Corn Based Beer?

[MJL]

Can someone explain why Corn based beer is not marketed? Is it taste, tradition??

[Josh]

Maybe a little of both. Mostly, I think it has to do with how difficult corn is to ferment.

In Peru, there is a traditional fermented corn drink called chicha. If you visit a museum with a decent South American collection, chicha jars are fairly common artifacts. I have a friend who has spent a lot of time in the Andes and has sampled chicha numerous times and she has described it as "Naaaaaaasty". She did say that it seems to taste better when it has bugs floating in it.

[OscarV]

Probably because it would be bad beer.

If you want a beer with corn added to it to bland it down then get a Miller, Pabst, Busch etc.

But if you like your beer blanded down with rice try Budweiser or Coors.

[BrianBradford]

A corn based beer would probably add too many unwanted weird lingering flavors. I could only imagine a corn beer working as possibly a dark beer. Possibly a black lager?

[kickert]

I will add my uneducated guess to the mix... I would think a corn based beer would have too much of an oily mouthfeel.

[cowdery]

Governor Bradford made corn beer just a few years after the Mayflower landed, but before he was governor.

And ever since it has been the choice for when you absolutely, positively don't have any other grain you can use instead.

People experiment with it and I'm sure if anyone ever came up with a corn beer that tasted good they would market it. Corn has the advantage of being the cheapest cereal grain, which is why whiskey-makers use it.

A practical hang up is the fact that corn is the most difficult cereal grain to liquify. You have to cook if for a fairly long time at a fairly high temperature to get the starch to dissolve, whereas barley malt dissolves quickly and completely in warm water.

[TNbourbon]

Stick your finger in the fermenter during a Maker's Mark tour: corn beer, of a sort. It may be part of the reason they make bourbon.

[Grain Brain]

Oh, what a great question here. Why is it that bourbon, made primarily from corn, is so great whereas beer made from corn sucks so bad?

Seriously; corn beer sucks, it just does. Schaeffer, anyone? This was marketed as a corn beer, and it was terrible. Corn beer gives the absolute worst hangovers, and even makes for bad headaches while drinking it.

The best beers are barley based, but saying that, I'm not a huge fan of scotch whisky, which is made from barley. Kinda strange, ain't it?

Rye whiskey rocks IMO, and the few rye beers I've had (not many are commercially produced), I've enjoyed a great deal.

So I ask you, what is the best, all-around fermenting grain? RYE!! :yum:

Okay, okay - so I'm a rye whisky fiend. Seriously though, IMO, the best whiskeys are rye based, but even I have some self-conflict for the fact that while I do enjoy rye based beers, I prefer barley based ones. Why is that?

I think Cowdery's probably got it for the fact that you don't have to heat barley as aggressively to convert it to a fermentable sugar. This milder heat probably allows more of the natural properties in barley to remain intact and thus contributes to the more palatable qualities in barley based beer.

[boss302]

Can someone explain why Corn based beer is not marketed? Is it taste, tradition??

[jesskidden]

Seriously; corn beer sucks, it just does. Schaeffer, anyone? This was marketed as a corn beer, and it was terrible.

[cowdery]

Many people mistakenly believe the word "liquor" refers only to spirits. It actually refers to all alcoholic beverages, hence the term "liquor store," a store specializing in alcoholic beverages.

[Grain Brain]

Many people mistakenly believe the word "liquor" refers only to spirits. It actually refers to all alcoholic beverages, hence the term "liquor store," a store specializing in alcoholic beverages.

[OscarV]

Here in Texas

[jesskidden]

...off topic...

On the label of Bud Ice it says "Beer. Ale In Texas".

Is that because of the alcohol content which is above 5%?

Is it a tax thing?

Both.

Anything over 4% abw (so, just about 5% abv) must be labeled "ale" or "malt liquor" in Texas, where the state excise tax is more for the above 4% abw beers.

Texas ABC Definitions

Texas Excise Tax Rates

[jesskidden]

And as for Schaefer, as I was drinking it in the late 80s to early 90s, it was most certainly marketed as corn beer, shamelessly so and right on the package, regardless the barley to corn mashbill ratio. Now, maybe back in the 30s and 40s it was the bomb, but in the 80s... not so much.

I don't quite understand what you mean by a "corn beer" (to me, it implies a beer brewed without barley malt- which would be illegal in the US. Maybe it's just a semantic argument).

Was Schaefer a standard US style light lager beer that used corn (rather than rice) as it's adjunct? Sure, and the company always admitted as such. "Schaefer and most other brewers use cereal corn that has been dry milled and screened to a specific particle size distribution." from The Story of Quality - All About Schaefer Beer. Unlike some brewers, who's labels sometimes simply said "other grains" (in some cases, because they switched their adjuncts depending on market conditions) Schaefer did list "milled corn" on the label, as well as "finest barley malt".

They also often made slight digs at A-B's promotion of rice, such as "...you may even have hears the flat statement that rice is superior to all other starchy adjuncts. This story has persisted solely because one brewer has advertised that he has used only rice for years." IBID Certainly the F&M Schaefer Brewing Company was unusually proud of it's use of corn, even despite the fact that they did their own malting.

The same book refers to this elsewhere:

"We should stress that beer is a malt beverage, and that malt is an essential ingredient for brewing beer. No brewer could think of trying to do without it..."

