Light beers are the recently popular brews that are popular in a figure-conscious society. Essentially these are pale lager-styled beers with fewer calories. Like all other “diet products,” the objective is to maintain flavor while minimizing calories. This is achieved quite successfully by some brands, despite the implausibility of the proposition.
Many drink them as they truly believe that there is some “health benefit” in drinking a lower-calorie beverage. That they might avoid expanding that unjustly named excuse for a bloated gut. Some, even drink light beers as they appreciate the flavor and lightness.
First, let’s discuss how some light beers are made.
Many breweries add enzymes — usually derived from fungi — to aid in breaking down unfermentable dextrins that would normally be left in the finished beer. Tweaking mashing techniques, fermenting at high temperatures, and aiming for high original gravities (a measure of sugar in solution) are other methods often applied, in conjunction. To boot, the vast majority of mega-breweries also add adjuncts like rice and corn in their beers (cheaper than malt and produce highly fermentable yields). For instance, Budweiser is said to have 30% rice in it. If we wanted to drink sake, we’d break out the thimble-sized mugs and go to town on the real stuff!
Anyway, these dextrins are responsible for much of the malt flavor and aroma in the finished beer, however, in the case of light beer will get converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide by the yeast – which also uses energy/calories to convert. Light beer brewers want to break down these unfermentable carbohydrates as much as possible as they will contribute around 4 calories per gram. Okay …
Now you are left with alcohol and its calories (essentially malt liquor – a strong tasteless beer)! In fact, beer gets most of its calories from alcohol, around 7 calories per gram. So how do you think they get rid of all the calories from the alcohol? They don’t. Many light brewers, depending on the specific brewing method, will then dilute the beer with water to hit the desired gravity. End result = less calories.
Bottom line is that the vast majority of light beers have been watered down. While they contain only slightly less alcohol, the carbohydrates have been cut in some cases well beyond half. Unfortunately, they have also been stripped of their flavor, aroma, and body as a result. And, as the alcohol content is only slightly less, the overall calorie difference between a regular beer and its light beer counterpart … well, it is hardly worth worrying about.
As you can see Bud and Bud Light differ by only 33 calories. The average person can burn that off in about 30 minutes of sleep, or during a 10 min walk. Hell, by the time you are finished with this article … it’s gone baby!
So what is the benefit? Well here is the thing … there is none. Not really. It is all more or less a marketing mind-fuck. What you gain in way of less calories you lose in a major way with flavor, aroma, and body. True, carbs get converted to fat, but this only happens when your body converts carbohydrates into glucose (cell energy) and glycogen (its stored form in your liver and muscles) and runs out of use for, or room to store, it. The amount of carbs in beer is very small anyway and they are good carbs not derived from fat, and simple carbs that your body can break down quickly into energy.
