Cook's Illustrated Magazine Reviews Light Ales

by Jim Leas

I'm always intrigued when non-beer publications review beers. The results are often surprising and sometimes quite humorous. For example, last June, Consumer Reports tasted beers and gave the best "regular beer" title to Old Milwaukee, a bargain-priced brew I drank (to excess I should note) while attending graduate school. It beat out Bud, Michelob, Miller, Coors and all their permutations.

Cook's Illustrated reviews "light ales" in its latest issue. Most microbrews were not included since they have limited distribution, or so Cook's claims. They ended up with 16 ales that met their criteria and pre-test screening. Here are the results.

Highly Recommended

• Sierra Nevada Pale Ale - Placed in top 5 by all tasters.
• Pete's Wicked Ale - A close second
• Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Pale Ale - not as complex as SN.

Recommended

• Morland Old Speckled Hen English Fine Ale - Dark and creamy, great body, good bitter flavor.
• Whitbread Traditional Pale Ale - they claimed this was "much closer to stout" but liked it.
• Samuel Adams Boston Ale - Rather sweet, malty brew.
• Red Hook Ballard Bitter India Pale Ale - Not strong, but full-bodied and good tasting.
• Ballantine India Pale Ale - An American classic still worth drinking.

Not Recommended

• Bass Ale - Tasters thought it had little or no flavor. This was the major surprise of the tasting. Cook's speculated as to why Bass got low marks. Did it suffer from the shipping time from England, or has Bass simply gone downhill?
• Anchor Liberty Ale - Tasters seemed confused by its flavors.
• Labatt 50 Canadian Ale - "Might as well be Budweiser."
• Molson Export Ale - "Has the cheapness of commercial beer."

In the Consumer Reports ale tasting last year, Sierra Nevada also scored quite highly, finishing second to Samuel Adams Boston Ale. Full Sail finished third with Liberty fourth. Pete's finished seventh of 17 brews and Bass was 10th.

The findings of the two studies were obviously not totally consistent, but in both Sierra Nevada was very highly regarded and Bass was disappointing. Also noteworthy is that the two most highly rated ales in the Cook's tasting were American!!

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