Consumer Reports rates Shock Top as a ‘Best Buy’ among craft beers
Samuel Adams has fruity and malty notes but might also be too bitter for some. Shock Top, a CR Best Buy, has big malty flavors of molasses, caramel, and honey with relatively low bitterness and some sweetness.
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Breweries: Shock Top
How do oxymorons work
(1) Shock Top is not a craft beer by any stretch of the imagination, it is an imposter manufactured by macro-swill brewer Anheuser-Busch; (2) contending that Sam Adams (presumably Boston Lager) is too bitter reveals the utter ignorance and lack of any refined palate sported by these pathetic CR reporters; (3) this watered down wheat beer does not have “molasses” notes any more than Wonder Bread does. To the contrary, it is an unbalanced orange bomb that is too sweet, lacks any balancing noble hop character and is generally flat and bland. There is a reason it scores an 18 on ratebeer. The fact that CR rates this a “best buy” is nothing more than a comment on the ignorance of the dumb-dumb press.
Best buy is Sierra Nevada Torpedo.
What the fuck. Shock Top isn’t even a craft beer. The people at CR are morons.
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I hate to be stuck being the voice of reason here (It’s a lot more fun to make wacky off-the-wall comments), but people who are flabbergasted by this should probably keep in mind that Consumer Reports rates for the average human being, not just craft beer enthusiasts who are already into it enough to read a beer blog or post to a beer forum. Sure, they are rating craft beers, but relative to what their average reader might enjoy. If you pull random people off the street and gave them samples of different beers and had them vote, they might vote Shock Top the best, because if you pull 12 random people off the street, you’re likely getting a lot of people who are used to drinking regular old beers like Budweiser or Miller High Life or something, or who may not even regularly drink beer at all. If you don’t like beer that much, all that orange probably makes Shock Top more palatable. 😉 And, yes, some actual beer drinkers who drink adjunct lagers might find even Boston Lager a little too bitter because it is so different from what they are used to.
The other thing is, Consumer Reports is looking at overall value, which includes price as a criteria. Shock Top is less expensive than most lower tier craft options (At least in shops I’ve seen it in). That figures in as part of the evaluation. When they rate cars and toasters, their “best buy” (Remember the term “best buy”, not “best”) is probably sometimes a mid-tier vehicle that gets good great gas mileage and has better performance, safety values, and re-sale value than others in it’s price class, not necessarily the flashy sports car or the car with the most features and best performance, but a really high price tag.
I don’t agree with their choice either, but I think it is reasonable when you consider a) who they are rating for (the general public), b) what their criteria are (which include price), and c) that it is the best *buy* and not necessarily the best beer.
One report states ‘less bitter’ and ‘slightly sweet’…………..
Sounds like bud piss to me…….ALMOST
It appears from some news articles that it is “Shock Top Wheat IPA”. Not that it changes the comments above. For my own perverse reasons I’ve been trying to track down a bottle of that and haven’t had any luck here in Portland.