Why isn't Budweiser in the Pale Lager - Rice Lager category?

Beer Talk
21

This.

I thought the idea for the lager style changes was to combine Pale Lager and Premium Lager into one style and leave it at that.

Now it’s just a mess. We have Pale Lager/Premium Lager, Pale Lager - North American Light/Adjunct and Pale Lager - Rice.

22

Agree especially because when it comes to so many macro lagers, we really do not have too much knowledge of what adjuncts they use. In addition, I am not sure how accurate our taste buds are in determining the adjunct in mostly tasteless and sometimes off tasting beers.

23

Yeah, this seems like a weird distinction to make…

New style additions need to balance:

  1. How are beers identified in the marketplace?
  2. Are differently marketed beers distinguishable?
  3. Are there any historical considerations to factor in?

I doubt anyone here could regularly distinguish a Pale Lager from a Rice Lager. (In contrast, I bet most of us could distinguish a Hazy IPA from a West Coast IPA.)

I feel the same way about distinguishing between “Pale Ale - American” and “Pale Ale - Australian/New Zealand.” I get that the breweries there market their Pale Ales that way, but having had a few examples, they really aren’t two distinguishable styles. If we’re worried about being inclusive in our naming conventions, who not just “Pale Ale - American/Australian/New Zealand” or something along those lines. Or hell, just “Pale Ale” and include all three in the style description.