Budweiser American Ale

Bottle on 09/27/2008, not even a screwtop bottle, surprising actually. Very clear copper amber body with a large creamy off-white head. Sweet, almost nutty aroma with some caramel and earthy hops. Sweet caramel flavor, a bit of a sugary edge, more nuttiness and dry earthy hops in the finish. Medium body with moderate carbonation.

Pours more of an amber ale color. There is some hop character here, and I really don’t mind drinking this at all.

This is a good beer for people who are moving up from a light beer. Amber color with white head nice amount of hops for what it is. i am glad they came out with this beer to help bring people to respecting better beers.

Honey colored pour. Small white head with good lacing. Floral aroma. Spicey, fruity front end with good hop punch in the end. Kind of wish the everyday Bud tasted like this. I’d drink this as a session beer and the price is right.

I was recently subjected to this Ale when a buddy of mine brought over a six pack. He built it up as the beer that made him stop drinking Miller and start drinking Budweiser. Overall, I was not very impressed with the beer. It pours a good head and has a nice caramel color to it but lacks total depth of flavor. In the end I would have to say that I am not going to be a Budweiser guy anytime soon...and that my friend is an idiot!

It has that regular skunky budweiser taste with a little light accent of different yeasts. I do find it ironic, however, that they make an ’American Ale’ only after the company is no longer solely American.

Nice looking pour of clear amber with a substantial creamy off white head. Aroma of light toffee, not much in the way of hop aroma noted, gentle soft bitterness without a lot of character does provide balance, and leaves a dry finish. Light to medium body and carbonation, with a clean palate. There’s nothing really objectionable about this beer, but there isn’t anything that is remarkable either. It’s just a middle of the road brew it’s a good stepping stone for a more flavored beer if you are used to drinking Bud light.

Well after two bottles of this at a bowling alley I figured it warranted a closer inspection. This pours into my 25cl tulip glass with a frothy, almost four-finger thick, light tan colored head. The head leave lots of lacing patterns on the sides of my glass and has a nicely textured, rocky appearance as it slowly subsides. The beer is quite clear and glitters like a ruby as it sits on my desk, when held up to the light it shows a deeply red stained, copper hue. The aroma that is noticeable as I pour this seems to be a mixture of juicy-fruit gum, butterscotch, and bubble gum. A closer inspection yields some caramelized malt, some toasty crystal malt and a sweet graininess towards the finish. The aroma is a bit weird somehow, I don’t think it is supposed to be served in something like a tulip glass where you can actually smell the beer quite well. From the bottle it seemed to have some muted crystal malt character and perhaps a hint of Cascade character; from the tulip glass though it has a bit too much crystal malt focus and the super-fruitiness seems a bit weird. A touch of grape-fruit like cascade is noticeable up front, but this is quickly muted by the crystal malt aromatics and then just crushed by the super-bubblegum fruit notes of the finish.

The taste is fairly dry at first, but then picks up some lightly caramelized crystal malt sweetness as well as some lightly toasted malt character that reminds me of biscuit notes and crackers. This finishes with a very faint, almost non-existent hop bitterness, perhaps a touch of pine-like hop character and a touch of biting carbonic character (the carbonation seems to provide more of the malt balance than does the hop character). Some of the super-fruit notes intrude upon the flavor, though not as much as in the aroma, and more of a sort of oral-nasal like influence on the flavor anyway. This actually has some body to it, though it remains pretty light and quaffable over all. The finish, especially as it warms has a mix of butterscotch and bubblegum notes to it.

Way more character than I was expecting from a Budweiser, this isn’t always a good thing though. I really think this beer was engineered to be drunk from the bottle, and then maybe from a shaker pint glass as well as being served at sub 40°F / 4.5°C temperatures. Served like it is just a bit too unbalance, I actually enjoyed this more at the bowling alley straight out of the bottle. I am quite surprised at the fruity fermentation notes that are in this beer, I would have figured that AB would have tried to tame the yeast a lot more than this. In all honesty though, for a beer from Budweiser, this is engineered to be visually perfect, I was quite surprised at the fluffy head and the staying power of said head. Definitely not a horrible beer, and it has a surprising amount of character, though I will admit that I thought this was going to be a better beer than it actually ended up being (they really need to clean up the fermentation for this beer).

Purchased: Plaza Liquors, Tucson AZ