Ken Fortenberry wrote:

I've been issuing that challenge for going on 20 years now
and no home brewer has *ever* taken it. They'll hem and haw
and change the subject just like dear old Dan'l or they'll
mutter something about walk-in coolers, but they'll never
take you up on it. Beers like Budweiser are *not* easy to
brew at home and it's one hell of a home brewer who can even
get *close* to a pilsner as good as a Budweiser.

Out of curiosity, I looked up a homebrewer discussion of how to clone
Budweiser:

http://hbd.org/discus/messages/1/28768.html

It's fairly hilarious. The most interesting advice was to use Minute
Rice (because it's pregelatinized) and almost no hops at all. Here's a
post that sums up the problem of cloning Budweiser:

"I am a big fan of cloning brews. I have made heiniken, newcastle brown
ale, and various other homebrews that imitate commercial beers. I have
always received the same response from my college peers, "Wow, tastes
almost exactly like it, except better!" Bear in mind that as a
homebrewer your product as well as the ingredients you use will be
fresher than the commercial version. Imagine it like this. Try to
duplicate a McDonalds double cheeseburger in your kitchen. Since
McDonalds uses such crap ingredients and microwaves everything, it would
be very hard for you to make the same exact product. Instead you would
make something that tasted similar to it, but your burger would probably
taste ten times better. You would use better beef, fresher cheese, and
probably use a grill over a microwave. I found that the parallel between
McDonalds for food, and Bud for beer is quite scary. My friends ask me
why my beers have such flavor and bud tastes like water. My answer is;
how can McDonalds make a double cheeseburger for 99cents, when a small
soft drink from them is $1.30? The same way Bud can make a beer for a
fraction of a penny by using virtually little to no ingredients. Scary huh?"


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