There hasn't been a beer that resembled Adolphus Busch's pre-Prohibition recipes since well, Prohibition started. Today they are loaded with fillers, chemicals, unnatural materials to cut corners.
I think that this documentary is kind of insulting to the American people, because it says that we are all mindless morons who keep drinking a horrible product only because of repeated advertising.
So you have to ask yourself- why do people continue to buy Budweiser over and over again? Could it be that it is actually good for what it is, a basic beer?
Except that's IS exactly why people keep buying it. A few years ago they had that Daily Show guy Rob Riggle smugly telling people that it's easier to hide imperfections in darker, more cloudy beers, ignoring the fact that the reason why it's easier is because FLAVOR masks imperfections. The only thing they got right in those commercials was that lagers are harder to brew, especially ones with as little flavor as Bud - that's why they tell you to drink them ICE COLD because drinking fluids at that temperature masks virtually all flavor.
The beer scene has been dominated (and I mean large market share, not the ~5% craft beer share) by roughly 6 beers over the last 50 years.
-Schlitz (until they tinkered with their recipe and imploded in the late 70s they were the best selling beer for something along the lines of 20+ years)
-Budweiser
-Bud Light
-Miller Lite
-Coors Light
-Miller Genuine Draft
The reason why people keep buying them is because people simply don't know any better because outside some outliers in the Macro-world virtually all the options available to people up to about the last 5-10 years have been worse - malt liquor and the like.
And on top of that, yes - a big point of this film was that people AREN'T coming back for more. They're moving away from the big two beer companies (InBev and SABMiller) and buying more and more micro brews. And BMC's reaction? Make knock-off products that might not sell very well, but eliminate the competition's shelf space.
Sometimes people forget what the point of beer drinking is, and it's not to be some kind of connoisseur, discussing the subtle flavor hints and exotic ingredients of the product. IT IS TO GET INTOXICATED AND HAVE FUN. And Budweiser provides that experience, because it is easy enough to be drinkable. I do enjoy craft beers, but have you ever tried to get intoxicated with them?! Have you ever tried to slam a six pack of Samuel Adams? Holy crap it is so hard. They are all so chock full of stuff that your system can't handle the heaviness.
For many, the "intoxication" is a side-benefit of the beer - based on your statements in this thread I presume you're using "intoxicated" to mean fall-down drunk. Nearly every single person I associate with these days goes out, drinks a few brews over the period of a few hours and are perfectly fine to head to bed *without* being "intoxicated." Certainly people who drink wine (an alcoholic product) would be surprised to hear that the only reason that they are drinking is to get piss drunk.
To be perfectly honest, I've gone to a few people's houses and have gone to bed virtually sober because I get sick of what little "flavor" there is in the beer as well as the horrendous amount of injected carbonation before I get close to getting drunk.
The problem here is that no one should be "slamming" beer, whether it is relatively good stuff (Sam Adams) or garbage (BMC). I'd certainly offer up the suggestion to just cut out the middle man and drink hard liquor. That "stuff" that they are all so "chock full of" are natural ingredients, before unnatural filters and chemicals strip them out.
Personally, if people want to buy the product they can go ahead, but the argument you're making is more akin to telling people that "food is food" and that everyone who wants to eat some beer may as well all just eat at McDonalds instead of some authentic steakhouse.
"You've shown your quality sir. The very highest."
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