During my hunt for the absolutely delicious Founders All Day IPA, I saw that Total Wine in Cherry Hill, NJ was selling singles of the Budweiser Black Crown. Since I was curious to see what this beer is all about, I decided to pick up a bottle as part of a mixed six pack.
Here’s what Budweiser has to say about their Black Crown:
Budweiser Black Crown is a new 6% ABV golden amber lager chosen by you, the people. Rooted in Budweiser’s rich heritage and authenticity, it delivers a smooth and distinct flavor you’ve come to expect from the King of Beers. Brewed with toasted caramel malt and a variety of American Hops, this drinkable golden amber lager is finished over beechwood chips for a smooth and distinctive flavor. Join the conversation now with #TasteIs.
Let’s find out if Budweiser brewed up something special…
- Appearance: Crystal clear amber color. Quite the noisy pour! All of that pop pop fizz fizz makes it sound like I’m filling my glass with seltzer. Zero head and zero lacing.
- Aroma: It even smells like seltzer! Actually, it smells like a Yuengling Spritzer. I guess it smells kinda malty and sweet, but that would be quite a stretch.
- Taste: Watery mouthfeel and light carbonation. Would it have killed them to add some hoppy bitterness? Talk about an unbalanced beer! All I’m getting from start to finish is bland malt. And the aftertaste reminds me of wet cardboard. Let me clarify. This is what I imagine cardboard would taste like if you let it steep in stagnant water for 7 days.
- ABV: 6.0%
McDonald’s hamburgers. Cheetohs. Kraft Mac and Cheese. Instant Ramen Noodles. Hamburger flavored Doritos. Many of us would classify these foods as craptastic, i.e. so so bad, yet so so good (especially late at night and with a bit of buzz going on). I wish this beer fell into the craptastic category. What we have here is a beer that is so bland and flavorless that I wish it were awful enough to be considered craptastic. Bud Black Crown bored me to tears and almost put me to sleep. I never thought I’d say this, but this beer is making me crave a Leinenkugel Summer Shandy. Now I just need to find a snack that will get this awful taste out of my mouth!
But wait! There’s more…
If you’d like to read a bit more about this beer, click the following links:
- “Proof that Budweiser REALLY Wants You to Love Black Crown” by Jim of the Beer & Whiskey Bros. blog
- “Budweiser Bares it All with Black Crown (or is it Black Clown?)” by The Alemonger
And just to be fair, here’s a Bud drinker’s opinion about the Budweiser Black Crown:
Categories: Brew Review, Budweiser
AMKrouse
The Alemonger
G-LO
limpd
The Wookie
The ROK
Sarah -BeautifulTangibleThings
The Astounding Prism
It's just the booze dancing... 
I can’t help but laugh at the fact these were sold in singles. Ironically, I’d imagine that’s exactly the kind of “craft beer” treatment Bud wants.
I tried a bottle of this last month and didn’t find it to be terribly different from normal Bud. Perhaps a bit maltier, as you point out.
Fittingly, when I tried Bud Light Platinum, it just reminded me of a sweetened version of Bud Light. Platinum has been huge, so I’m curious how Black Crown shakes out.
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Also, that video cracks me up in a sad way. The comments on the YouTube page are even better, including this gem:
“is this a good beer to go hard in? im hosting a party at our frat house friday and need some good hard beers. answer asap anyone thanks”
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🙂 what does that even mean?! “Bro it up hard style”
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Perhaps he likes to get all Bro-mantical with his Bros after chugging a 12 pack in 3 hours. Who are we to judge? As long as they’re happy.
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“is this a good beer to go hard in?”
Next up on obscure beer related sexual fetishes…
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Is there another episode of Thus Drank Zarathustra in the works perhaps?
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Actually I’m just trying to get a mate and local stand up comedian to help me out with the next one – we just need to get a point where our schedules don’t clash 🙂
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Sounds brilliant! I’ll keep an eye out for it.
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LOL! The Dude says he can drink a 12 pack in 3 hours. Maybe I should re-try this beer his way, i.e. keep’em ice cold and just chug’em. With all my “douching it up” with the photos, perhaps I let this brewski get a bit too warm because by the time I started drinking it, there was nothing crisp, clean, OR refreshing about this beer. As The Alemonger would say, this was a bona fide drain pour beer.
