Thursday, Sep. 03, 2009

Beerman's Cheap Beer Challenge:

How Econo-line Brews Rate to the Sophisticated Palate

 

 

The last bash of the summer is in doubt.

Labor Day Weekend requires a cooler packed with chilled beer, but how can you possibly afford a 12-pack at a time like this, never mind a case?

The national economy hasn't regained consciousness, and to make the problem more acute, the local tourism business begins its inevitable slowdown in September. You've got back-to-school expenses, and the oil company execs don't care about the hit you're taking at the gas pump.

This is no time to spend money.

Yet this is no time to go beer-less.

To help Surge readers address this crisis, I embarked on an unprecedented (for me) journey into the grim end of the grocery store beer cooler: the cheap beer section.

The mission? To select six of the cheapest beers and set up a blind taste-test with the best-trained palates on the Grand Strand:

• Dave Epstein, brewer and owner of New South Brewing Co. in Myrtle Beach

• Brock Kurtzman, brewer at New South Brewing Co.

• Eric Lamb, chief brewer at Liberty Steakhouse and Brewery at Broadway at the Beach

• Pete Velez, chief brewer at Gordon Biersch at The Market Common

(Josh Quigley, brewer and owner of Quigley's Pint and Plate in Pawleys Island, was not available.)

The goal? To discover which of these cheap beers don't totally suck, so you can make the best economy-driven-beer-buying decisions for your Labor Day shindig and beyond.

The local brewers didn't know what they were drinking, but in cups labeled only with single letters, they would taste the following:

Beer A: Pabst Blue Ribbon
Beer B: Miller High Life
Beer C: Steel Reserve 211
Beer D: Southpaw Light
Beer E: Milwaukee's Best Ice
Beer F: Natural Light

Would an underdog win the day?

Would the better-known brands emerge triumphant?

And, most importantly, would these well-trained palates become our guides to buying beer with change from the ash tray?

In the end, the results defied everything we knew about grains, fermentation, and aluminum cans.

SESSION ONE

For the first session, Lamb joined Epstein and Kurtzman at the New South Brewing facility near downtown Myrtle Beach.

New South is a microbrewery, not a brewpub, so no pints of beer are sold on the premises. It does, however, have a small bar area for in-house gatherings.

But it does not have air conditioning. Classic rock played in the background as we looked forward to some cold beer on a hot August day.

Kurtzman, Lamb and Epstein took their seats while I played bartender, keeping the chilled beers hidden behind the bar. I labeled three clear plastic cups with A's and started pouring the first brew.

I told them I wanted to know their top two favorites, although I gave them each a sheet on which they could make comments about each beer.

The Official Weekly Surge Cheap Beer Taste Test was underway.

"These are so similar, it's easier to figure out what they don't have than what they do," Lamb said.

But these guys took the test seriously. They lifted the cups to their noses and sniffed. They tasted and discussed. They inspected colors. They made notes and talked through the choices.

They took it seriously, but there was never any doubt that the beers they sipped were cheap-o.

Case in point: Epstein noted that Beer A had the most flavor and most aroma. But then he added, "Not that I like those flavors."

That was a theme throughout the tasting sessions.

The guys continued to taste, comment, and make notes. They asked for seconds of some beers.

"E has the most hop character in the finish ... not off the nose," Epstein said, meaning that he could taste hops after he swallowed but he couldn't smell them.

Lamb said Beer F had a sweet aroma, while Kurtzman said that sweetness ran toward a cider-vinegar taste.

After several minutes of sniffing and sipping at the un-air-conditioned New South bar, Epstein reiterated the same point Lamb had set out at the beginning. "It's harder to pick out what's different because they're so similar," Epstein said.

"There were some things that stood out, but it will definitely be interesting to see what they are," he said.

With only the slightest hints of difference to go on between these straw-color, inexpensive brews, Lamb, Epstein, and Kurtzman worked out their individual favorites, making notes before they knew what brands they were drinking.

The results revealed some consensus.

• Lamb: Favorite, Southpaw Light. "Not grainy, not grassy, not tart."

Runner-up, Pabst Blue Ribbon. "Relatively smooth mouth-feel, light tartness... grassy."

• Epstein: Favorite, Southpaw Light: "Smoothest."

Runner-up, Milwaukee's Best Ice. "Most hop character (bitter)."

• Kurtzman: Favorite, Pabst Blue Ribbon. "Light sour hint, soft lemon hints. Dry finish."

Runner-up, Milwaukee's Best Ice. "Light grain hints. Faint body. Clean finish."

Once I revealed the beers, each brew master was surprised at his choices.

Lamb was relieved to know he had chosen PBR, at least for his runner-up. The Blue Ribbon is one of his all-time favorite beers, and sometimes, he said, he has passed over it in taste tests.

SESSION TWO

Session Two, with Velez, took place at a table near the brewery door at Gordon Biersch at The Market Common.

