REVIEW 159: MICHELOB

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA (St. Louis)

BREWERY:  Anheuser-Busch

STYLE:  Pale Lager

ABV:  5.0%

PURCHASE:  Case of 24 12-oz. bottles, $25.99

SERVING:  12-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. A normal pour produced your typical head of not quite an inch, which disappeared fairly quickly. A fast pour didn't get much more, though it stuck around much longer even considering the "extra." Head retention isn't the calling card for any beer from Anheuser-Busch anyway.

APPEARANCE:  Golden, as opposed to straw, body, with the usual see-through quality. Your typical sudsy white head. Prominent bubbling. Almost no lacing.

BOUQUET:  Bready but with a faint hop note. Not much else. Except water.

PALATE:  Middle-of-the-road mouthfeel with quick-setting carbonation. Grainy for the most part, especially early on. A tease of hops creeps in toward the otherwise yeasty finish. Slight hop reemergence in the aftertaste. Strong alcohol character at the end--fusel, like a malt liquor--despite being an average 5% beer. Could almost pass for Colt 45 under the right conditions.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  Introduced by A-B co-founder Adolphus Busch in 1896 as a beer for "connoisseurs," Michelob really is a pale lager, as opposed to an adjunct lager; the malt proportion is "all-malt," with no rice, corn, or other adjuncts added. That's what distinguishes it from Budweiser. Perhaps that's why I always found it to be the best of the Anheuser-Busch lineup--whatever that's worth--at least until Shock Top came along.

You know what else distinguishes it from Budweiser--or, used to? The bottle. Who didn't love that bottle back in the day? They called it a "teardrop." I always thought of it as a lava lamp. I wish they'd bring it back. Now it's just like any other beer bottle out there. Another win for conformity.





GRADE:   C+