REVIEW 78: MILLER LITE

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA

BREWERY:  Miller Brewing Company

STYLE:  Light Lager

ABV:  4.17%

PURCHASE:  Draught (60-oz. pitcher), $8.00

SERVING:  Said pitcher, poured into chilled pint glass. Standard pour led to standard one-inch head, as did a slow pour. A fast pour roughly tripled it. Not much retention, in any case.

APPEARANCE:  One of the most transparent beers ever produced. Adjunct straw body with a sudsy white head that actually leaves okay, if inconsistent, lacing. Steady bubble action.

BOUQUET:  All the essential party beer ingredients are here: Water, seltzer, metal. Damp sponge essences round things out. In other words, it features the aroma of a metal surface freshly wiped with a sponge dampened with seltzer water. Perhaps a floral note or two or a half.

PALATE:  Do I have to? Light body--duh, it's a light beer. Standard carbonation. Unless it's ice cold, the mouthfeel is that of club soda that has been sitting out for a while. (Now I understand why people have taken to putting limes in these.) To its credit, it does possess some actual beer character, namely yeast, which enters the picture about halfway into each sip and takes over the rest of the way. Slightly grainy. It claims to be "triple hops brewed," but where the fuck are they? Yes, I just dropped an f-bomb.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  There was a time when I honestly thought Miller Lite was the best of the "Big Three" light beers--whatever that's worth. They're essentially the same, of course, but for some reason Miller seemed a fraction of a fraction of a notch above Bud and Coors. Perhaps its corporate restructuring at play, but it seems it's the other way around these days. 

I can think of four positives--more like "non-negatives"--with this one. 1) It's inexpensive. 2) It isn't skunky. 3) You can drink a ton of it. And 4) it's better than Ultra. To address each: 1) So fuckin' what; 2) whoop-dee-friggin'-doo; 3) great, but that only means you'll have to take a piss every five minutes; and 4) wow, it's better than a beer that doesn't taste like a real beer. Stop the fuckin' presses!

I have a theory: The higher the number of celebrity endorsements, the more mediocre the beer. But hey, it's less filling!




GRADE:  D-