Beer Buzz: What is an Adjunct and How is This Beer so Cheap?!

If you’re anything like us, you can’t afford to drink expensive beer all the time. Just because you can’t afford the most expensive beer all the time, it doesn’t mean you should have to drink terrible beer instead. In this article, we want to explain what brewers add to their beers to make them cheaper.

Have you ever wondered why some beers just don’t taste that great, or have very little taste at all? Well the cause isn’t your picky taste-buds; there actually is a difference in the ingredients they use. As you may know, the main ingredients of beer are water, malted barley, hops, and yeast. What you may not know is that many larger scale brewers supplement the malted barley with cheaper fermentable materials referred to as adjuncts. Usually the goal of adding adjuncts is to make the recipe cheaper and more stable, but adjuncts can have other uses. In general the use of adjuncts in the beer process will have one of three goals in mind: 1. to add flavour, 2. to supplement a beer characteristic, or 3. to save money. For many large brewers, this allows brewers to maximize their profits, while establishing a signature taste that beer drinkers can associate with their brand. Adjuncts are added to the wort partway through the brewing process to supplement the malted barley. Some examples of adjuncts in use today are: corn, rice, rye, wheat, unmalted barley, and oats.

Two of the most common adjuncts are rice and corn because they provide fermentable material at a cheaper price point than malted barley. Another reason to use rice and corn as adjuncts is that they contribute less dissolved protein to the beer than other adjuncts like barley and wheat. This means that their addition results in a more stable product (due to less dissolved protein) to achieve that signature (ie. constant) flavour associated with their brand of beer. Many large brewers strive for that “crisp/clean/smooth” taste (ie. weaker flavour) that the general population seems to enjoy. With this goal in mind it makes most sense to use rice or corn adjuncts since it allows them to achieve their desired alcohol content while avoiding a strong or bitter flavour. A fun fact to illustrate the use of adjuncts in beer is that Anheuser-Busch (maker of Budweiser and other big label beers) has been known to be the largest buyer of US rice (according to Wikipedia). The Budweiser label honestly states they use rice in their brewing process, as you can see in the picture accompanying this article.

As we mentioned above, not all adjuncts contribute negatively to the quality of beer. Goals 1 (to add flavour) and 2 (to supplement a beer characteristic) of adjuncts can contribute positively to beer. Adjuncts are commonly used by craft brewers to create unique flavours, increase head retention, or change the texture (mouthfeel) of their beers. Unmalted barley can be added as an adjunct to contribute a grainy flavour as well as increased head retention. A common example of a positive adjunct is pumpkin, which is used to create those pumpkin flavoured ales you can find in the fall season. Another example of adjuncts used to enhance a beer characteristic is using oats in Oatmeal Stouts to make them feel heavier in the mouth. This is due to the high amount of dissolved protein oats add when used as an adjunct.

Breweries in Canada that aren’t as honest as Budweiser often using tricky phrases like “starting with the best hops, barley, and water” to avoid mentioning their use of adjuncts. In order to write this article we searched for the ingredient lists of many popular Canadian beers. As it turns out, Health Canada makes an exception for beer and does not require its ingredients to be listed anywhere. The brewers (or at least their lobbyists) claim there would never be enough room on labels or cases to list the ingredients in their beer. The advertising campaigns of these big brand breweries would have you believe that their product only uses the best ingredients, and that they only brew beer in its purest form. If this was true, there would be plenty of room on their label for the four words: water, barley, hops, and yeast. In fact the Canadian government allows as many as 108 different ingredients in beer which makes for a very different story than the picture painted in your head by expensive advertising campaigns.

Since we had so much to say about adjuncts we don’t have any room to review a beer in this article. However, look forward to next term’s Beer Buzz articles – Eric will be returning to Ontario from co-op so we can have epic, non-Skype beer tasting sessions 🙂 As we always say, Fear No Beer (but be wary of corn or rice adjuncts)!!!