After 1981, of course, Schaefer was simply an economy brand of Stroh Brewing Co. and I don't know how Stroh marketed Schaefer, and it's likely the adjunct rate, no doubt high to begin with near the end of it's independent life, was increased. It wasn't unusual, of course, for brewers to emphasis it's use of corn in advertising in the mid-West corn belt (Stroh expanded Schaefer's market to most of the US after they also bought Schlitz, and became a national brewer), just as A-B stresses it's use of rice from Arkansas and many brewers noted the locally grown barley in the upper Mid-West.

Now owned by Pabst, and brewed by Miller, the current Schaefer Beer website mentions only 6-row barley malt but it is obviously an adjunct lager, probably brewed with corn syrup now, as is typical for most of the Miller-brewed adjunct beers.

[macdeffe]

A lot of the "big" lagers here in Denmark is made on any cereal, including maize (corn)

I know for sure Ceres lager is, not sure about our big brands (which includes Carlsberg and Tuborg, which is probably the better known brands)

Ceres seems slightly rounder and sweeter, not sure the corn can be the cause of that. I reckon the hopping has effect as well

Steffen

[cowdery]

Although 'liquor' is commonly taken to mean 'distilled spirits,' The federal government refers to all alcoholic beverages as liquor and distinguishes the types of liquor as distilled spirits, malt beverages and wines.

[Josh]

Although 'liquor' is commonly taken to mean 'distilled spirits,' The federal government refers to all alcoholic beverages as liquor and distinguishes the types of liquor as distilled spirits, malt beverages and wines.

Not to mention oyster liquor, cocoa liquor, etc.

When the word entered English it meant any liquid. I've even read medieval English books in which the blood of Christ was referred to as "licour".

[cowdery]

Not to mention oyster liquor, cocoa liquor, etc.

When the word entered English it meant any liquid. I've even read medieval English books in which the blood of Christ was referred to as "licour".

If dictionaries are starting to define it as 'distilled spirits,' that's a reflection of recent usage changes.

Funny thing about language, if people use a word incorrectly often enough it becomes correct.

[Grain Brain]

Funny thing about language, if people use a word incorrectly often enough it becomes correct.

Is that referring to me? It should refer to the Texas and federal governments instead.

As a consumer, and a discerning one at that, I will stick with the technical, scientific terminology, and not improperly used legal jargon.

As an example and as previously stated, in Texas our laws state that any beer over 5% abv be labeled either as malt liquor or ale, but you won't catch any self respecting beer snob worth a damn ever calling a double bock an ale. It's a lager, a scientific term which the legislature doesn't even acknowledge.

The Texas legislature got the terminology they used in the law wrong, dead wrong. They took a scientific term and applied a new, conflicting usage to it. Technically, an ale is an ale regardless how much alcohol it contains, yet just because Texas states that an ale has to be over 5%, then it must be the proper usage of such terminology?

Sorry, but I don't think so. Since when do people around here, all of you fellow discerning drinkers, every last one of you, adhere to legal definitions over scientific ones?

As for liquor, so far as I can tell on the internet searches I've done, I can't even see where the federal govt. uses 'liquor' as a legal term at all. All I find in the legal documentation are references to 'alcohol', with the aforementioned distinctions of 'distilled spirits, wine and beer'.

Fine, the legal, federal term 'liquor' may include beer and wine, and may simply be synonymous to the legal term that I did find, 'alcohol', but you'll be hard pressed to find an establishment calling itself a 'liquor store' that doesn't sell distilled spirits.

Websters doesn't have it wrong, the lawmakers do.

[Josh]

I never though I would be defending Texas legislature online, but...

According to this website, in Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary, liquor is defined as:

"A liquid or fluid substance. [see Liquid.] Liquor is a word of general signification, extending to water, milk, blood, say, juice, &c.; but its most common application is to spirituous fluids, whether distilled or fermented, to decoctions, solutions, tinctures."

If any dictionary can be considered definitive, the Oxford English Dictionary is it. This is from the OED online, definition 3b.

"Liquid for drinking; beverage, drink. Now almost exclusively spec., a drink produced by fermentation or distillation. malt liquor, liquor brewed from malt; ale, beer, porter, etc. spirituous liquor, liquor produced by distillation; spirits. vinous liquor, liquor made from grapes; wine."

I agree that the ale thing is a very odd, if that is the Texas legislature's definition of an ale. But malt liquor seems to be a perfectly valid term that one could, if one wanted, use to refer to any grain-based alcoholic beverage.

[Grain Brain]

I'm down with the OED, and so I guess I'm just wrong.

But come on, let's quit splitting hairs here; I still say you won't find a 'liquor store' that doesn't sell distilled spirits. Who here wouldn't be surprised walking into 'Tom's Liquors' only to find beer and wine, or only water and milk for that matter?

Seriously.

[Josh]

I'm down with the OED, and so I guess I'm just wrong.

I still say you won't find a 'liquor store' that doesn't sell distilled spirits though.

But come on, let's quit splitting hairs here; who here wouldn't be surprised walking into 'Tom's Liquors' only to find beer and wine?

Seriously.

[OscarV]

I still say you won't find a 'liquor store' that doesn't sell distilled spirits though.

[Gillman]

Just to put a further spin, I met a man recently who used to be a distiller for rum and whisky distilleries. He would say to me, the mass market will never get a taste for "liquor", by this he meant brown spirits especially traditional ones made in a pot still or with that character. Gin and especially vodka was not liquor.

Gary