The Market for Beer

I never understood why public health fascists condemned tobacco companies for increasing nicotine levels in cigarettes. That was a smart public health move by the tobacco industry. More nicotine in each cigarette means less cigarettes you have to smoke to feed your fix, which means less damage to your health. Of course, the anti-tobacco folks used it as evidence of the industry's "evilness" in their successful effort to legally mug tobacco companies. I'm sure the neo-prohibitionists will do the same thing with the alcohol industry with the news that Anheuser-Busch has tinkered with its products over the past half-century to decrease the bitterness of its beers in a step that encourages consumers to drink more.

Efforts to improve the "drinkability" of brands like Budweiser and Bud Light have centered on bitterness because research shows that a beer drinker's palate will become "fatigued" as they consume brews with a more bitter taste. Anheuser-Busch tests the drinkability of its beers by giving free, unlimited beer to test subjects at bars, then driving them home.

Company chairman August Busch III defines the essence of drinkability as, "'I want the next beer!'"

I know what you're thinking. Budweiser is crap beer and bitter is actually good. You're right, and the American people are slowly waking up to this universal truth. Brewers like Anheuser-Busch have been losing market share to fuller-bodied import and "craft" beers.

"I think you're seeing an increased consumer acceptance that bitter is a positive characteristic in beer," said Keith Lemke, vice president of the Siebel Institute of Technology, a brewing education center.