@CopyPaste:

Bud Light is the only product I purchase solely due to its ad campaign. The "Real Men of Genius" ads are hilarious and - since I only drink beer a few times a year - I might as well say thanks for the laughs.

My favorites were Mr. Company Computer Guy (the best 60-second description ever of an IT person's job!) and Mr. Silent Killer Gas Passer (an ad I have a feeling many radio stations passed on).

If you want to hear your favorites again, many people post them on P2P sites such as eMule and BitTorrent.

Sam Adams FTW!

@kaplanfx:

Hey, no worries about "organic" farming. I heard one of the head honchos on that side of the fence declared that we could properly feed 4 billion people if we switched all farmland over to "organic" farming.

...thankfully, I wouldn't be one of the 2.5 billion people that doesn't include.

Inorganic food FTW.

@Kimaroo - 20% More Kitty Added!:

...the point being that advertisers prey on the naivete of consumers with things like "all natural" - as if being "all natural" implies that, first of all, there's any possibility of sometihng not being natural - and secondly, the concept that it in any way implies that it's better for you. Arsenic is all natural...you get it for free in well water all around the world. The phrase is less than worthless.

Another good one is "chemical-free." That would be quite impressive indeed...to see some kind of substance that does not contain any chemicals. I'd pay big money for, say, bottled water that doesn't contain any of that nasty chemical dihydrogen oxide. Which reminds me of another common fallacy...the mere concept that bottled water is somehow better or safer than tap water...oy. Apparently I shouldn't get me started.

@Jesse:
I like a nice, chewy porter, India pale ale, heffeweisen (sp?), or wheat simply for the enjoyment. (Very few of those available where I live.--sigh.) But if I'm finished working out in the heat, those aren't cutting it. Coors light in a can, almost frozen, for all it's crispy, metallic flavor to cool my weary bones.

Natty Ice is what we feed the slugs.

Busch was the top-of-the-line beer, then Meister Brau, Beast, and Black Label. (Banning kegs sent every house's beer quality down - from Bud, Miller, or Old Style down to cases of the low-end beer.)

@YouDidWhatNow?: The excuse is that as beer brewing spread west in the U.S., rice and corn were added, since they were more plentiful. A guy from Budweiser told me that they're not ashamed of using rice in the beer since it's a "unique American beer style." That's the origin, and the excuse, and they're sticking to it.

Hefeweizen is by far my favorite... but my daily beer is usually a Yuengling. I was pleasantly surprised that Yuengling Light almost tastes like the non-light version.

@ElizabethD:
I love Miller Chill; it's my summer beer of choice. I used to be a Yuengling gal until I moved to a part of the country where I can't get it.

My friends all HATE Miller Chill, which just means more for me!

@harvey_birdman: oh don't get your hopps in a bunch. it's still an american beer. it's brewed in america, and it was developed in america. it's like saying the statue of liberty isn't american because it was given to us by the french. deal with it.

@aloria:

...naturally, Bud Light et al are "beers" - I was making fun of it based on the utter lack of flavor.

Bud Light may look, and feel (I guess) like a beer...there's a chance it might smell like beer. But it sure as hell doesn't taste like beer.

I was poking fun at the comment about whether or not something needs a certain amount any particular kind of flavor to be a "beer."

I could just as well squeeze a drop of lemon juice into a gallon of water and call it "lemonade."

Generally things like Zima, Mike's lemonade, Smirnoff Ice fall under the category of malt beverage even though they're sometimes not even made with malt. But if you read a bottle of Mike's it says "malt beverage" on the side. I've even seen the tile on wine coolers and most 40oz's are considered malt beverages like Colt 45.

It's a strange term. Please note however, I do consider bud light to be a beer, but I was just saying it teeters on the bottom line of what would be consider so having such a low hops and malt profile, it's more in line with Colt 45 (a malt beverage) than what's typically considered beer (strong malt and/or hops profiles). Again there really is no clear definition of which is why a source is so hard to produce.

