Must Low-Carb Also Mean Low-Taste? From Latrobe, the Answer is "Yes."
Written: Jan 29 '04 (Updated Jan 29 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: crisp and clean
Cons: essentially tasteless
The Bottom Line: Who needs Rock Green Light when you can buy club soda for 99 cents per 2-liter bottle? And club soda has zero carbs!
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| scmrak's Full Review: Rolling Rock Light |
You know those baby pools offices have when one of your co-workers is pregnant - plunk down a fin (or maybe a sawbuck) and pick a date, closest one to delivery splits the pot with the new mom? Well, I'm starting my own pool: when will some biotech company come out with a genetically-modified low-carb carbohydrate...
Everything's low-carb these days: if the good Dr. Atkins were alive, he'd be diving into his money bins like Scrooge McDuck in the comic book, I tell ya. You can't walk into a restaurant today without finding a low-carb menu: witness Subway, Schlotzsky's, and TGI Friday's, not to mention KFC's ill-conceived low-carb chicken ad campaign. So, of course, brewers had to jump on the diet bandwagon, too. First came Michelob Ultra, and the second national brewer to climb on board was Latrobe. The people who bring you domestic beer in green bottles dumped their Rolling Rock Light brand last summer in favor of Rock Green Light, a low-carb offering that goes head-to-head with Mich Ultra (at least statistically). For those of you who care only about the numbers, here's the tale of the tape, per 12-oz serving:
Calories: 91 -- Carbohydrates: 2.6g
Yep, a mere 2.6 grams of them there evil carbs still lurk every bottle. How did they get the rest of the carbs out? Easy... They took out the flavor!
Who Wants Numbers? It's Taste That Counts!
Tasting notes for you folks keeping track:
The Pour Like most American lagers, Rock Green light pours up a pale straw yellow. Straight from the bottle, the beer raises a voluminous head, which sticks around for the first few swallows - long enough to lace the glass just a tad. Most bubbles are, though, quite coarse in keeping with the beer's highly carbonated character.
On the Nose: Rock Green Light has a slightly skunky start, which fades to pretty much the aroma of a bottle of Perrier after a few sips. Hop and malt aromas are both extremely subdued.
In the Mouth: This level of carbonation yields a mouth feel similar to drinking cheap champagne or a straight shot of club soda just after opening a warm bottle - sort of like flavorless Pop Rocks candy (remember those?). You can't hear anything but bubbles popping for the first second or so. The entire experience is clean and crisp, but then so's drinking straight seltzer water.
The Taste Buds say: Rock Green Light starts with a citrus note overlain by a bit of skunk, and finishes with a weak - very weak - hop note. Malt tones aren't evident, at least to me (your results may differ). The flavor is most notable for its subtlety, and I do not mean that in a good way: it's so subtle that it resembles a mediocre beer mixed 50:50 with carbonated water.
Why Low Carb?
I took a look at my Complete Book of Food Counts to get some stats: beers have a very wide range of carbohydrate contents, so I just looked up a few for you. Per 12-oz serving, here are the calorie and carbohydrate content of a few representative beers (name -- calories -- carbs):
Coors Light -- 103 -- 5.0g
Rolling Rock Premium -- 145 -- 10.0g
Lowenbrau Dark -- 158 -- 14.0g
Killian's Red -- 161 -- 15.0g
Beck's -- 168 -- 15.0g
As a general rule, higher alcohol content and darker color equate to higher calorie and carb content, but only a few beers exceed 20 grams per 12-oz serving (stouts and porters, for the most part). By comparison, most packaged bagels (Lendners, Earth Grains) contain about 30-40 grams; a Big Mac has 45 grams and large McDonalds fries have 68. And all three of them have lots of fat and sodium, too, which isn't the case for beer!
Why Indeed?
My humble opinion? Saving a dozen carbs on a beer and getting virtually no taste in return is a bad flavor:nutrition tradeoff. If you want a little alcohol and few carbs, drink some red wine - Cabs have about 2 grams per 4 oz. If you insist on carbonation, drink some champagne. If you don't want lots of carbs, savor a good beer instead of pounding this rubbish.
Recommended:
No
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