Why does American beer suck?
You might as well ask In fact, any country in the world with a sufficiently large brewer is guilty of brewing beer that is (ahem) less than it could be. In an effort to boost profit margins and still be acceptable to the broadest possible market, the mega-brewers have resorted to using cheaper adjuncts, like corn and rice, instead of all barley malt. The resulting less-sweet beer doesn’t need as much balancing bitterness, so they cut back on hops to save money and to make the end-product innocuous to the casual drinker. The change has been a gradual one, taking place in small increments over many years, so that most consumers would not notice the difference. These practices are followed up by huge, multi-media, marketing campaigns that attempt to sell brand image rather than beer flavor. American brewers take the biggest hit because they’re the best at this game. In addition, most people outside the U.S. only see the brews exported by the mega-brewers and judge the entire market by the
