I saw this at the supermarket – and quite honestly, I felt I really needed to explore this again.
This goes back to the early 1970’s – I was a 7th grader over at my friend’s house. His Mom was one of those recently divorced working gals making it alone with her two kids and was a little too permissive I think. Yes, she bought us some Mickey’s wide mouths to get lit up with on the weekend.
All I can tell you about that dizzy, shaky, horrifying night was developing a new relationship with the garbage can in my buddy’s bedroom, which I filled repeatedly. One thing 7th graders don’t need in volume is “Fine Malt Liquor!”
So that’s the last Mickey’s I’ve had until today. My college years were spent vacillating between Hamm’s, Rainier or Schmidt Sport Packs – whatever was on sale down on the left end of the beer cooler – or Lowenbrau and Michelob when we had a few extra bucks and a bag of Ruffles and Mozzarella sticks. Living Large!
Now that I’ve had a few more to compare too, how do I rate this 5.6% malt beverage? Well for many years if you’d asked me the difference between beer and “Fine Malt Liquor,” I’m not sure that I could have told you – The drunkards, winos and bums down on the corner were drinking their malt liquor out of paper bags, so it must be a lot stronger than beer, whatever malt liquor is!
Fast forward to today. 5.6% beers seem tame considering some of the chugs I’ve had recently. What exactly constitutes “Fine Malt Liquor” then? Let’s look at the ingredients…. hmmm… Water, Barley Malt, Corn Syrup (Dextrose, Maltose), Yeast and Hop Extract. All things we use in beers, I think most of us have bumped the ABV with Dextrose, so no mystery here.
So by current thinking this would be another beer, I’m not seeing this being really any different than any of the other adjunct lagers we are currently drinking. Reel the old time machine back to 1973, and all the 4.4% ABV pale lagers would seem tame up against a mighty 5.6% ABV “Malt Liquor”. Today, it seems to me the term is ancient and archaic - and largely kept around for historical reasons.
How does it taste? Eh, a couple clicks heavier than a Miller or Budweiser but not all that different, slight amount of residual sweetness to my palate. It’s a slightly bigger beer than the ordinary BMC offerings, but not hugely so. In 1973 it was big. Today not so much. Enjoy!
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