Anheuser-Busch seems determined to create any and all possible alcoholic beverages, and their operation sometimes boggles the mind of an ordinary drinker. I didn’t get involved with the efforts of A-B until I was a Mizzou freshman lo, those many years ago. I got to Columbia with a mass of World War II veterans, and they guzzled enough beer that bartenders tended to overlook a fresh-faced kid who talked funny.
I was familiar with the New York beers of the era – Piel’s, the light beer of Broadway fame; Rheingold, sponsor of an annual beauty contest; Schaefer, Trommer’s and others – but the St. Louis beers brought new flavors and rowdy laughter from out-of-towners over something called Griesedieck.
In those days, when St. Louis product also included Hyde Park, Falstaff, Stag and others, Anheuser-Busch made Budweiser. Now it makes so many products, of so many flavors, that it seems to be competing with itself at every turn.
I like beer that tastes like beer, on the hoppy side like many of the European lagers. I don’t like it sweet, or so loaded with alcohol that it burns the throat. I like some of the lighter beers made with wheat, like the Hefeweisen from Schlafly, and every once in a while, it seems right to relax over a rich, hearty dark beer, maybe a stout, or a porter.
But last week I was faced with a variety of beers, each served in a glass of a specific shape, from Champagne flutes to snifters and red wine glasses. I was reminded of a long-ago trip to Belgium, where beer is extremely popular. Each brewery has a glass of specific size and shape glass for its beer, usually with a trade mark or a logo, and it’s up to the publican to provide.
And an A-B salesman told me that glasses were to be a new marketing tool for beer. Fancy glasses that supposedly made the beer taste better. There’s something to that story, by the way. Riedel, an Austrian firm, makes beautiful, expensive wine glasses in a dazzling variety of shapes and styles. The Riedel folk claim that wine tastes different, and better, in glasses of different shape, that aromas are released better and are more enticing, that flavor has more roundness and a longer finish. I’ve found they are often right. Besides, the experience of drinking from an elegant glass with a thin, delicate stem can enhance the evening.
That’s one of the new marketing tools from the folks down on Pestalozzi Street. We had four beers at dinner (I’ll call them beer for the sake of the discussion and not for total accuracy. One was an energy drink, "B to the E," arriving in a 16-ounce can. It’s on the market here, a beverage bolstered with caffeine, and guarana, a tropical berry that contains caffeine and ginseng. Recommended to make the drinker able to leap tall buildings with a single bound. It was served with tuna carpaccio, but its flavor of blackberries and raspberries made it far too sweet for my palate.
I can’t swear to the energy effect, but I recently read of a survey that pointed out its drinkers often have so much energy they don’t realize they’re impaired.
Next up was something called "Wild Blue," a beer that is 8 percent alcohol and flavored with blueberries. My major problem with it is that it does not look like beer. It looks like old-fashioned sparkling Burgundy or the more recent Australian sparkling Shiraz, which have a definite red hue. Not as sweet as the B-to-the-E, it did have overtones of blueberry flavor, but did not match with a salad with a vinaigrette dressing. Actually, oil-and-vinegar dressings don’t go well with wine, either, though a light, crisp white with mineral overtones, like a Chenin Blanc or one of its Loire Valley associates can work with a dressing made in a lighter style.
Grolsch, a Dutch beer with a snap-on top now in the A-B family, has been around St. Louis for years. I like its European maltiness, bright flavor and good body. Unfortunately, the beer did not arrive on time, but the substitute, Michelob Amber Bock, was a pleasant match with a beef and veal roulade, with a prosciutto and spinach filling.
And then there was Spykes, which had been available for sampling during a pre-dinner cocktail hour, and which came to the tables for dessert, accompanied by Bare Knuckle Stout. It arrived in four different colors and flavors, packaged in small, delicate bottles – almost like perfume bottles – that hold about an ounce and a half. It’s not a beer; A-B describes it as a malt-based spirit with 12 percent alcohol (like wine).
Spykes are made in chocolate, melon, citrus and mango flavors, with an initial alcoholic sharpness in the latter three. The chocolate, which everyone seemed to like best, had a nice peppery back-taste, like Mexican chocolate or good mole sauce, and it also had added caffeine, ginseng and guarana. A splash in the creme brulee that was the dessert course went very nicely, and a splash in the stout was okay, but nothing special. Just more combined flavors. A-B notes, "It mixes well with beer, adding alcohol, caffeine and unique flavor. It can also be chilled and served as a shooter."
Spykes is not generally available in St. Louis, or almost anywhere else, for that matter. Right now, it’s in a test-market stage, available in that ultimately sophisticated city of Grand Rapids, Mich. Knowing A-B, all legalities in terms of licenses for higher-alcohol sales and distribution have been cleared for distributors and sellers. Drinkers have to be 21.
—Joe