Concerning Light Beer

Beer is many things to many people. It makes sense, therefore, that we see beer in such a dizzying myriad of styles. Among these styles, arguably the most popular worldwide, is the American Light Lager. Born out of a post-prohibition fear of alcohol-heavy beers, and transformed over the years into a commodity designed to have the broadest possible appeal among consumers. "Broadest appeal" means "least offensive flavor with the greatest number of people".

People are finicky. Every person has a unique palate with unique tastes. What you may find delicious, another may find repulsive. Thus, "least offensive flavor" quickly becomes "least flavor". Marketing of the macro breweries will try and tell you otherwise, but these beers are nonetheless designed to be muted in any and all ways that could possible be perceived as the least bit displeasing by anyone, anywhere, ever.

A side effect of this muting of flavor is a lower caloric content than more flavorful beers. The natural direction to market them as "diet" beers. The diet beer craze peaked a few years ago with the release of Miller Genuine Draft 64 and Bud Select 55, with 64 and 55 calories, respectively. Now, your average Bud Light and Miller Lite are already so light in color, flavor, and body, it got me wondering just where that calorie reduction came from. With all the other caloric contributors to beer stripped down to nothing, the only thing left to take away is alcohol.

Alcohol is a chemical compound with known, immutable chemical properties. The ultralight beers are commercial products with a known number of calories and percentage alcohol. Thus, it is relatively trivial to figure out how much of that calorie reduction is simply from cutting the percent ABV.

Pure alcohol contains 7 calories per gram. Alcohol has a density of 0.789 g/cc. A 12 ounce bottle is 355 cc's. 7 * 0.789 * 355 = 1961. Multiply that number by the ABV, and you've got your calories from alcohol from a given 12 ounce beer.

Let's look at the Bud family.

Budweiser has 145 calories and 5% ABV. That's 98 alcohol calories, and 47 of what I'll call "flavor" calories. This is the baseline. Bud Light has 110 calories, a 35 calorie reduction and 4.2% ABV; 82 alcohol calories, 28 flavor calories. So, of that 35 calorie reduction, 16 came from cutting the alcohol back, the remainder lightening the flavor.

Bud Select is lighter still, at 99 calories but curiously, 4.3% alcohol; slightly higher than Bud Light. 84 alcohol calories, and a mere 15 flavor calories. Bud Select 55 contains the titular 55 calories and a mere 2.4% alcohol. 47 alcohol calories, and 8 from flavor. So, in cutting 44 calories from Bud Select, 37 came from the reduction in alcohol.

This is a lot of numbers to just throw out there, so let me try and sum it up. The calorie drop in an ultra light beer is primarily the result of lowering the alcohol content. You may as well just drink two normal beers.

This whole thing is just an exercise in curiosity anyway. You won't find me drinking any product of AB-InBev, or MillerCoors. If you do the same thing with a good beer, say, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (175 cal, 4.6% ABV), you get 90 alcohol calories and 85 flavor calories. Going for something a little heavier, Sam Adams Cream Stout (195 cal, 4.7% ABV) has 92 alcohol calories and 103 flavor.

Now, there's a lot in those extra calories. Sugars, proteins, enzymes, etc. They're not all going to contribute "flavor". But when you leave yourself just 8 calories, you can't do a whole lot. You can make up a Bud Select 55 "cocktail" by adding a third of a shot of vodka and half a teaspoon of sugar to a glass of water. It'll probably taste about the same, too.