{"id":423,"date":"2007-12-14T08:12:54","date_gmt":"2007-12-14T15:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/does-light-lite-beer-have-to-suck\/"},"modified":"2008-01-09T08:10:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-09T15:10:00","slug":"does-light-lite-beer-have-to-suck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/does-light-lite-beer-have-to-suck\/","title":{"rendered":"Does light (lite) beer have to suck?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miller Brewing plans to test market three “craft-style” beers lower in calories and carbohydrates than beers described as “craft.”<\/a><\/p>\n

The Miller Lite Brewers Collection,<\/a> &#151 a blonde ale, an amber and a wheat &#151 will begin testing in February in Baltimore, Charlotte, Minneapolis and San Diego. <\/p>\n

Jack Curtin<\/a> doesn’t think much of the idea.<\/p>\n

If you been slowly accepting the delusion that the Biggies had gotten the point, Miller comes through with the evidence to the contrary.<\/p>\n

“Craft-style” beer. I love it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I understand Jack’s point, but I was already wondering why so many beer drinkers assume that “light” and “full flavored” are exclusive. I started thinking about this last weekend when a former Pabst brewer explained to me how, when light beer was pretty new, they came up with a time-consuming process in order to lower calories but maintain the alcohol level (and thus flavor).<\/p>\n

Full-calorie beers (Budweiser, Miller High Life, Pabst) have been squeezed what seems to be forever by specialty beers (imports and “craft”) on one side and low-calorie beers on the other. Perhaps strategists at Miller looked at this and thought, “ahha.” Brew Blog<\/a> explains:<\/p>\n

Miller Lite Brewers Collection is aimed at mainstream light beer drinkers and capitalizes on three beer industry trends: the growth of light beer; the growing popularity of craft beer; and consumers\u2019 growing willingness to pay more for products that deliver a unique or better experience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I understand that you are skeptical about Miller delivering a better experience. I’m reserving judgment myself, but it surely is possible.<\/p>\n

Amber? Think of British bitters, less than 4% abv and full of flavor. Of course, they’re best on cask, something more easily done in a brewpub than an airport bar. And better bottle conditioned (unfiltered and unpasteurized), which probably isn’t part of Miller’s plan.<\/p>\n

Blonde? Since Miller is spelling it with an “e” consider Chimay Doree from the French speaking part of Belgian. I figure the 4.6% beer brewed for the monks themselves has about 130 calories (just a little more than Samuel Adams light).<\/p>\n

Wheat? How about a Berliner Weiss?<\/p>\n

Nope, light beer doesn’t have to suck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miller Brewing plans to test market three “craft-style” beers lower in calories and carbohydrates than beers described as “craft.” The Miller Lite Brewers Collection, &#151 a blonde ale, an amber and a wheat &#151 will begin testing in February in Baltimore, Charlotte, Minneapolis and San Diego. Jack Curtin doesn’t think much of the idea. If … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beers-of-conviction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wTn-6P","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}