Bud Light Golden Wheat - Anheuser-Busch, Saint Louis

I don't make a habit out of following Anheuser-Busch's press releases so Bud Light Golden Wheat was a bit of a surprise to me. My first thoughts were, "Oh, they're trying to cash in on the popularity of craft wheat beers by releasing one of their own." Then I got to thinking... craft beer drinkers aren't going to pass over their regionally brewed wheat in favor of the Bud Light version of a wheat beer unless it's absolutely stellar. Well, spoiler alert: it's not stellar, not even close. This beer is essentially just a Bud Light that was brewed with a pinch of orange rind and, allegedly, coriander. The body is cloudy but not quite as opaque as the wheats you've had before. It certainly looks a lot closer to a wheat than a Bud Light... but looks can certainly be deceiving. The flavor is about the same as I remember a regular Bud Light tasting only it hasn't had ALL of its flavor filtered out. There is a faint hint of citrus up front when you take a sip but it quickly dissipates and you're left with a bland, slightly bitter and wholly riced light beer.

I haven't drank enough Bud Light to be able to distinguish any other differences between this beer and the flagship Bud Light beer. What I have drank plenty of is craft wheat beers so I can tell you there are plenty of very big differences between the Bud Light Golden Wheat and a true wheat beer. Wheats have a cloudy or completely opaque body and have a creamy texture (if unfiltered, otherwise it'll be crisp) and a flavor profile that usually includes citrus and noticeable amounts of yeast. The Bud Light Golden Wheat bottle says it was brewed with citrus peels but you can hardly tell. The label also lists coriander as an ingredient, but again you can't taste it in the beer.

As a wheat beer, Bud Light Golden Wheat fails to deliver on a number of levels. As a Bud Light the Golden Wheat delivers a little more flavor and a deceptively cloudy pseudo-wheat body. But maybe that's the point... Maybe InBev/Anheuser-Busch weren't trying to make a craft wheat, but were just creating yet another Bud Light variant to further saturate the market. Like I said before, this beer won't take any market share away from craft brewers because it simply can't compete with the taste of a craft brewed wheat. What this beer will do however is lock down any market share Bud Light has by giving their drinkers a slightly more flavorful wheat alternative. Now those drinkers who decide to try a wheat beer won't have to stray too far from the Bud Light stable...

In the end, this beer wasn't something I enjoyed drinking. I didn't enjoy the flavor of this beer and I can't recommend anyone spend their money on it.