I'm not saying there is anything at all wrong with drinking bud light, I'm just trying to clarify why some people might be snobby about it. Mainly the reason beer snobs hate bud light is because it's generally what most people associate the taste of beer since it's usually those types of beers we're first exposed too growing up the USA. Typcially people have decided they hate all beer but have really only tried bud/miller/coors etc. in college/high school and refuse to try beer again.

These beers represent the lowest common demoninator of beer. This makes people who love beer for all it's complexities somewhat angry because we've all at one point or another had to attempt to explain to friends who claim to hate beer, that they haven't really tried beer. It's kind of like saying you hate all soda because you don't like tonic water.

@harvey_birdman: It was still American when I heard the joke!!

Also, the Flinstones episode where Barney and Fred are in the mafia? Classsssic!

Regardless, I do not consider Bud Light to be a "real" beer, at least in the same league as my precious belgian whites. I'm quite honest about that. I would never sneer at someone for drinking Bud Light, or any light beer. When I go to a local football game, sure, I'll grab a Coor's Light. Nothing special, but a good, hey I'll have a hotdog watch the game get buzzed beer.

And don't knock Colt 45s! On Saturday nights in college I probably had more malt liquor than blood going through my body

*A steak (from Old Norse steik, "roast") is a cut of meat.

*Malt beverage is an American term for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic fermented beverages, in which the primary ingredient is barley, which has been allowed to sprout ("malt") slightly before it is processed. By far, the most predominant malt beverage is beer, of which there are two main styles: ale and lager.

So I'm not seeing how claiming a brand of beer is a malt disqualifies it from being beer.

@aloria:

..."what are you eating?"

"Tofu Steak"

"...ummm, that's not a real steak."

"Says who? There's no law that says a steak has to look, feel, taste or smell like meat in order to be a "real" steak."

...

For instance, if you just come out and say "Bud is 40% rice and 60% barley, and a malt is anything over 50% barley," then I can happily concede that yes, Bud is a malt (though Wikipedia claims that the sets of malts and beers intersect, so it doesn't necessarily disqualify Budweiser as perhaps being both.) But if your argument is that you can't taste the hops, then I only have to point you to the plethora of dry beers to show you why that argument is specious.

So sorry if I came off defensive, but it's really easy for beer snobs to come up to someone, no matter what they are drinking, and scoff "heh, that's not a beer." It happens all the time, whether they are drinking a single run ale or a Corona. 90% of the time, it's simply because they don't like that style of beer, not because they're actually drinking Colt 45 or something.

Thanks for making me laugh maniacally at work. A-hole!

While we're on the subject, there's a brew pub here in Utah called Squatters, and their Hefeweizen is my fave.

@aloria:

I wasn't trying to start a flame war or anything so please don't get so defensive and give me a break on the "source". I'm so sick of that response around here used to debunk anything anyone says. Just because I don't keep a manila folder of links on my desk to immediately validate any point I might make, doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about. The information is out there if you care to find it. I'm not going to scour the internet looking for an article that backs fairly common knowledge.

Steamwhistle
Tuborg
Molson Canadian
Carling Lager (If that's all I can get)
Olde English (If I'm low on cash)
Heineken
Labatt Blue
Budweiser

What I won't drink?

Bud Light.

1. Pabst Brewing Co.
2. Boston Beer Co. (Sam Adams)
3. D.G. Yuengling and Son Inc.
4. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
5. New Belgium Brewing Co. Inc.
6. High Falls Brewing Co.
7. Spoetzl Brewery
8. Widmer Brothers Brewing Group
9. Redhook Ale Brewery
10. Pyramid Breweries Inc.

Bud Light tastes like my refrigerated reprocessed piss.

Guinness tastes like shit and feels like I ate a loaf of bread.

