The coronavirus pandemic might have more people celebrating National Beer Day this year. Beer and alcohol sales were up 55% in the third week of March compared to the same period in 2019, according to Nielsen.
So to celebrate and take advantage of what people have likely already stocked up on, here's a ranking of 26 widely available domestic beers.
We hereby present the unerring, unredacted and 100% correct L.A. Times Domestic Beer Power Rankings. Here we go.
The totally official, 100% correct domestic beer power rankings
1. Miller High Life
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Miller High Life has a bouquet that tastes pleasingly of apple juice and Corn Nuts, light and sweet with just a hint of toffee. Itβs highly drinkable and is remarkably skunk-free considering it comes in a clear glass bottle.
Chuggability ranking: 6
2. Bud Light
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Bud Light is clean, crisp and ideal for hot-weather consumption. It tastes like a slightly alcoholic cream soda. It also positively crushes, sales-wise, every other beer in America.
Chuggability ranking: 7
3. Rolling Rock
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This is a malty-tasting beer with a clean and quite smooth finish, but the flavor that sings through (if there really is one) is one of a general toasted-ness. Make sure this is very cold when you drink it.
Chuggability ranking: 12
4. Yuengling
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The flavor is fairly stolid, much like the Midwestern temperament itself β a bit sweet with a slight lingering bitterness in the back of the throat.
Chuggability ranking: 11
5. Bud Light Lime
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We're not sure thereβs actually a more perfect beach beer β itβs just as good as a Corona or Pacifico. And when soaking up unhealthy UV rays, the lime flavor tastes remarkably not like a cleaning product.
Chuggability ranking: 15
6. Coors Banquet
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The beer itself has a malty-sweet flavor β the finish is a little more sour than weβd have imagined from the breath of the Rockies, but at least it doesnβt linger.
Chuggability ranking: 14
7. Budweiser
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Budweiser is a little malty, a little sweet and a bit heavier than youβd expect.
Chuggability ranking: 17
8. Michelob Ultra
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Cotton candyβs alcoholic liquid equivalent: Michelob Ultra. This beer tastes like practically nothing, only vaguely sweet and goes down easier than Placido Domingo on a Sunday morning.
Chuggability ranking: 2
9. Pabst Blue Ribbon
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Flat, nutty and a little sour, PBR has a delayed bitterness that lasts at least as long as a Neutral Milk Hotel song. The beer itself isnβt bad. Itβs slightly malty, a little sweet and is fairly drinkable.
Chuggability ranking: 10
10. Busch
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Busch beer is fairly oaty with a slight mineral aftertaste. Itβs not the most inspiring beer, but it may make you want to saddle up.
Chuggability ranking: 13
11. Coors Light
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Coors Light is mostly what you want in a light beer. It goes down about as easy as a dozen White Castle sliders. The taste is not quite where it needs to be, though β it tastes like drinking from a garden hose.
Chuggability ranking: 4
12. Bud Light Platinum
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This is what the Wall Street bros drink when theyβre looking to cut loose but also need to watch their calorie intake. Itβs a denser, slightly more bitter version of Bud Light.
Chuggability ranking: 23
13. Busch Light
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Busch Light tastes like nothing at all. We literally wrote down βno tasting notes.β It tastes like Arrowhead water. It is refreshing, though.
Chuggability ranking: 1
14. Miller Genuine Draft
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In the case of MGD, "cold-filtered" makes the beer remarkably β¦ average. Like a 40-something-year-old man, the beer is fairly round and middle-of-the-road. Thereβs nothing particularly notable about it, save for a lingering, slightly acrid finish.
Chuggability ranking: 19
15. National Bohemian
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With a name like National Bohemian, one would think of the beer as somewhat iconoclastic or unconventional. This is decidedly not the case. It's about as un-bohemian as it comes: itβs yeasty and slightly creamy, with a mild skunkiness to it. It is, however, fairly cheap and chuggable.
Chuggability ranking: 5
16. Steel Reserve
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Like Carrot Top, this is unexpectedly full-bodied. This beer isnβt terrible β itβs sort of malty and sweet β but it just doesnβt have much soul. And itβs not something weβd want to drink more than one of. Fortunately, as this beer has a jaw-dropping 8.1% alcohol content, you may not need to.
Chuggability ranking: 26
17. Samuel Adams
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Sam Adams is a bad version of a good beer. Itβs trying, hard. Trying with its deep amber color, tasting a bit too sweet and hitting a few caramel notes. It leaves a slight lingering bitterness.
Chuggability ranking: 25
18. Natural Light
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Natty Light: The staple of every bad college party. Forever staining the carpets of dormitory basements across the country. Natty Light is bad, sure, but it tastes like so little, can it actually be that bad?
Chuggability ranking: 3
19. Bud Ice
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Bud Ice is sharp and very sour, like that brilliant but fundamentally damaged single friend you have whoβs been on the dating apps for way too long. At least the taste dies off immediately, leaving no lingering memory.
Chuggability ranking: 18
20. Miller Lite
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It certainly doesnβt taste great. After a particularly bubbly and fizzy nose, the actual flavor of Miller Lite then becomes clear β that of a frat pledgeβs khakis at 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Like the memory of an encounter with the wearer of such khakis, the stale, skunky taste is difficult to shake.
Chuggability ranking: 22
21. Keystone Light
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βGrab a βstone,β the friendly copy on the Keystone Light can encourages you. A pretty average light beer that tastes slightly minerally and lasts a bit longer on the palate than it should.
Chuggability ranking: 9
22. Hamm's
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Itβs certainly not much to write home about. Flavorless and largely without character, save a vague swampiness, itβs certainly easy to drink, but we wouldnβt feed it to any forest creatures.
Chuggability ranking: 8
23. Natural Ice
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Natural Ice, the high-alcohol version of Natty Light, is a bit like the double black diamond ski trail at the resort: when you approach with undue hubris and take it in too fast, you run the risk of hurting yourself as well as others.
Chuggability ranking: 16
24. Schlitz
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Schlitz basically tastes like cardboard. Like a big cardboard box. It drinks more smoothly, thankfully, than a cardboard box.
Chuggability ranking: 20
25. Icehouse
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The lingering, sour taste stayed on the back of our throats for a good two minutes after we finished drinking. We could feel fur growing on the back of our tongues. Thatβs not a good feeling.
Chuggability ranking: 21
26. Bud Light Orange
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One of the strangest, most nauseous beverages weβve had in quite awhile. The orange flavor is so pervasive and overwhelming, like what would happen if Yankee Candle decided to open a brewery inside an Orange Crush factory.
Chuggability ranking: 24
