Tasting Notes and Review of Budweiser by Anheuser-Busch

It's been four or five years since I had an Anheuser-Busch Budweiser. I remember it as having a strange, overwhelming flavor of indistinct wood. I was very turned off by they're famous "beechwood aging" and, except for these tastings, I could have well gone another five years without drinking it. I didn't drink it out of some deliberate boycott of AB products as is the case with so many beer snobs, it just always seemed to turn out that there was another beer available that I would rather drink.

Pros

Cons

Budweiser pours a very pale yellow, lighter than Pilsner. It is quite effervescent and forms a thick head during the pour. The head consists of fairly large bubbles and falls quickly. The nose is virtually nonexistent though some hunting yields the faintest of sweet malt character and just a touch of wood. The flavor was equally subtle. A bland sweetness lingers throughout though a wateriness is dominate. The watery character and effervescence produces a thin mouthfeel with a bit of a sting from the carbonation. The flavor finishes with a faint, lingering sweetness. From the pour through the finish I detected absolutely no hops. Also largely absent was that woody character that I remembered so distinctly. Seems AB changed the recipe over the last few years.

Given my clear memory of the wood and knowing that I was predisposed to disliking this particular beer, I went out and bought another bottle. The first tasting had been from from one of those red aluminum bottles that have been showing up lately. I deliberately sought out a glass bottle for the second tasting. The only single bottle I could find was a curious thing cast in the shape of a bowling pin. This second tasting yielded the same result although I did find the woody aroma noted above where I hadn't before.

Would you like to share your opinion of this beer? Check out the Anheuser-Busch Budweiser thread in the beer tastings section of the forum.