And another thing! This guy must LOVE to urinate, cause after three of these, that’s all I would be doing for the rest of the night. Makes my kidneys hurt just thinking about it!
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Where does wet cardboard fit into the beer flavor wheel? Somewhere between “husky” and “corn grits?”
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I believe it’s between “disappointment” and “regret.”
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Exactly!
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First, Thx for the Billy Mays shout-out. Hope you’re not charging your readers additional postage and handling for the 3-1 one links.
I didn’t pick up on the stagnant water notes – perhaps my sample was too cold. I’m conditioned to drink Big Beer at near liquid nitrogen temps because; otherwise, I might taste more than I’d like. Also, Coors says it has to be consumed at safe uber frost permafreeze crystalline silver bullet cold and I believe them.
About those hamburger flavored Doritos…. No cheese, right? 5 Guys or Hardees variety?
Cheers! Outrageous pics (as always)
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First, you’re quite welcome! Always good to read more than one review, especially when they are infinitely entertaining.
As I said in my reply to Bryan, I definitely let this beer get too warm. The flavor was so incredibly irritating that I don’t think I made it to the half way point before deciding to dump it. I will say this (and I think you did too in your un-review, cause you don’t write beer reviews), it did hide it’s alcohol content really well.
No cheese on those Doritos. From what I remember, they tasted JUST like a McDonald’s hamburger if it were served on a corn tortilla. An oddly compelling snack after a few whiskies.
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What is it about beer that you could pretty well guess is going to be crappy, that you just can’t pass up in the singles cooler. I wouldn’t have been able to resist a try as well. Oh, and I can’t wait to order a “Yuengling Spritzer” the next time I’m in my craft-beer bar just to see the looks I get.
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So did you buy that bottle??? Would love to get your take on it!
Also, let me know when you plan on ordering a “Yuengling Spritzer”. I want to be there with my camera to get a reaction shot as I sip on a 75 minute IPA for an hour or two!
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Ug. Oh yeah, I bought it. I’ll admit that I probably tolerated this “thing” way more than you as I have occasional moments when I slip down into the mass market black hole (but never with Bud). What I really had an issue with is that it’s one more tired attempt of AB to convince beer drinkers that they’ve hunkered down and come up with a beer that is “all that”, using words like “golden amber lager” (WTF?) and “toasted caramel malt flavor”, when it fact it’s just another offering that’s only a few steps away from Bud in overall flavor. And to wrap this all up with “we had six brewers competing, blah blah blah”. Hysterical.
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I think my biggest mistake was letting this beer come up to room temperature. I’m sure it would have tasted ok at near freezing. But that’s only because it would have numbed my palate.
And I’m with you on all of the marketing BS. They went to all that trouble to make some swill. WHy even waste your time with this nonsense?
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First of all, I find it hard to believe that anyone would long for a Summer Shandy. You obviously haven’t had one. Otherwise, you would appreciate the wet cardboard over the lemony, wet cardboard. Second, I must concur with Ed. How does one avoid the sirens’ call of the singles cooler? If someone gave you a Bud Black Crown, you would slap them. But, place it in the singles cooler and you just have to pick one up. Finally, I actually like McDonald’s hamburgers and the Cheeseburger Doritos were gone in no time. Craptastic, you say! I say crap-a-licious!
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I HAVE had the Summer Shandy, and it was awful. I believe I referred to it as Lemon Pledge in a bottle, but at least it had flavor. This one didn’t taste like anything (except for that wet cardboard thing). Also had me longing for an Indio, Tecate, or maybe even an AV Summer Solstice (the original wet cardboard beer!).
And yes, I will buy “just one” of just about anything to say I tried it. That being said, we need to pull together a crap beer double blind taste test of all those dreadful “lite” beers. Could be quite the learning experience.
As far as the McDonald’s burger and Dorito’s hamburger chips, I will happily eat them too (not my food of choice, but if they’re there…), hence the crap-tastic monicker. And how is Crap + Fantastic any different from Crap + Delicious? I think we said the same thing.
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On the money with this review! It’s unreal how they thought this would fly, there is absolutely no taste, and I’m pretty sure they classify it as an amber? Unreal.
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I typically find Amber lagers to be rather bland, but this was way way worse. Perhaps it would have tasted better with some food alongside it. I’d say better luck next time, but I doubt very much that I would ever drink this again.
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