and details to brewing but the general concept above lays out the very basic flow of brewing beer. I highly encourage anyone interested in brewing beer to give homebrewing a try. With modern ingredients and kit recipes, it can be very easy to make beer in your own kitchen without spending much money. The Homebrewers Association is a great starting point.
So many of you have likely seen the terrible Bud Light Corn Syrup ads tonight during the super bowl.
This ad campaign is horseshit for a few reasons.
1. Bud Light is an adjunct lager, just like Miller and Coor's. It uses rice and/or rice syrup as an additional fermentable sugar. Many other American adjunct lagers use rice or corn, or the syrup forms as an adjunct. An adjunct is the addition of any non-malt fermentable sugars. In regards to the big American macro beers, that means sugars from corn or rice. This is primarily a cost saving measure (there are some other technical benefits, eg less haze when using 6-row malt but that is a different topic) but throwing in some corn or rice with your malted barely saves money, especially at the scale of a macro brewery. If you want to get into the whole beer purity thing, you typically wouldn't use any adjuncts.
2. Corn Syrup is a highly fermentable sugar. That means when it is added to beer, yeast easily ferments it into C02 and alcohol. You are not drinking corn syrup when a beer utilizes it, it ferments out. Some sugars don't fully ferment like dextrins and others don't ferment at all, like lactose. Corn and rice sugars will primarily dry a beer out, not make it sweeter. Some forms of corn can yield a slight sweetness in the final product. This is not the same thing as having super sweet corn syrup in a fake maple syrup. Yeast loves that simple sugar and chews through it.
3. Corn Syrup =/= High Fructose Corn Syrup. Bud Light is leveraging the current backlash against HFCS and it's link to the obesity epidemic in america to scare uninformed people in to thinking they are drinking the big bad boogey man, HFCP in their favorite macro beers. This is bull shit fear mongering. Moreover, even if HFCS was used in a beer, it is still 96% fermentable so you would not be drinking gobs of HFCS like in a Coke, you would be primarily drinking the resulting alcohol after fermentation. Drinking a bunch of beer is not healthy, but if you drink a Coor's you are not drinking any HFCS like in a soda.
There are lot of other details about the brewing process and I am happy to try to answer as many questions as I can. But at the very least I want to inform people that sugar additives in American macro beers are there to be a low cost form of fermentable sugar to be consumed by yeast and make alcohol.
Here is a very basic crash course in how beer is made.
1. You mill malted barley or other malted grains
2. You steep these crushed grains in hot water for a hour or more. Enzymes convert the complex sugars in the malted barley into simple sugars during this time.
3. You seperate the grains from the liquid and then boil this sugary water for an hour or more. During this time you add hops for bittering and flavor at various points during the boil.
4. You cool down the hot sugar water to room temp (this varies by style) and put in in a fermentation vessel. This can be as simple as a plastic bucket with an air lock.
5. You add yeast and wait.
6. Anywhere from one to several weeks later, your happy yeast has consumed the sugars and converted them into alcohol and CO2
7. Carbonate and package your beer.
8. Drink the beer.
There is a tremendous amount of variables and details to brewing but the general concept above lays out the very basic flow of brewing beer. I highly encourage anyone interested in brewing beer to give homebrewing a try. With modern ingredients and kit recipes, it can be very easy to make beer in your own kitchen without spending much money. The Homebrewers Association is a great starting point.
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