Trust me, I enjoy a well-made West Coast IPA, a craft lager, a barrel-aged stout, or a fruited sour beer as much as the next beer snoot. But sometimes, maybe when it’s really hot out or I’m just looking for something crushable, I love to crack open a classic light beer. You know the ones I mean: the kind available at every supermarket, grocery store, and bodega from Temecula to Tampa Bay.
These light lagers — from big, macro U.S. breweries — are known for their low-alcohol content (“sessionability,” in beer nerd parlance); crisp, light flavor; and refreshing, no-frills taste. These are beers designed for crushing, not for savoring, but even acknowledging that, there is a flavor profile there, even in the cheapest beers. And that’s why I’m here today, to find out which one has the best all-around flavor via the classic blind-taste test.
Today’s Lineup:
- Bud Light
- Coors Light
- Michelob Ultra
- Busch Light
- Amstel Light
- Miller Lite
- Natural Light
- Keystone Light
The Ranking
8) Keystone Light — Taste 2
ABV: 4.1%
Average Price: $11 for a fifteen-pack
The Beer:
You might have heard news months ago about the demise of Keystone. Luckily, the brand only dropped Keystone Ice and some other lesser versions. Keystone Light, with its nostalgic taste reminding drinkers of college parties with each sip, is alive and well. Available since 1989, this crisp, crushable, 4.1 percent ABV beer is still at your neighborhood grocery store.
Original Notes:
Yeasty, grainy, metallic, skunky, and sour. The nose on this beer really didn’t leave me craving a sip. But I dove in anyway and found a crisp, very watery, light beer with muted flavors of corn, bready malts, and maybe some rice sweetness but honestly not much else. Overall, this is a pretty terrible beer.
Bottom Line:
Honestly, I wasn’t surprised to see Keystone Light land in the last spot in these rankings. Even when I was in college, I remember thinking this was a fairly awful beer that I tried my best to stay away from.
7) Michelob Ultra — Taste 7
ABV: 4.2%
Average Price: $7.50 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Launched in 2002, this beer was created for athletes and healthy drinkers who want to drink a low carb, low-alcohol, low-calorie beer. Sometimes even marketed like it’s a sports drink, this 4.2 percent beer has only 95 calories per 12-ounce can or bottle. It’s known for its light, drinkable flavor, but I don’t suggest you chug one before going for a run.
Original Notes:
The nose is all sweet grains, corn, and slight citrus zest. But all of the aromas are fairly muted and hard to find. Sipping it revealed more sweet, malty corn sweetness and maybe a little lemon zest, but mostly it just tasted like fizzy water. If someone replaced this with lemon seltzer water, I probably wouldn’t even notice.
Bottom Line:
I’ve never understood the appeal of Michelob Ultra, so I’m not even a little bit surprised that it tastes just as bad as I imagined. Why drinkers don’t just buy something with slightly more calories, a lower price tag, and way more flavor I’ll never know.
6) Bud Light — Taste 4
ABV: 4.2%
Average Price: $7 for a six-pack
The Beer:
There’s no light beer more well known than Bud Light. You can’t watch a televised sporting event without seeing at least five Bud Light commercials. The 4.2 percent, lighter version of Budweiser is usually the cheapest beer at the bar, and for good reason.
Original Notes:
This beer doesn’t smell the way beer should smell. It’s sugary sweet on the nose with a ton of rice and sweet corn and nothing else. The flavor is more of the same with some sweet corny, rice-like, bready flavors with a little bit of caramel malts and a slightly skunky and artificial taste throughout. This is not a good beer.
Bottom Line:
I’ve had my fair share of Bud Lights over the years. It’s always cheap and available everywhere. But it is yellow, very fizzy, overly sugary-water and should be avoided if possible.
5) Amstel Light — Taste 5
ABV: 3.5%
Average Price: $9 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Amstel Light is a bit of a mystery to me. I’ve never purchased a six-pack or ordered it at a bar, but it seems like the only beer you can find at a golf course. Amstel and specifically Amstel Light have carved out a nice niche in the light beer world.
