REVIEW 168: MILWAUKEE'S BEST PREMIUM

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA

BREWERY:  Miller Brewing Co.

STYLE:  Adjunct Lager

ABV:  4.8%

PURCHASE:  Case of 30 12-oz. cans, $15.33

SERVING:  12-oz. can, poured into pint glass. Very, very heady with just a standard pour; took up 3/4 of the glass. Decent retention, too. It takes a very slow pour to produce an initial head of under two inches. 

APPEARANCE:  Whitest head I ever did see, I tell you what. Pale golden body reminiscent of beer commercials from the '80s. Minimal bubbling. Some lacing--more like a few random splotches. 

AROMA:  Fairly clean scent. Not skunky. Not off-putting at all. But there's almost nothing there. Some graininess. Maybe, just maybe, a hop or two fell into the vat during the brewing process. Know what I smell? WATER. After having used it to boil rice.

TASTE:  Lightly carbonated and THIN. One of the easiest beers to "pound." Agreeable enough taste; on the other hand, it has almost no "beer character" whatsoever. Somewhat yeasty finish; that's about it. Believe it or not, there seems to be a touch of lemon rind in the aftertaste. Could be the placebo effect at work, but I'm still downing these as I type this review, and I'm still noticing it. 

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  There's beer, and there's just beer-flavored water. As the latter, this really ain't bad. Maybe it's even "premium" as it says on the can! But as the former, it's mediocre.

But see, in this case, "mediocre" is actually a compliment. When I was in college, this, along with the two Nattys, made up what I called the "Frat Guy Triumvirate." In other words, they were the Big Three* among cheap beers designed to go down easy at parties, in order to get the opposite sex in the mood to do the same a couple hours later.

For several years, Milwaukee's Best was nicknamed the "Beast." Just thought I'd throw that out there.




GRADE:   D

*Busch arguably made it the Big Four.