A Heineken? Flavor, not heavy at all. Just one common example

Jameson-A serviceable whiskey

Drug X-won't kill you

At least 60% of people who say they do not like beer have only tried cheap/light beer. You know, they get to college, go to a frat party, take a swig of the warm Keystone/Coor's and swear off beer as the grossest alcohol ever.

PBR is the only cheap beer I can stand

General rule for determining if it's a cheap, crappy beer or not-if you can play beer pong with it, it's cheap crappy beer, i.e. if you can chug it without gagging, it's probably frat party quality beer (but I can chug most lagers if I wanted to). Don't chug Hoegaarden! Relax and savor it! Yes, it's heavy and cloudy and may taste odd at first. But it's delicious!

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!):

BS.

Not only is an amber or a porter or whatever else not going to make you "barf like a mofo" in 100-degree heat, there is also no excuse in there for making pilsners utterly tasteless.

There are plenty of good pilsners out there that have, you know, flavor...Pilsner Urquell for example, who purports to have invented the Pilsner. Or go with a hefeweizen or white or something. If you don't want a stout on your hot summer day, then whatever...but don't pretend that there's some "need" for a pilsner to be tasteless.

Bud Light is barely a notch above Keystone and one below Miller/Coors. Keystone is the cheap/high school/college party beer. When you decide you want to spoil your guests and go all out with the cheap shitty beer, BUD LIGHT WOOHOO!

If you just want to get drunk, why don't you just drink something that has more alcohol per volume so you don't have to drink so damn much of it? Vodka? Have some jello shots? A sweet girlie mixed drink?

Unless you're playing pong.

Cheap beer is pointless. If you're just a college student, get some real beer. If you just want to get drunk, get some cheap liquor. Or hell even PBR instead

@Jesse: Um...Guinness is mass produced. I think Diageo might rival Anheuser-Busch in terms of world market...

@BrewMe: Looks like you've been drinking that Shiner while making that post.

Good information.

Still doesn't mean they aren't crap.

The man on Man vs. Wild showed me I can rehydrate by squeezing the liquid out of elephant dung, too.

You are only saying their purpose was hydration when water wasn't safe. But like Zombie said, water is drinkable now, so who needs weak-ass beer?

I'll admit the whole "drinkability" campaign makes about as much sense as Miller's "more taste" nonsense.

Ok - so the beer is drinkable. Is that really a compliment? Are we suggesting the threshold of acceptance is that a beverage is actually drinkable? In comparison to what exactly... battery acid?

Then you have Miller and their "more taste" mantra. I tell you what - urine probably has "more taste" than tap water, but if you ask me which one I would rather have... I'm going with the tap water thank you very much.

I guess I'm the minority here, but I'm not afraid to admit I actually prefer Bud Light over most other beers. Call me what you wish, but I'm not alone considering Bud Light is the most popular beer in the entire friggin' WORLD.

I couldn't agree more . I was in the south field yesterday picking cotton , (you know , the field that they found the rattlesnakes in after 'ol Cletus done up and died of consumption ?) well ,anyway ,I was in this field here and I turned to Caleb , Eli and Marcell (them's my brothers you know) and I said "Caleb ,Eli and Marcell " , "We needs us sumpin' refreshing and light ,without much taste.

Well ,damned if Eli didn't flash his tooth at me in the midday sun and IMMEDIATELY holler "Bud Light" ! Then we drank an entire case and got so polluted that we accidentally married a sheep.

That ornery cuss put all of that book learnin' to good use, obviously.

Personally, I find an ice cold Belgian White to be the most thirst quenching of all beers.

Local Brews>All

-kap

And I'm not putting down high end beers, just beer drinkers who snub their noses at me because I'd rather have a Miller Lite than a Chimay. Oh, it's not a "real" beer by somebody's standard? Who cares?

@Jesse:

Second on the Guinness and Coors over Bud

Lager is SUPPOSED to be light, refreshing, watery, and not have much taste, because it's MEANT for folks like those fieldworkers who were drinking it as a rehydration lunchtime beverage before water is a safe alternative. And it took hold in the US because of its widespread use in manual labor employment agreements.

