- Bottoms Up (RSS)E-mails: What’s wrong with yellow beer? Carbs in beer
By William Brand
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 12:17 pm in Uncategorized.
Hi William, I found your blog a few weeks ago, and I really think you offer a great mix of information, commentary, and personality.
I read a few other beer blogs and have determined that people that blog about beer hate “yellow beer” as you like to call it. I really enjoy Belgian beers, and even dragged my wife to Brussels for 3 days of beer heaven. I’m attaching a picture from 2005 when Belgian beers like Orval were just becoming popular in the U.S. The other beer is some Lambic -ype drink my wife had.
My question/comment is that my favorite types of beer are “yellow beers”. There are so many instances in your blog when you knock yellow beer for lack of flavor. Pilsners are my favorite types of beer and I think they have lots of complexity and distinguishable characteristics. Am I the only person in the great beer world who enjoys the subtleties of Tsingtao, to Augustiner, to even gasp Miller Lite? John
Hi John… a better description for what I’m talking about is “light lager.” It’s just that “yellow beer” is more pithy. Tthere are lots of yellow colored beers that I like. Probably, I should drop yellow beer and use light lager.
I’m agree with you on all the beers you mention until you reach Miller Lite. If I want to waste 90 calories, I’ll order a soda or a small cookie. I eschew beer of little taste. But then, can millions of American beer drinkers be wrong? No, they just have different tastes than I do.
Comments anyone? Should we drop the yellow term expletive and go with “light lager”?
Carbs and colories in beer
William: I got your name and e-mail from the web and it said you could answer questions on beverages. I was wondering if you could tell me which brands of beer or hard cider have the lowest carb content. I am on a low carb diet but would like to have a cider or beer once in a while.
Thank you for your help.
Joy Polifko
Hi Joy…Here’s a link to a good list.
One beer that’s somewhat low in carbs and calories and tastes ok is Sam Adams Light. About 120 calories, 9.7 grams of carbohydrates. Miller Lite, which tastes awful, has 96 calories, but just 3.2 grams of carbs in a 12-oz. bottle.
Oh yes: Anchor Small Beer… is around 75 calories and tastes much better than regular light beer. Can’t find the carbs, but it has to be a fairly low number. wb
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June 10th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
[...] My question/comment is that my favorite types of beer are “yellow beers”. There are so many instances in your blog when you knock yellow beer for lack of flavor. READ MORE.. [...]
June 10th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
That’s a pretty good list of calories in beer but I wish I’d find an even larger one, with regional brands of beer. Most of those beers aren’t available in my country, while most of the beers found in my country aren’t in that list
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June 10th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I lost 40 pounds on the beer diet. That is, all the beer I wanted to drink, but care not to eat refined sugar, starch, or excessive sweet fruits. I lived on meat, cheese, meat, green veggies, meat, and strong ale for a year. I went to the gym 5 times a week for an hour, and then headed to the pub afterwards as my reward. And a drink the 20g carbs type of pint, not the faiontly colored flavored water. I’m not saying it would work for everybody. It’s tough to turn down the pizza or doughnuts.
June 10th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I think “yellow” is fine. I like to think of a beautiful chalice of belgium beer as liquid gold, not yellow. So maybe gold is more appropriate for beers that actually have flavor.
Also the random Augustiner reference is surprising, it is only available in Bavaria, right?
June 10th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Yeah, I concede. No more dumping on yellow beer. From now on, only nationally distirbuted and advertised light lagers will draw my wrath. wb
June 10th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
To Easong…wow, a beer diet. I do everything you mention, except I realize I eat a lot of carbs, especially bread and cereal. I manage to keep my weight the same (160) by working out ferociously nearly every day. Wonder if I cut out the bread and cereal and pasta…Hmmm. Food for thought.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
To Calorii…. try http://beeradvocate.com. They have a lot of different beers. What country do you live in?
June 10th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
William: I read your blog every night while sipping a craft beer. I am totaly fine with the term “yellow beer”, has a certain feel to it. I don’t think people will be confused with a certain style of beer, i.e lager or pilsner. I do not recommend using light lager. It will be confused with pilsner, since I have seen pleople use them interchangeably. Thank you for all your updates and good material in your blog.