Original Notes:
This beer smells surprisingly sweet. There are notes of bread yeast, honey, a lightly-skunky aroma, and maybe some hops. The flavor is just as sweet as the nose with more honey, caramel malts, sweet corn, and more of that skunky flavor from earlier. There’s a slight hops presence, but not much. Not a great beer, but not a terrible one either.
Bottom Line:
I didn’t really have any expectations with Amstel Light as I couldn’t remember the last time I tried it. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t good either if that makes any sense.
4) Miller Lite — Taste 1
ABV: 4.2%
Average Price: $7 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Miller Lite’s whole existence (at least in terms of commercials) has been to convince drinkers that it’s “less filling and tastes great” and is a better option than other light beers.
Original Notes:
This beer smells like the kind of beer that you’ll crush without really tasting. There’s corn, some bread-like malts, maybe some honey, and not much else. The flavor is lightly corny, has some sweet grains, and sugary, syrup-like sweetness. Even with that said, it is what it is. It’s a refreshing, crushable, sweet beer that does its job.
Bottom Line:
Miller Lite is always one of the better-rated light beers on the market, so I wasn’t surprised to see it land on the lower half of the list. It wasn’t at all exciting, but it served its purpose.
3) Busch Light — Taste 8
ABV: 4.3%
Average Price: $6 for a six-pack of 16-ounce cans
The Beer:
You don’t have to “head for the mountains” to enjoy a Busch or Busch Light, but it would probably be a good idea to be really thirsty when you drink one. It’s 4.1 percent ABV, only 95 calories, and claims to have the same flavor as the original Busch. Although we can’t be certain that that beer has all that much flavor either.
Original Notes:
The nose is old hay, sweet corn, bread-like malts, grains, and that’s about it. But that’s to be expected in a light beer. The palate followed suit with more bread-like malts, a yeasty, almost skunky/funky flavor as well as corn sweetness. It had a nice malt presence, but overall, it’s fairly thin in the flavor department. It was, however, very crisp, refreshing, and went down very easy.
Bottom Line:
I didn’t have high hopes for Busch Light and it really surprised me. Not with its aroma or flavor per se, but with the fact that it went down easier than some of the other beers on this list.
2) Natural Light — Taste 6
ABV: 4.2%
Average Price: $5.50 for a six-pack of 16-ounce cans
The Beer:
If there is such a thing, Natural Light is the light beer for young drinkers. At least that’s absolutely how it’s marketed. The brand touts the beer as a well-balanced “American-style” light lager for college kids. Brewed since 1977, it’s a crushable 4.2 percent ABV and only 95 calories.
Original Notes:
The nose was surprisingly citrus-centric with some grapefruit as well as dry hay, grains, and the expected sweet corn syrup aroma. The flavor was slightly skunky with sweet corn, rice, bready malts, and some yeast. Like all light beers, the flavor isn’t over-the-top. But it is easy to drink and fairly well-balanced.
Bottom Line:
I’ve had Natural Light before, but I didn’t have any memory of what it tasted like. So I had no expectations for this beer. I definitely didn’t imagine it landing so high on this list. It’s more complex than some of the other beers (at least slightly), so here we are.
1) Coors Light — Taste 3
ABV: 4.2%
Average Price: $7 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Coors Light is advertised as “cold as the Rockies.” This 4.2 percent ABV light beer gets its flavor from being cold lagered below freezing. This is designed to give the beer a crisp, crushable, and easy-drinking flavor. It’s also cold filtered. Everything is cold with this beer. Definitely don’t drink it at room temperature.
Original Notes:
On the nose, I found sweet corn, grains, bready malts, wet hay, and maybe some honey. While the palate is expected from a light beer with a more adjunct-like corn flavor as well as grains and a slight mineral flavor, this beer is balanced with slightly floral hops and a nice malty backbone.
Bottom Line:
In a world of flavorless light beers, Coors Light stands above the rest if only barely. It’s crisp, thirst-quenching, and slightly more balanced and complex than the other watery, light beers on this list. And that’s just enough to edge out all the competition in this blind tasting.