If you're sitting in air conditioning, don't drink a hot-weather, manual-labor beer, and then bitch that it's too light and watery!

Those beers taste the same as Bud/ Coors/ Miller but cost less.

The beer commercials that annoy me the most are for Coors current bottle and can gimmicks. Like the cans with the "vent" in the top of the can, apparently so you can pour that swill down your throat faster. It's a totally unnecessary gimmick, and the commercial is super annoying. Dude gets a call from his buddy, gets a concerned look on his face and tells his girlfriend (who I think might even be looking through a bridal magazine) "That was so and so, he really needs to vent." Girl's like "you should be there for him," thinking what a sensitive guy he is, but THE JOKE'S ON HER 'cause dudes are just gonna pound beers, which is now even easier thanks to the vented can! The message of the commercial seems to be that dudes love beer and girls are stupid.

Then there's their bottle gimmick, where the mountains on the label turn blue when the beer is cold. I mean, FINALLY! How did we make it to the twenty-first century before getting Freezy Freakie technology on beer bottle labels to tell us at a glance when our beers are cold? The worst one shows a dude at a bar getting a bottle of Coors with the appropriate blue mountains on the label, so he starts spreading the word to his buds - CODE BLUE! As they each get the message, they abandon what they're doing; whether it's getting a haircut, mowing the lawn, or some boring-old business meeting, it's important that they drop what they're doing because it's CODE BLUE! The beer is finally cold! The message of this commercial seems to be that guys love cold beer, and will drop anything to get it immediately, but some of them are too stupid to tell when a beer is cold without visual cues. Thanks, Coors!

@YouDidWhatNow?: Yeah.. everything is natural if you go down to the molecular level.

It's just amusing to me because they have all of these images of dancing carrots and other veggies. They're trying to pass off as healthy and I'm just not falling for it.

@YouDidWhatNow?: Yuengling is delicious.

@TinkishDelight: Bud is no longer an American beer. Anheuser is owned by the Belgian Beverage Conglomerate InBev. Nice try though.

Bud is a rice based beer.

Also, while I could care less about the drinkability ads, I do like that redhead who was in one of the early ones....

@ChuckECheese: That's what I thought...but...I was called a dork for liking the beer that I like...

@Quake 'n' Shake: it's like "doable" which generally comes after some "drinkable" beer.

@apd09:

...I don't see any possible way you could apparently have a taste for Yuengling *or* the piss-water beers like Bud Light or Coors Light.

Yuengling is a good, solid beer with a satisfying flavor. If you don't want to drink Old Peculiar, then fine...but I don't get how you're kind of equating Yuengling and the piss-waters.

@Smashville: that's the problem with SOME people who think "bud is for people who don't like beer"...they only like one kind of beer. hmmm, almost like they "don't like beer"

@Kimaroo - 20% More Kitty Added!:

...as opposed to what? Supernatural?

@sharkd: whooaa now, you leave PBR out of this! PBR, while cheaper, is much better than the other "frat boy specials"

oh and Miller High Life, if it's still made, is the worst non-ice beer of them all. at least the next day it is.

@CopyPaste: Wait...liking good beer makes me a dork?

But liking Red Dog/Killian's makes you manly?

@dwb: Agreed. In college, we used the term "drinkable" to describe cheap beers we were willing to consume. Not because they were great, the term was used as a synonym for "not terrible." Some of those "drinkable" beers included:
Genesee (Light, Ice, and regular), Milwaukee's Best, Busch and Goebel's.

@ElizabethD: Which is kind of funny because Miller Chill is their answer to a Mexican-style salted rim Corona with lime.

@aloria: I always kinda figured they got sued by G.I. Joe...

@JonThomasDesigns: I'm not a hoppy person. Give me a porter.

@sharkd: PBR is far better than Natty Light or the Beast.

I mean...it won a blue ribbon!

