She blinded me

It's my last post for a while!

Booo.

But that means Ryan will be blogging again soon!

Yeah!

But that means you won't be getting a female perspective anymore.

Booo.

But you'll get to see Ryan's numbers tomorrow!

Yeah!

Ok, enough! So, last night I took it upon myself to do some scientific discoveries for the blog. And by that I mean I went to the bar and had some beers and then stopped at the bodega on the way home to buy a six-pack.

Side note: Six-packs in NY are awesome. I grew up in PA, a state where you could only buy beer by the CASE unless it was from a bar (and then it was like $16 a six-pack and only of Coors or St. Paulie's Girl). (Side note's side note: Apparently Wegman's Grocery Store is now allowed to sell six-packs and individual bottles in PA and I have no idea how they - and only they - get away with it). Not only are six-packs in NY awesome because, you know, they EXIST, but also because you can make your own six-pack! And that's exactly what I did.

So, I go into the bodega, walk past the obligatory cat, and pick up an empty six-pack holder. I had already had two Founder's Lagers so I didn't want anything that was too heavy or kick-in-the-mouth-worthy. I grab a Magic Hat #9, a Magic Hat Wacko, A Troeg's Sunshine Pils, Saranac Summer Ale, a Bud Light Golden Wheat, and a Select 55.

NOW! I know you think that two of those beers are not like the others. And you'd be right! I picked up those last two beers for scientific purposes only. Unfortunately, I haven't had the Bud Light Golden Wheat yet, so my findings will be saved for another time. I do want to speak on the concept of this beer briefly.

Basically, I think there are four types of people when it comes to beer:

1 - Beer Snobs (will ONLY drink beers they feel are "good" enough for them)

2 - Beer Enthusiasts (generally only drink beers they think are "good" and try to not spend actual money on macrobrews or "bad" beers, but will certainly have a Bud at a baseball game if that's what they've got)

3 - Beer Drinkers (but nothing more. These people drink beer but don't care what it tastes like, how it's made, or what type of further variety is out there)

4 - Beer Non-drinkers (people who refuse to drink beer either because they (a) hate the taste of beer, (b) are too classy of ladies to drink something as manly as beer, or (c) don't drink at all.

For those curious, I put myself as a solid #2.

Ok, now that that's out of the way, I think that this Bud Light Golden Wheat (which I will call BLGW now since the name is so long) beer is interesting. Because sometimes you meet people who are 3's on the list, but think that people who are 2's are interesting. (Like if we go out with 3's, sometimes they order beers to try to fit in or expand their horizons that they would not have ordered had we not been there.) So they order something that isn't a Bud Light or Miller High Life -- but they're a little bit of a chicken. Stella gets thrown in there sometimes, as does the very popular with upper 3's - Blue Moon. Clearly this BLGW is trying to get people who are comfortable with Buds and Millers and Coors to order something more classy. That when it's poured from the tap at a bar, it doesn't look like the thin piss-water of the others and may impress some people. Yet! It's safe for them to try and order because they know Bud and they understand words like "Golden Wheat" better than "Hefeweizen".

Ok, so on to the beer I actually drank for scientific purposes! The Bud Select 55 was created to directly compete with Miller's MGD 64. This MGD 64 is a beer with a 2.8% abv (half the ABV of a "normal" beer) and 64 calories. The new(er) Bud Select 55 has a 2.4% abv and 55 calories.

Now, let's notice that BOTH numbers go down. Literally, they are just adding more of one of beer's four essential ingredients: Water.

I bought this beer for $1.50 within my six-pack. All beers at the bodega were between $1.25 and $2.50. This puts this beer within the normal range of beer prices. Yet this beer is simply a normal beer with more water put into it. I paid beer prices for water. This article sums up the ridiculousness of this "Light Beer Arms Race" quite nicely.

What is the funniest part, I think, is that a regular Budweiser Select has only 99 calories with an ABV of 5%! This means that to feel the same level of relaxation, buzz, or drunkenness, you would have to literally drink more than TWO Bud Select 55's to get the same amount of alcohol from one Budweiser Select, yet that means you had 11 more calories than just drinking ONE regular Budweiser Select!

People. Let's think here. While Ryan did show us that beer is more hydrating after exercise than water, this is pushing it a bit too far. Either you want a beer because you want it to taste good (clearly you don't if you are having this debate) or to feel relaxed/buzzed/drunk, in which case you will consume MORE calories having the Bud Select 55.

So....SCIENCE!