I felt a bit indecent bringing six cheap beers into a place where the brewing process is ruled by German purity laws from the 1500s. Tradition matters in all good things.

After I had labeled the cups and poured the beers, Velez started to say some of the same things I had heard from the other brewers.

"There's no discernable aroma in any of them," he said. "It's hard to comment on them because they're so similar."

Velez pointed to Beer B. "That, I really don't like," he said, noting on the tasting sheet his guess that it might be Bud Light.

Then, pointing to Beer E and Beer F, he said, "These two are tolerable."

Beer D? "This one, I'm not getting anything from," he said.

Velez went back to Beer C and identified a central problem. "It's just hard to taste malt in beers that are brewed without it," he said.

"All of them are just fizzy, bland," he said. "I taste a lot of corn."

When I revealed the brands behind the labeled cups, Velez said his only surprise was Miller High Life, or Beer B, the one he said he really didn't like.

Velez told the story of a time when he had purchased an ice-cold Miller High Life and was enjoying it, but then had to put it down for a while. After it had warmed up a little, he said the Miller High Life tasted horrible. Temperature turned out to be a big factor on that occasion.

It seemed that Velez had a tie for runner-up, with no real winner.

• Velez: Milwaukee's Best Ice. "Tolerable."

Natural Light. "Tolerable."

Summing up the tasting, he said, "These things are more alcohol delivery units than they are beer. At a party, you can't do shots all night."

SESSION THREE

The last session was at my house.

Because I had chosen the beers, I thought it was important for me to rule out any visual clues, not that there were many, but some appear a little lighter than the others.

So I opted for a blindfold. I filled up a big glass with water and turned on Paste Magazine's Sampler No. 54, starting off with Dolores O'Riordan and heading through Variety Lab, Dinosaur Jr., Patterson Hood, Son Volt and many others.

After labeling the glasses and pouring the beers, I tied a t-shirt around my head, and then my wife Kristi Burch rearranged the glass on the table. I had a dry-erase marker in my hand to make notes on the tabletop.

I religiously cleansed my palate between beers with the big glass of water. Even so, my preferences changed as I went back and forth between the six options.

I thought for sure I would recognize PBR and Miller High Life, but, swallowing hard on my pride - and cheap beer - I realized that I had no clue.

When I pulled off my blindfold, I couldn't quite understand what I had done.

• Beerman: Favorite, Pabst Blue Ribbon. "Most character [in its] water and malt."

Runner-up, Steel Reserve: "Mild hop and malt [character]."

First choice, PBR - that was good. It's one of Lamb's standing favorites, so I must have a decent palate.

But my second choice, Steel Reserve 211, was inexplicable. None of the others had chosen it. I wasn't sure if I should be embarrassed. Was my reputation at stake? Epstein and Lamb had both written down "tart." Kurtzman had written, "no hop character." Velez had guessed that it might have been Schlitz.

(Oddly enough, one of the most popular items on my blog, http://maltyhops.blogspot.com, has been an April 2008 post critiquing Steel Reserve, in which I called it "a bit bland, if well-balanced and accessible." Well, maybe I'm just a sucker for high gravity, because it is 6 percent.)

I didn't exactly have a third choice, although my notes fit with some of the brewers' preferences. I had identified Milwaukee's Best Ice as a "contender" in my notes, scribbling, "Light hops. Malt and water [are good]."

ANALYZING THE RESULTS

Three of the six overlapped in the results: Southpaw Light, PBR and Milwaukee's Best Ice.

Miller High Life received no favorable ratings at all. This is peculiar, considering it receives a better BeerAdvocate.com rating than most of the others in the taste test, while tying with PBR.

So what's the best choice, considering taste and price?

Undoubtedly, Milwaukee's Best Ice.

I bought a 12-pack for $5.99, making it the least-expensive per ounce of the beers we tested. On the palate, it was runner-up for both Kurtzman and Epstein, it was "tolerable" for Velez, and it was a contender for me. Better yet, it's a high-gravity beer, coming in at 5.9 percent. So with more bang for your buck, Milwaukee's Best Ice is the best bargain.

The second best choice has to be PBR. My 12-pack cost $6.79, meaning it was less expensive than Steel Reserve 211 and Southpaw Light. Furthermore, PBR was my favorite, Kurtzman's favorite, and Lamb's runner-up.

That being said, the most expensive of these cheap beers deserves a mention, too. Southpaw Light was the top pick for Lamb and Epstein, even if it was priced at $7.99 for 12 bottles. Perhaps quality follows money. In different packaging, Southpaw Light goes at 24 cans for $13.99.

Now you can enjoy the last weekend of the summer - without breaking the bank. Go to the grocery store right away and make your purchases, before the managers and distributers read this and raise the prices.

Contact Colin Burch at beerpour@yahoo.com or visit his blog at http://maltyhops.blogspot.com

Click here for previous cover stories

 

 

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