Black Crown

Everyone saw the Superbowl adds just like I did. I'm positive that everyone had the same thought... "That can't be any good... can it?" 

Budweiser is trying to get on board with more craft beer style beers. They have picked up people like Goose Island (for a whopping $38.8 million), while doing things internally to add more lines that appeal to today's beer drinker like Bud Light Platinum and now Black Crown. The thing Anheuser-Busch needs to realize is that you can't take the craft out of a craft beer and get the same result.

I will preface this with the fact that I'm a Miller guy when it comes to my beerpong, gameday, and raceday drinking in excess. I don't have any major problem with Bud, in fact I loved their tour out in STL (check it out if you haven't).

Black Crown was as expected a whopping disappointment. It is 6% abv with approximately 180 calories. It pours out a honey golden orange that is perfectly see through. The head is hardly noticeable but a light even white lacing sits on top of the beer right after the pour.

The beer smells like honey and caramel, very heavy on the sweetness. The taste mirrors the aroma. It has a strong honey flavor with serious hints of a caramel and toffee. There is a lot of upfront corn sweetness as well. I found it to be almost sticky sweet, and that's saying something because I love a nice Russian imperial stout. It lacks the typical crisp dryness of an American style Lager. There's absolutely no hop flavors in this brew. It has a long lasting sweet flavor with nothing to really cut it off other than a slight hint of alcoholic heat. There's not a lot of complexity, but the good thing is that makes it pretty unoffensive. 

This seems like what you would get if you took everything daring and innovative out of a craft beer. It's like this was brewed by committee to make sure that no one from any demographic was offended by any flavors or ingredients. It's better than most other Bud products, but this is not a craft beer. I am a bit embarrassed that I even got my hopes up.

I will drink a High Life over this any day of the week. I give it a 1.5