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One Sunday, I took it upon myself to create a set of links I believe were worthy of discussion amongst those otherwise uninterested in a prominent sporting event that occurred that day.  Predictably, most of you decided it was better to discuss the sporting event anyway.  Which brought on this brief moment of inspiration, brought on by a silly commercial.

This prompted me to research what the big deal was.  While I provided an answer, the gentleman asking didn’t seem to appreciate it as such.

This is my review of Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale

Adjuncts are ingredient used in the wort to create an environment the yeast can easily metabolize.  Most people subscribe to the idea the German Reinheitsgebot created the perfect balance with the four allowed ingredients.  For good reason:  German beer is typically pretty good.  Adding an adjunct however, does not have to be a bad thing.

It is fashionable among homebrewers to dismiss adjuncts as unworthy ingredients in beer. They often cite the German “Reinheitsgebot,” a purity law promulgated in 1516 that allowed only the use of water, malted barley and hops. Yet adjuncts are viewed differently around the world. Köln and Brussels are both world-famous brewing centers. Although located within 165 miles of each other, the brewing philosophies of these cities are light years apart. While German brewers were restricted for centuries by the Reinheitsgebot, Belgian brewers have long obtained fermentables from a wide variety of sources. In fact, adjuncts play a role in some of the world’s great beer styles.

[…]

Adjuncts can be divided into two broad groups: kettle adjuncts and mashable adjuncts. Kettle adjuncts, like honey or candi sugar, contain fermentable sugar and are added to the kettle in the boil. Mashable adjuncts contain starch. This starch needs to be converted to sugar before it can be used by brewer’s yeast. These starchy adjuncts must be mashed, which means that enzymes degrade the starch to fermentable and unfermentable sugars and dextrins.

Most adjuncts — including rice, corn and kettle sugars — contain very little protein and they are reluctant to yield the protein they do have during mashing. So they also can be considered in terms of their ability to dilute the protein in a wort made from low-protein adjuncts and malted barley. All the protein in this wort comes from the barley, so adding a source of extract that carries no protein effectively dilutes the total protein in the wort. Protein in barley can cause haze. People generally prefer beers to be crystal clear and they expect that clarity to last for months. So by diluting protein with the proper amount of adjuncts, brewers can increase clarity and stave off the onset of chill haze.

In other words, there is probably a pretty good reason to use an adjunct.  Don’t dismiss a beer offhand just because it does not conform to the Reinheitsgebot.  A good example is The Samurai from Great Divide, which uses rice as its source of malt.  It’s been a few years since I had it while I was stationed in Colorado, but from what I remember it is actually quite good.

The adjuct in question however, is the use of corn syrup.  First, in my personal opinion, high fructose corn syrup is not necessarily any worse for you than any other sugar—in fact high fructose corn syrup is defined as a sugar that is half fructose and half glucose…this dissacaride is known as sucrose—which is a fancy name for table sugar.  The problem is most people eat a shit load of sugar, regardless of the type of sugar in question.

That said, the use of corn based sugar is not a new thing at all.  In fact many brewers in the United States began using it around World War II for a variety if reasons, but rationing was the rationale behind using it, and the reason why they continue to use it is obvious…people buy it!

When Miller & Coors first started using corn they used simple flaked corn which adds a wonderful perceivable sweet cornbread-like flavor while continuing to dry out the beer, like Batch 19. Anheuser-Busch wanted to stand out and try something lighter so they went with rice, which can have a slight diacetyl and acetaldehyde flavor but for the most part keeps the same ABV content but imparts, again, a dryness and lower color.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

“A-B’s new light beer or reformulated Budweiser sold like mad! A lighter more thirst quenching lager that people could drink all day made people go crazy for the stuff,” said Kelly. “With the success of AB’s beer Miller started making their beer lighter and the watering down war began its vicious battle until they both started using enzymes to lower the final gravity. [Then] the zombie war of calories took over bringing an end to caring about the best tasting beer and a beginning to MGD 64 and Bud 55.”

It’s not hard to see why corn doesn’t get much respect amongst the brewing community[…].

The fact several craft brewers use adjuncts, including corn, should be enough reason not to freak out over corn syrup in your beer.  This is just a marketing ploy designed to entice the faux-health nuts into buying Bud Light over Coors Light…if you don’t like it…don’t buy it.  I personally can’t stand either, which brings us back to the beer in question.

Dale’s Pale Ale is a standard American Pale Ale.  Oskar Blues has a wide enough distribution most people can find it on the same shelf as the dilly dilly beer in question but does so in a manner that I am under no delusion I am being healthy by drinking it.  Its cheap, it’s tasty, it does the job.  Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale:  3.5/5