REVIEW 148: O'DOUL'S

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA

BREWERY:  Anheuser-Busch

STYLE:  Low-Alcohol Beer

ABV:  Less than 0.5%

PURCHASE:  Case of 24 12-oz. bottles, $25.47

SERVING:  12-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. Pours like a light beer. Barely a half an inch of head with a normal pour, maybe 3/4" with a faster pour. Head retention is a joke.

APPEARANCE:  Looks like a light beer. Very pale, very clear straw color with a run-of-the-mill white head. Steady bubbling. Absolutely no lacing.

BOUQUET:  Surprisingly, this beer has some husk to it. A little grassy, too. Not much besides that, though.

PALATE:  Goes down like a light beer. It's mildly carbonated with a fairly thin body. Straight-ahead palate from start to swallow: Mainly seltzer. Not much actual beer character until the aftertaste, which is dry and grainy but seems to end on an ever-so-barely-there hoppy note, all while retaining a seltzer feel.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  I remember the original tagline for O'Doul's back in the day: "It's what beer drinkers drink when they're not drinking beer." I'm a beer drinker. When I'm not drinking beer, I drink . . . whiskey.

That said, it's truthfully better than A-B's worst, and on a par with your standard American light beer. I rank it accordingly.

Is it possible to get drunk on O'Doul's without bursting your bladder? Just curious.




GRADE:   D