June 10th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Wow Abdulah, I’m gonna get a swelled head. I’ve been tending toward light lager, thats what the BudMillerCoors people think they’e making. I too, like yellow beer, because it’s so pithy. Picked it up hanging around homebrewers, who are a rowdy lot,.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:00 am
I like the term Stone has started using “Fizzy yellow beer.” I think it works.
As for Easong’s beer diet, I’ve also accomplished something similar. Granted I was quite large when I started, I’ve lost 120 lbs drinking all the beer I like, but cutting out unnecessary snacking, fried foods, and just making sure I ate reasonable portions, not the giant amounts of food typically served today. Cut out the stuff you don’t like too much, not the beer you love.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Wow Mario, that’s impressive; The drink beer, get thin diet.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
I think most people understand that yellow beer doesn’t refer to malty Reinheitsegebotten Pilseners and the like, but it obviously confused at least one person.
You could be over-accurate and use that most insulting epithet, light American-style lager. I prefer “piss beer”. Nobody misunderstands that term. For boring non-American light lagers (Heineken, Grolsch, etc.), “mineral water” works best.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Yeah piss-water and mineral water. Not too bad. Problem is I have to occasionally meet and talk to the actual brewers at A-B and Millers, never Coors — they don’t socialize, I guess. You know, they love their beer; they love our beer too. And for that matter, making a bland (that’s my code word for beer-of-little-taste) is damned hard.
No room for mistakes. But then, in a sense, that was true way back when. But today , the kits, the education, the feedback that even beginning homebrewers get, has ended the days of crappy, flawed homebrew. Most of it’s pretty damn good. I’ve had a number of homebrew light lagers recently, not a flaw in the batch. wb
June 12th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I’ve been in craft brewing for over 10 years both at the pub and plant levels. You’ve got the disorder that we call “cute little brewer” or “cute little homebrewer”. Once you have a craft beer, then everything else sucks. The truth of the matter is that beer is great, the best beer is the one closest to you. I saw a rich man refuse a beer that a poor man bought for him because it wasn’t “good enough”. Who’s the jerk? PBR goes great with mowing the lawn. The sound of a can is truly lovely. Try to enjoy yourselves, try to enjoy beer. Someone works hard to make it, don’t slag their work.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
If it makes you feel better, I don’t like mowing the lawn either.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Cute little craftbrewr or hombrewer,hmm. Oh what the hell, why not. Although I’m kind of old and whiskerly and far from cute. Personally, I hated the beer that was around when I was a kid. We had Coors, Hamms, Schlitz, Bud, Miller, Storz, Old Milwauikee, Mickey;s — and they all tasted like crap to me. Some were sour; some were dry like a turkish towel. I saw no point in drinking them other than to just get stoned.
Then one day, in the Navy, when I was 19, we were waiting in a line to see a flick in Wasbington=, D,C. on14th Street not far from the White House. The line was long and the older guys I was with saw this German restaurant. We ended up inside. It was very fancy. And the waiter who took our orders asked me, “And what beer would you like to drink sir?”
I was barely 19 and looked about 12. I choked,. Managing my best debonair Nebraska tone (that’s where I’m from) I said, “Well, what do you recommend?”
HJe brought me aWurzburger Amber in its proper glass, of course. I would have drunk it if it was swill. But it wasn’t. I took one sip and wnet to heaven. Literally. It was the best damn thing I;d ever tasted: Malty, mildly sweet with a complex finish that blew me away.
I realized that as Americans we had been raped and robbed. The yellow stuff we drank by the glass in our bars was basically tasteless: watery crap. Stoner stuff. I dsrank only German beer on the East Coast anbd when I went home to Nebraska, I took up homebrewing. There was no other choice.
So when ou say lawnmower beer is OK, I now understand, I’m older and wiser, and a hell of a lot more tolerant. But it’s not for me,. wb
I drank only
June 13th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I love the beer epiphany stories. Everyone has one. When I attended Siebel institute sensory class in Chicago, there were about 10 pub brewers and 1 guy from a Miller plant. The poor guy was absolutely blown away by all the beer we tried – couldn’t believe that beers were so varied, different and all wonderful in their own way. He was afraid that he’d been ‘ruined’ as a taster for them.
June 14th, 2008 at 3:56 am
heinkene….fuck that shit
PABST BLUE RIBBON!!!!