What is the best cheap beer?
Abstract: Evaluations of cheap beer for value and flavor are limited on the Internet. Often endorsements come from sites with corporate backers and rarely has a controlled experiment been performed to decide what is the best cheap beer. This post chronicles the results of a blind taste test of 13 brands of beer available in the Twin Cities area.
Experimental Setup: Thirteen varieties of cheap beer poured into plastic cups labeled A through M. Knowledge of the contents of each cup are kept secret and only known to the test proctor. Each volunteer is asked to rank the overall enjoyability of the beer by assigning each a value one through thirteen. There were nine volunteers in our sample, seven men and two women, all of which Midwesterners.
Primary Data: The scores (only cumulative scores are shown to protect the identity of volunteers):
| Brand Name | Cumulative Score |
| Busch | 94 |
| Ice House* | 86 |
| Bud Light | 78 |
| Milwaukee’s Best Ice | 77 |
| Coors Light | 77 |
| Pabst Blue Ribbon | 73 |
| Hamm’s | 72 |
| Miller Light | 72 |
| Miller High Life | 68 |
| Old Style | 64 |
| Black Label | 60 |
| Budwieser | 52 |
| Grain Belt Premium | 43 |
- Lower Scores are better
- * Bottled Beer (not a can!)
Analysis: The top three beers are Premium, Bud and Black Label. The bottom three were Busch, Ice House, Bud Light. One hypothesis was that light beer would fare worse then full flavor beer, which turned out to be true but not statistically significant.
Monday, November 20 8:35 pm
If someone wants a nice looking chart, send it too me, the chart I made with openoffice was so unattractive I opted to leave it out.
Monday, November 20 8:42 pm
I will be buying Black Label from now on, thank you…
And I am quite disappointed I had to miss this.
Monday, November 20 9:37 pm
I apparently ranked Black Label my number one selection. I was chastised severely by the test proctor who referred to me as “a very sick man” for making this choice.
I am pleasantly surprised that it charted out in the top three.
Either we don’t know what good beer tastes like…or we do!
Tuesday, November 21 10:10 am
I created a chart for any budding mgt types…
Tuesday, November 21 10:55 am
Apparently bottling doesn’t help Ice House.
Tuesday, November 21 12:00 pm
If I can find the time a numbers, I think a second graph, or line on the graph with the price of a 6 or 12 pack might be a nice touch.
I had a feeling Premium and Budweiser might reign supreme, but they also seem to be on the higher end of cheap beer prices.
I second Czech Air’s pledge to buy more Black Label. It seems like that may be the best Value. Those Canadians make some good beers.
Tuesday, November 21 12:15 pm
[...] Â http://eightandfive.com/2006/11/20/what-is-the-best-cheep-beer/ [...]
Tuesday, November 21 5:38 pm
Homebrewers do the same type of “sensory analysis” but with good beer.
For more info on beer judging, check out the BJCP. It’s tough work, beer judging, but someone’s gotta do it.
Leave a Comment