You know, the ones with the smarmy, hyperactive pitchman prancing around and touting bizarre product mashups that are “tailgate tested, tailgate approved!” to a fake but captivated studio audience.
Now, the most recent spot, for the “Speakerbox,” is flat compared with the awesome first two featuring the “Grooler” and “Foozie.” And The Brew Guru fully understands that a probably small but significant part of the audience is not in on the joke, and others shrug them off as annoying. But therein lies their beauty: You have to respect the agency behind the campaign for pitching it and the brewing giant with its name on it for embracing an approach so simultaneously bitingly satirical and off the wall. Sure beats another doofus roommate gag or a “Transformers” tie-in.
When a funny-looking guy holds a footlong hot dog up to the side of his head and says “Ring ring, ring ring! It’s the future!” you’ve really tapped into the Bud Light-buying public.
Today’s brew: Bud Light Golden Wheat.Style: Wheat ale.
Brewed by: Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis.
Availability: Ubiquitous. You don’t spend $30 million on marketing unless your product is easy to find.
What it’s like: It’s not the same style, but think a New Glarus Spotted Cow with about half the taste.
In the glass: Wheat beers can be so fascinating: delicate, subtle and complex, with layers of fruit and spice flavors sprouting from grains, wild yeasts and exotic additives like grains of paradise and coriander. It should surprise no one that something in a bottle labeled Bud Light fails to execute “subtle,” “delicate” and “complex.” Golden Wheat predictably takes the most obvious characteristics of the style – the funk, the citrus, the spice and even the hazy appearance – turns down the volume on them, and drapes them over a beer “with the personality of Bud Light.” (That last is straight from a press release, tongue not at all in cheek.) That personality, of course, is no personality. It’s bland, watery and – as long as you just want to drink your beer and not necessarily taste it – unobjectionable.
Backwash: Is Golden Wheat better than Bud Light? Yes. Does it even approach the quality of the craft brewery wheats that have driven a 300 percent growth in wheat beers since 2003? No. This is a defensive beer by A-B, one made to tap into that growth and allow brand loyalists to experiment with craft styles in their comfort zone, without jumping off the mothership. In that sense, Anheuser-Busch has a winner on its hands. From a beer enthusiast’s perspective ... well, just sit back and enjoy the commercials.
1½ mugs (out of four)
