Caffeinated Beer Becomes a Reality 657
Cylar writes "CNN is reporting that Anheuser-Bush has developed a sweet, caffeinated beer they are dubbing B(E). Intended to compete with the trendy sweet concotions popular on the club scenes (such as Smirnoff Ice), it will contain caffeine, guarana, and ginseng." Not sure how I feel about ginseng in my brew, so I'll have to study this with a few cases.
New taste to acquire (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Whats next? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:College kids and yuppies (Score:3, Interesting)
2. I don't know a lot of girls that like beer. My wife can't stand the smell of most alcohol. She does kind of like these flavored beers/malted cocktails. On our honeymoon, I introduced her to iced tea a la Long Island.
3. Most college kids don't really do the wine thing. Once you learn to like wine, it can become a very expensive taste. Personally, I limit myself to the finest wines under $15, but if I'm going for the buzz I'll settle for a $4 Inglenook. I'm sure this price range will change once I make my first trillion.
4. I use Thunderbird. It beats the hell out of Outlook.
But is this *really* all that new? (Score:2, Interesting)
Amazing what artificial flavors can accomplish.
Although, yes, it's nice to see a big player pushing new product...
Personally, I'll stick with my scotch.
Mill Street Brewery (Score:2, Interesting)
Mill Street Brewery's Coffee Porter [millstreetbrewery.com]
Re:It's probably crap. (Score:2, Interesting)
B(E)? (Score:5, Interesting)
B(E)? The geek in me reads that as "B of E" and then turns that phonetically into BFE, a vulgar initialism for "bum f* egypt," meaning the middle of nowhere.
How do companies decide to call things by stupid unpronounceable names? Pentax *istD [google.com] Olympus m:robe [google.com]
Then you have the stupid names which are just too close to derogatory names. I'm not talking about creative stretches of normal words like "Back Orifice" or "Internet Exploder." I'm talking about nonsense turned into the nearest possible normal words. Olympus eVolt [google.com] sounds revolting.
Re:Not a new thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Coffee Porter (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was brewing (haven't dusted off the ol' brewpot in years) my signature beer was Double Jeopardy Espresso Stout. All the alcohol, twice the caffeine!
Start with an Oatmeal Stout recipe. Substitute a good dark roast coffee (medium grind) 1:1 for the oatmeal. Brew as normal. When adding the hops near then end of the boil, toss in a handful of No-Doz (or cheap generic substitute). I used about twenty 200mg tablets per 5-gallon batch. Ferment, bottle/keg, and drink. Cheers!
Red Bull Beer? (Score:2, Interesting)
So it's red bull beer?
On another note, will this create an entirely new type of addiction? Alcohol is already addictive, but caffeine has been proven to be addictive as well. This drink will effectively combine the addictive powers of 2 substances in one, creating a sort of uber addict. I mean, it's like combining slashdot and heroine.
This can be one sour stout... (Score:2, Interesting)
1.) When I brew beer (a recent hoby of mine), ph is highly important in the brewing process. The higher the acidity in the beer, the more likely the beer is to spoil. Example: put a Rolling Rock, a Bud, and a Buzzard Bay Ale in a warm room. First to go is the Buzzard. Second the Bud, and finally the Rock. Buzzard has a high ph level, bud medium, rock low.
Same with sweet beers (especially creamy stouts, where one adds lactose to the beer to make it "sweeter" since the yeast cannot ferment the lactose. But several types of bacteria can. Same problem exists with sweetened pasturized beers: minor contamination, the beer is gone.) Sweet beers, in my experiance, goes "skunk" a lot faster.
So all and all, I believe that this beer would probably spoil before someone gets the nerve to try it.
And for the asinine critics out there on my title for this post, I understand that this would most likly be a lager than stout, but poetic lisence counts for a lot...
Re:New taste to acquire (Score:3, Interesting)
Heres hopeing that the next generation still drinks beer!
Re:New taste to acquire (Score:3, Interesting)
Guess some marketing exec was watching old re-runs of the Drew Carey show...hahaha. Wonder if Oswald and Lewis are now on the board of directors?
Re:Americans and Beer (Score:4, Interesting)
The majority of beer drinkers here in the states want something weak and tasteless that they can knock back ASAP and reach for another, thus accellerating their progression towards getting totally pissed (or at least pleasantly buzzed). Or at least this is what my friends and roommates have infromed me after asking how the hell they stand to drink the tan water that passes for beer here.
Now granted, I can see the reasnong behind wanting a not-strong/overpowering beer perhaps with food...but my idea of that is Harp or Newcastle, not Bud piss -in-a-bottle Light
(Disclaimer: I'm a college student)
(Disclaimer 2: I drink imported, microbrew, or nothing)
Shot in the Dark? (Score:3, Interesting)
I still recommend my concoction to any beer loving coffee affectionado. Two shots of good espresso in a pint of stout. After a night of those, you get that perfect wide awake drunk going. If, of course, you can't handle a whole night of these, just one or two is enough to keep you strong until the sun comes up.
I thought the name was fitting because the night I decided to try it I was having a hard time deciding whether to make a cup of coffee or have a beer. It still sounds kind of stupid, though. Oh well.
Re:Americans and Beer (Score:4, Interesting)
US law prohibited small breweries before 1977. In 1977 that law was overturned (or repealed or something of that sort) and microbreweries and brewing in the home was permitted for the first time since pre-prohibition. That meant large breweries (the only ones allowed) had ~50 years to change US tastes to a cheap, bitter, rice-based wheat lager in a market they basically had a monopoly over (you had several choices from some core breweries, but they all were basically the same).
Microbreweries didn't take off until the mid-to-late 1980s and the reputation was their beers were bad - and to American US mass brewery tastes, they were right.
Most drinkers start in late high school or early college. Because those are generally lean times financially, the cheapest swill that does the job is chosen. That, of course, is usually the stuff put out by the largest breweries. Even after college, it's hard to turn down 2-for-1 taps for $1 when imports and microbrews go for $5 or more each at the same bar.
Incidentally, and ironically in a way, the custom-brewed beers (in my case, Leinenkeugel's Red) put out by major breweries were my gateway to imports and other quality beers (though I did have a Pete's Wicked Ale long before that, but nobody, including me, liked it). I also no longer like wheat lagers at all... ok, I admit there's a German wheat lager I like (it's like drinking bread), but that's it.
Re:Buzz Beer (Score:4, Interesting)
Ginseng, native to Asia and North America both is reputably also an aphrodesiac (and promote well being, yada, yada yada).
I found a great quote here [altnature.com] -
Don't take Ginseng and Ginseng mixtures with Coffee as it will accelerate the caffine effects on the body and can cause diarrhea.
So basically, they want you to get drunk, buzzing, and horny all at once. I would recommend against this one for most geeks, but you probably would match up well with someone drinking it
Re:Americans and Beer (Score:2, Interesting)
An interesting thing I've noticed in travels is that third world countries, no matter how screwed up everything else is, seem to be able to put out a national beer. I think the national brewery was about the only thing that actually worked well in Madagascar. Says something about humanity's priorities. If we were in some post-apocalyptic Mad Max kind of a future, you can bet the breweries would still be going. Not that this is a bad thing.
Re:This is a good first step! (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps you might care for a Nicotini [wordspy.com] instead?