BeerDorks.com: Reviews, Commentary and Opinions on Midwest Craft Beer and Microbreweries

 
March 27, 2013

Beer Diary:

Offensively Non-offensive

Industrial beer and food aren’t made for flavor, but for maximizing shelf life and sales.
by Rings

Rings is an equal opportunity imbiber. He can also be found sampling his way across multiple continents, or wasting time at TheFatty.com and KentBaseBall.com. Prost!
Contact Rings»
This little article touched a nerve over the weekend …

Basically, it’s making fun of McDonald’s for launching a new crappy tortilla, and causing a ruckus in the fast food world that will literally capture millions of new customers. This stuff happens all the time in the world of “big” food. Chef Boyardee, Swanson’s TV Dinners, Pizza Hut, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, etc. You get the idea.

The funny thing is, for the vast majority of people, they fully realize the above mentioned brands (and many, many others) are not exactly the “best” example of each food. Most people prefer a backyard grilled homemade hamburger to that served at the Golden Arches. Most people realize that grandma’s spaghetti recipe was far superior to anything found in a can of SpaghettiOs. Everyone knows that the chicken found in the frozen box by Banquet will never be as good as the stove top chicken fried in cast iron by your Aunt Mable from Alabama. You may even like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese … but you probably also realize it isn’t exactly a high quality product, much less real cheese.

Fact is, these industrial foods have had the “food” processed right out of them They’re made to be non-offensive to anyone who eats them so that they may appeal to the widest possible audience. None of them are made to be the “best” example of their product. They’re pasteurized, processed and preserved for shelf-life and maximum sales, not maximum or even marginal flavors.

So why is it that industrial beer still controls 90 percent of the American market? How is it that many people still think macro beer is the “best” example of the product?

Industrial beer is made to be non-offensive, just like the other examples mentioned above. It is NOT “triple hopped,” “beechwood aged” or even the generic example with the “most taste,” despite Madison Avenue’s proclamation. It IS an industrial product. Treat it that way.



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