TOPIC:

[quote:1uwp0osg]Beer lovers across the United States have accused Anheuser- Busch of watering down its Budweiser, Michelob and other brands, in class-action suits seeking millions of dollars in damages.[/quote:1uwp0osg]

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="protzonbeer.co.uk/news/2013/02/27/drinke...er-watered-down-beer">protzonbeer.co.uk/news/2013/02/2 ... -down-beer


My first thought was "how could they tell it was watered down?" Turns out, it's a whistle-blower...

good move!

when i did a smithwicks tour they told me the us recpie for bud is blander than the one used over here if you can believe it <!-- s:shock: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_eek.gif" alt=":shock:" title="Shocked" /><!-- s:shock: -->

wonder what adding water will do to it

did anyone hear of makers mark burbon doning the same and saying that there drinkers wouldnt be able to tell the diffrence?

not good for publicty for either company.

Most brewers would cut the beer to target gravity prior to packaging. It makes commercial sense to do so.
Question is, have Bud cut so far that the beer is illegally low in alcohol?
I haven't seen a lot of evidence to suggest this is the case.
But then, some American law firms have got a stack of publicity out of the whole story, so that's good news. <!-- s:roll: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_rolleyes.gif" alt="" title="Rolling Eyes" /><!-- s:roll: -->
[url:31qcvytr]http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/I_Can't_Believe_It's_A_Law_Firm![/url:31qcvytr]

This isn't complicated. Test the beer, if it's significantly lower in alcohol than stated then they have been up to no good, the little scamps. If they can't find any lower than advertised alcohol beer then it's probably a disgruntled former employee shooting his mouth off, or misunderstanding how high gravity brewing and liquoring back works in industrial brewing.

It sounds like a pretty standard industry practice of "high gravity brewing". If the end product in the bottle indeed has the final advertised alcohol content then they really haven't done anything wrong.


High gravity brewing involves brewing AND fermenting a beer at up to 50% higher gravity than the beer will be sold at and then using very specially treated water and back-blending it at bottling to get to the normal final strength. They have to make some pretty significant changes to ensure that the final product tastes the same when moving from normal gravity practices to high gravity practices as the amount of fusol alcohols and esters will increase with the gravity if you don't do things like ferment under pressure.

To me it just sounds like some lower level plant operators observed the "watering down" practice and complained when they became disgruntled former employees without actually understanding what was happening. (Although I certainly wouldn't put it past the corporate InBev overloards to try and get away with a more nefarious practice.)


Even mid-sized craft breweries brew high gravity to maximize output capacity given the equipment size. (The Georgetown brewing company here advertises that they have an 80bbl brewhouse when in reality they have a 60 bbl brewhouse with an 80bbl capacity due to high gravity brewing techniques.) -Had a conversation with one of their brewers about 3 weeks ago.


Adam