Malt & Grain

Anheuser-Busch brews Budweiser with barley malt and rice, and that's exactly what sets it apart from a German lager. Malt is barley that's been allowed to germinate and then kilned, meaning dried with warm air. During mashing, the brewery extracts the sugar from it, which yeast later converts into alcohol through fermentation.

Rice supplies starch but almost no protein and no flavor of its own. This makes the beer lighter in body, paler in color, and drier on the finish. According to Anheuser-Busch, Budweiser contains barley malt and rice; an American lager, per BJCP guidelines, falls between 4 and 7 EBC, a measure of color, placing it somewhere between straw and gold.

Brewers in the Midwest long relied on six-row barley, a variety high in protein and rich in enzymes. Enzymes are the substances that break starch down into fermentable sugar, and they're abundant enough to also handle adjuncts like rice or corn, which bring none of their own. In this way, the choice of barley became a chapter of style history.

A German bottom-fermented beer wouldn't be allowed to contain rice: Section 9 of the Provisional Beer Law permits only barley malt, hops, yeast, and water. Still, Budweiser can legally be sold in Germany, since the 1987 ruling by the European Court of Justice established that imported beer counts as beer if it's marketable as such in its country of origin.

Craft brewers like Schlafly draw on barley malt, wheat, and oats, depending on the beer. Oats give a stout roundness and softness, while wheat belongs in a hefeweizen. For these brewers it's a craft; at Anheuser-Busch it's more of a recipe meant to taste the same decade after decade.