Watery Commercial beer?

[AlanHarper]

Is it just me or does anyone else think that commercial beer tastes "watery" compared to home brew that has similar ABV? It's not the alcohol taste or the flavour of the malt but I have just had a Speckled Hen that tastes a lot "thinner" that a home brew of the same strength. Is it an indication that commercially they brew a much "thicker" and higher FG then they water it down to get the exciseable final strength?

 

[AlanHarper]

It seems that some do water things down at least they are accused of it... https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/budweiser-watered-down-beer-lawsuit/317949/

 

[simon12]

I think its more likely due to the amount of filtration. My 1st few all grain batches I didn't use irish moss so they were very cloudy but did taste thicker.

 

[simon12]

I think its generally known budwieser and some other beers do brew it stronger and then water down but theres nothing I have seen to suggest it makes any significant difference compared to adding the water before fermentation or even before the boil. Beer can legally be labelled and advertised to within 0.5% of the true ABV due to some old law that allows for differences in batches of malted barley so the bud case was thrown out of court. Another example of this is when Stella and a few other main brand lagers reduced the ABV for the UK market after a duty increase they changed the labeled ABV while Carling reduced it (and as far as I know still do) in the beer but not the label see https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...an-advertised-tribunal-tax-hmrc-a7914731.html

 

[Dutto]

The cause of "Watery Beer" is called "Profit".

It only cost's 0.153 of a penny for a litre of water so the more water they can sell as "beer" or "lager" the more profit they make!

Cynical? Moi? You bet!

 

[AdeDunn]

I had a pint of Guinness in a pub the other day that tasted like soapy water, literally, I probably don't need to mention which chain it was a part of... So yeah some commercial beers taste watery these days... My wife had their "Barmy" beer, and that was even worst, it may have seen a hop once, and tasted vaguely like it may have had a dash of malt in it at some point.... Barmy alright, barmy for forgetting ourselves and having beer in there rather than diet cola... lol

Tends to mainly be that one particular chain that's a problem for me though, that and beers from a certain aggressive animal with a black and white face... I had some delicious commercial beers from bottles last night, including a bottle of Guinness milk stout, and a bottle of Wells Sticky Toffee Pudding Ale.... They weren't at all watery. The bottle of Hoegaarden tasted a bit on the weak side though....