This from an Associated Press story about the new wave of low calorie and, it might well be added, low taste beers flooding the market these days. Speaking about brews like MGD 64 and Select 55, which respectively have just 64 and 55 calories and 2.8 and 2.4 percent alcohol, Mindy Rotellini from St. Louis is quoted as saying, “I just have to drink more, and then it’s going to equal the amount of calories in a regular beer, so why not just drink a regular beer?”
Why indeed?
Further on in the story, referencing the difficulties the major breweries are facing trying to produce ultra-light beers that have actual taste, the story quotes Thomas Shellhammer, professor of fermentation science at Oregon State University, thusly:
“You start producing something that could taste very, very thin. That would be the challenge for the brewer, to produce something that still tastes like beer.”
Presumably Professor Shellhammer has little experience with British milds, like the positively delicious Black Cat from the Moorehouse Brewery in England, which was proclaimed Champion Beer of Britain in 2000 with an alcohol content of just 3.4 percent.
And finally, adding a note of sanity to the story, beer aficionado John LeMasney offers, “I’d rather spend 200 calories and get something I really enjoy.”
Amen.