@Ayarkay: McDonald's: "Eatability" (certainly not "Digestibility")
Gap: "Wearability"

@dwb: Yes and if someone can explain the idea behind the XX "Stay thirsty, my friends" ads I'd appreciate it.

I would think they would want me to be not-thirsty after their beer. You know.. thirst quenching or something.

Maybe that's Gatorade.

@zombies.like.lattés.too:

Exactly. This crap, and Coors Light especially, can only appeal to people who actually don't like beer. Because they don't taste like beer. They taste like slightly fuzzy water. This crap should be banned...

Amstel Light is about the only light beer I've ever tasted that actually didn't taste like water.

@Ayarkay: Well McDonnalds is almost there.. They claim their food is "natural".. I laugh every time.

Second, most of my friends went back to regular beer for the taste. They got tired of diet beer. They'd rather have a few extra calories and enjoy their brew.

But to be honest, high end beers taste like ballsweat to me. I'd rather have the cheap, watered-down wee, or if I am feeling fancy, a Yuengling. If that makes you feel superior to me, then so be it.

"Light beer" makes "decaffeinated coffee" look legitimate by comparison.

Most beers are pisswater, but "light" beer looks and smells the same going in as it does coming out. It's probably the same stuff.

I don't care much for Bud Light, but the taste of a "nice extremely hoppy IPA" makes me cringe. And I'm an adult. I just don't like the taste.

@gStein: Yeah I just noticed. I got trigger happy because that's one of only two jokes I know. The other one is about a duck asking for his chapstick purchase to be put on his bill. *sigh*

@wgrune:

Wow, I guess I was right:

[en.wikipedia.org]

No joke.

@gStein:

Yes, they were. I seem to remember them switching to "Real Men of Genius" sometime after 9/11. It probably seemed inappropriate to compare the inventor of the foot-long hotdog to a first responder.

1. Bud Light's constant logo changes are more offensive than even Pepsi's. Non-light Bud has the same look as ever. Bud Light keeps trying to appeal to the casual weekend-warrior demos and women, and failing.

2. The taste. Bud Light has none. As microbrews, imports, and domestics like Sam Adams and even Amber Bock get people drinking beer with flavor, Bud Light goes down.

3. Annoying ad campaigns. They're infantile. Adults don't want farting horses or "Drinkability." They want a good-tasting beer they aren't ashamed of ordering. Sure, Bud Light has the 16-year-old demo nailed, but they lose everyone over the age of 25 forever.

@Scrutinizer: Haha, oh my stars, Bud Light Lime. And I thought there would never be a synthetic fruit flavor to rival the disgustitude of fake banana.

Bud Light did it.

@sharkd: or Natural Light?

the only thing worse is the frat boy special Coors Light.

@Christopher: Don't get me wrong, I can enjoy some beer-water when I'm floating around the pool and need to hydrate. But if I do, it's usually 'The Champagne of Beers.'

Were gonna see all these dorks sitting at their work desks talking about all the manly drinks they have.

When it comes down to it, a lot of times at a picnic or party you may want a beer but this is all they have. Its not always fantastic to have 7 killians for a long night of celebrating.

When it comes down to it if I had my choice between coors, miller, natural, mb, pbr, or bud, ill probably go for the bud. That being said I think drinkability is stupid and they need to back to the

REAL MEN OF GENIUS. MR ROLLING COOLER COOLER ROLLER!

I thought those were pretty good.

@JonThomasDesigns: Bud Light is what's offensive. Your comment is spot on.

How is American beer like having sex on a boat?

They're both fucking close to water.

Ba dum dump.

@tmed: Pretty F&!^ING close to water.

@zombies.like.lattés.too: I second that.

Well maybe its because they sold out and are no longer an American company. Honestly though, Bud Light is terrible, the only thing worse is the frat boy special Coors Light.

You know what else is drinkable? Water.

I want my beer to have some flavor, thank you.

Ad campaign is less annoying than the beer. Like making love in a canoe.