Light Beers - A Rip-Off?

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dlester

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I certainly like a light beer on a hot day. Yes, it's mostly water, high amount of carbonation and much less alcohol. However, it's refreshing to the tongue and seems to cool you down a bit.

If you brew your own beer like me, your probably making hoppy IPA's, ales and the sort. If your more advanced and brew lagers, or German beers as I do, then your certainly going to enjoy a wonderful refreshing beer. However, unless it is a lager, your brew has some buttery and butterscotch taste that takes away from the freshness a lager can provide. Or, a heavier malty or adjunct and caramel malt laden beer. This certainly has a difficult time comparing with a light beer, which is why many of us keep light beers in our fridge, right? As a disclaimer: Yes I know, your ale is as refreshing as a light beer - It's not worth arguing about. I'm not trying to compare the two, just trying to bring to light that many of us are light beer drinkers. Or, keep a few light beers in the fridge for the right mood, or when friends come over that will "only drink a bud/bud light."

The question is this: There is certainly much less grains and hops in a light beer, so why doesn't it cost less than a regular beer? The fact is; the large beer companies have figured how to give us less, charge more and make it cool by calling it "light," "lower calories" or "it won't weigh you down" etc. Wow, what a concept.

This is part of the American corporate culture. If you noticed, Oreos are smaller, hot dogs are smaller, packages at the grocery store are smaller along with smaller portions, some with the word "light," not because of lower fat or calories, but because it's smaller in size or portions, sometimes by half!

The fact is that we are all being misled at times by corporate giants, and sometimes the small guy. I'm not advocating any actions against corporate beer and food giants. However, I think it is important to bring to light their misbehavior.
 
I used to have this feeling when I used buy a craft brew... Do I want to spend $8 on a sixer of 5% pilsner or $8 for the 8% iipa.

Now that I homebrew its much different.

I read somewhere (could be urban legend) that Pringles adds fat their regular chips in order to make their "light" chips "lighter". Wouldn't surprise me.
 
In capitalism, the price of a product isn't tied directly to the cost of the components. Bud light cost the same as Bud because that is what people are willing to pay for their particular crap beer.

If you want to complain about the cost of beer compared to the cost of ingredients, then you really should be complaining about those $20 bombers not the $15 case.
 
It is that way because people don't think that much about it.

Skinnygirl vodka. $22 here in PA. 60 proof! That is 1/4 more water used to dilute it down, but it certainly doesn't cost 1/4 less.

Along the same lines is what I call jumping on the trend bandwagon - usually with food. Something beneficial (lets say XT) is in the news and the next thing you know it, product A now has a new label and is highlighting that it has XT in it, and the price goes up. More often than not, nothing was changed in the product, XT was there all along.

And some organic products are produced alongside other products that are not-labeled organic, but technically meet that standard, but the organic labeled once costs more. Just last week the butcher at a local grocery store said they only carried organic lamb now. He said, actually it is the same stuff they had been carrying, but now it has the green organic label and costs $2 more a pound - nothing had been changed - except the label and the price
 
The price of light beer is driven by supply and demand, just like everything else.

That said, even though commercially produced light beers may have less expensive ingredient costs, it doesn't surprise me that the prices for the finished products aren't terribly different.

The reason is that I imagine that the ingredient cost is rather small relative to the overall cost of the beer.

One needs to keep in mind all of the other costs associated with brewing that beer and getting it to the store for you to buy.

The cost of the labor of the people who make the beer? The same.

The cost of the equipment needed to make the beer? The same.

The building, land needed for the brewery? The same.

Glass bottles...

Freight, transportation costs to get the product to the store...

Here's a biggie for the commercial beer brewers, advertising!

When one looks at all of the costs associated with brewing/transporting/marketing commercial beers, from the first steps of purchasing the ingredients, through the brewery equipment, transported to your store and advertised, I would strongly suspect that ingredient costs make up a somewhat small percentage of that total.

Cheers!
 
Common misconception. They plump when you cook'em. That sort of technology didn't exist in old times. They had to sell them pre-plumped.

Something not right about using the word "technology" when referring to hot dogs. :p



Light beer is all MOST beer drinkers know.

Our local happy hour joint has a special on Monday; Every beer on tap is $2/pint! I go in and order the 8% Micro-IPA's and I'll look around and see 50-70% of other beer drinkers in there with BMC! Really? Even when BMC costs the same as a high end craft beer they will chose cheap beer!
 
Regardless of what ingredients are used to make the beer.
The same $10Mill brewhouse is brewing the beer, and needs to stay in buisness.

Overhead, payroll, and cost of ingredients all come into play
Do you now of any buissness that trys to sell a product without making a profit??

Would you rather the food companies keep the size of there products the same but jump the price for you to freak out on?
Its easier for a company to say "listen, well give you a little less product (wether you realize or not) and charge you the same!"
Its buisness and if you dont like it then mayb you should produce every single commerical product you buy...
THEN see how much it costs you to maintain, develop, and produce...
 
Would you rather the food companies keep the size of there products the same but jump the price for you to freak out on?
Its easier for a company to say "listen, well give you a little less product (wether you realize or not) and charge you the same!"

Truth. The cost of everything continues to rise and rising cost of food is making many people rethink their grocery list. If you can keep your product cost the same by slightly decreasing the volume or weight of said product most consumers won't even notice or care.
 
Or, keep a few light beers in the fridge for the right mood, or when friends come over that will "only drink a bud/bud light."

Man, you are way nicer than me. If somebody comes over and only drinks that then they can bring their own. :ban:
 

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