One of the many humiliations that come in your 30s is the bitter realization that a parent was right about something. For some people, their parents were right about a financial decision they suggested, or a romantic relationship they disapproved of. My dad was right about the 96 calorie American beer brewed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“It’s hard to get in trouble for drinking Miller Lite,” was my father’s advice, given frequently in my youth – often after he’d carefully spied me lifting an overfilled beer from a flower can into a stupidly shaped glass. For years, I wrote about his wisdom as the curmudgeonly philosophy of someone too stubborn to join the Craft Beer Revolution. Why does anyone still drink mass-produced piss when you can stock your fridge with a $21 four-pack made with love by regional geniuses and artisans? It was like watching a black-and-white tube in the age of 4K flat screens.
In my 20s, I turned my enjoyment of craft beer—and alcohol in general—into a small hobby. I stood in long lines to buy limited editions from the range”gypsy brewers.” I nursed frequent cravings with Monastrell wines from Jumilla. I hunted down the old bourbon; National Distillers-era Old Grand-Baba was a certain fixation.
In retrospect, I can see that this was something of a defense mechanism. After growing up in the working class, I went to university and then graduated school in prestigious private institutions, which brought me into constant contact with people who had family money, or were just from higher places than me. You can have a trust fund and from the stock of people who “summer,” I thought, but I’ll be damned if you know more about food or alcohol than I do. I saw drinking good buttermilk as part of what it means to be civilized. To some extent, I still believe that. But now I also believe that most of the time, it’s Miller Time.
The conversion happened slowly. It started with a search for a beer I could drink while watching Monday Night Footballbut that also wouldn’t leave me sad when I got up to teach my 8am class. As I entered my third decade of life, I found that microbigots, with a high alcohol content, made me feel miserable the next day, even if I only had one or two drinks. Before long, my Miller Mondays made me realize that this 4.2 percent ABV “macro-lager” had many applications I hadn’t considered before: It was a lawn-mowing party. It kept me from getting too drunk at the wedding. It can be reliably eaten while cooking a very hot lunch without requiring me to sleep. This little pleasure was even cheap! At my local bottle shop, six tall boys fetch $7.49.
The problem with craft beer is how it can get you, as my dad says, “in trouble.” One double IPA isn’t enough, but two is half too many. Two sours are half too few, but three is instant heartburn. Boozy royals are best served in eight-ounce increments, but they usually come in 22-ounce blasters. Countless. Miller Lite, by contrast, is an honest beer. If you find yourself drunk on Miller Lite, most likely the issue isn’t that you shouldn’t have had that last beer; you shouldn’t have had those last four.
Miller Lite is not a good beer. It’s not beer at all. Miller Lite is bad beer but wonderful a drink. It is neither difficult nor offensive, and derives its magic from this alchemy of meaninglessness, this fragile state of nothingness. Miller Lite doesn’t need your attention. It doesn’t smack you in the face with taste; In fact, you will hardly notice any flavor at all. A gun to my head, I’d say it vaguely recalls … a sandwich? Frozen corn? Unbranded Cheerios, perhaps? The tasting notes provided by Miller Brewing Company include descriptions such as “light to medium body,” “fresh,” and “crisp,” all of which are not flavors but texture, as if the nicest thing a brewer has to say about its own beer is that “you’ll feel it in your mouth.” A review on beer rating site Beeradvocate notes that Miller is “a well-regarded beer in groups”—a drink whose best quality is quantity.
This is a beer that gives you nothing to think about. It provides a break from the pursuit of the novel and pleasant experience that has come to replace culture among many of America’s professional class. Drinking Miller Lite is announcing that you’re a well-adjusted adult—that you don’t need excitement all the time, that you can stay on your toes, that you have the patience and strength of character to slowly build a buzz.
No other low-level liquor can fulfill the role of Miller Lite—it is sui generis. Michelob Ultra is for golfers. Corona Light is for the holidays. Pabst Blue Ribbon is for steelheads. Natty Light is for boys and people who use this article war of northern invasion. Bud Light and Busch Light taste like raw powder. Coors Light has those baby mountains that turn blue and also taste like raw flour. Narragansett Lager, Boston Lager, and Yuengling are good but not available everywhere. Guinness is good on draft but bad in any other format. Labatt Blue Light is Canadian.
That leaves Miller Lite: humble, measured, available from sea to shining sea in cans, cans, and bottles, on kegs and on tap. It’s a beer for people who appreciate sweetness easily. Those who need exactly six beers should have between $7 and $11. Which father was, regrettably, right.
