rcd@opus.UUCP (03/06/84)
Using figures for calories and alcohol content of beers, published in
Consumer Reports July '83 issue, I compared the "regular" and "light" beers
of several brewers and found that most of the calories "removed" are non-
alcoholic calories. That is, the percentage reduction in calories in going
from "regular" to "light" is much greater than the percentage reduction in
alcohol - on the average almost twice as much.
What this means to you, the consumer, is:
Light beer is less flavorful and has less body (as you know if
you've ever tried the stuff) - there's less of the expensive
flavor- and body- producing ingredients. This is probably fairly
obvious,
BUT ALSO
Light beer is designed to make it easier to get drunk before you
get full, because more of the calories (which give the filling-up
effect) are devoted to alcohol.
Consumer Reports seems not to have touched on this point, even though they
tried to take a look at the significance of alcohol.
In fact, as an aside <<mini-flame-on>>, the Consumer Reports "Beer"
articles were among the poorest-researched and written articles I've ever
seen (a) about beer or (b) in Consumer Reports. (Anyone else think so?)
<<flame off>>
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{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd