On Thursdays, some Crimson White staffers and I have made a habit of going to Wilhagan’s to play trivia. It’s a pleasant way to spend the evening, and Wilhagan’s has a $2 “Beer of the Week” special that is almost always a delicious craft beer of some sort – except last Thursday, when it wasn’t.
When I ordered the Beer of the Week last Thursday, what was set before me was so patently offensive, so utterly opposite of accepted standards of good taste that only my coworker could sum it up best in a moment of clarity: “I’ve never had a beer make me angry before.”
A blue bottle sat before me, barely transparent. It belonged in a nightclub I’d never go to.
The sparse label read Bud Light Platinum. I heard about this beer earlier in the week from a couple of people on Twitter. I heard the whole point behind Platinum was its higher alcohol content. A high gravity light beer, I had been told. Displayed proudly under the neck label was “6.0% ALC./VOL.”
High gravity, this was not.
And all this was before I had even tasted it. Not failing to notice the twist-off cap, what occurred next was nothing short of an existential crisis.
Now, I’m no sommelier, but the best I can describe of the taste is that it left a lingering suspicion that Fruity Pebbles was used in the brewing process. Given Budweiser’s penchant for rice, this probably isn’t too far from the truth.
What is the point of this beer? Bud Light is a beer most commonly associated with binge drinking, so the theory goes that Platinum would be popular with this crowd because of its alcohol content. Except that, subjectively, this beer is disgusting; objectively, it’s so fruity I’m inclined to believe consuming too much would cause a sugar rush first, alcohol poisoning second.
Anheuser-Busch sells these things by the 12-pack. I don’t want to drink a Platinum, let alone many Platinums that would necessitate an entire case. And yet, when I brought up Bud Light Platinum to a fellow partygoer later that week, the person gushed over them.
The main sticking point was, as you can imagine, the higher alcohol content.
It reminds me of a girl I sat next to in high school physics. She drank green tea every day, but would only drink a specific brand because on its label it claimed to contain “AOX.” On further inspection, AOX turned out to be a fancy way of saying antioxidants – something that is present in all tea, green or otherwise. But in this girl’s mind, if AOX wasn’t on the label, it wasn’t in the drink.
Similarly, by putting Platinum’s alcohol content on such a prominent location and thumping its chest, Anheuser-Busch is doing the equivalent of the bottle of green tea. Six percent alcohol-by-volume isn’t high gravity, but by feeding a number to an audience who doesn’t know any better, I fear “Let’s get Bud Light Platinum so we get drunker” will be a common phrase in grocery stores and gas stations across the nation.
Confronted by the strange blue bottle at Wilhagan’s, I couldn’t help but get the impression that I was staring down the barrel of the next mindboggling twenty-something drinking scene fad, like five-dollar PBR tall boys and voluntary consumption of Miller High Life.
I wish I could wrap all this up neatly into a plea to be an intelligent consumer and not be fooled by marketing gimmicks, but you and I both know it wouldn’t matter. Bud Light Platinum will be a success. It will spawn more “high gravity light beers” from the other giant breweries, and we’ll all drown in a flood of ridiculous bottles and poor taste.
John Davis is the chief copy editor of the Crimson White. His column runs on Mondays.
