Craft beer companies seeking to rescue malt liquor’s reputation
As the brewmaster at Virginia Beer Co. in Williamsburg, Virginia, Jonathan Newman has created about 400 different beers, from smoked porters to a sour ale that mimics lemon meringue pie. This summer, he tackled his toughest brewing challenge yet: malt liquor, a budget beer that’s normally mass-produced and known for its alcohol content, not its memorable taste.
“I couldn’t call an old brewing friend and be like, ‘How do you make a malt liquor?’” Newman said. Instead, he conducted research with rigor befitting a college undergrad, drinking several malt liquors and finding himself “shocked at how much I liked Colt 45.”
But how to make a version that would impress craft-beer fans? Malt liquor, a lager, with an alcohol level from 5.5% to 8% or higher, can be boozy and bland. (A standard lager has about 5% alcohol by volume, or ABV.) So Newman developed a brew that was crisp and aromatic, with a 7.5% ABV.
In August, when the brewery released its malt liquor, 39 Words, Newman joined a growing number of craft brewers determined to mend the style’s reputation by creating malt liquors worth contemplating, not chugging.
“Malt liquor is seen as a cheap gas-station beer,” said Newman, whose brewery charges $16 for a fourpack of 19.2-ounce cans. “But it couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Malt liquor is a loaded subject in American brewing. Long maligned as a quick and inexpensive means of getting drunk that was marketed heavily to Black and Hispanic men, it occupies an “intersection with race, class and poverty,” said Rich Bloomfield, a founder and CEO of the Black-owned Funkytown Brewery in Chicago.
Bloomfield drank malt liquor in college, but it “seemed like it was something that you’re supposed to grow out of,” he said, adding that Funkytown, which focuses on more crowd-pleasing beers such as pale ale and red ale, probably wouldn’t brew a malt liquor these days as it tries to build its audience.
Unit sales of malt liquor have fallen about 26% over the past three years in the United States, according to market research firm Nielseniq. In 2021, Molson Coors Beverage Co., one of the top producers of malt liquors, retired several malt liquor brands, including Steel Reserve 211, Olde English HG 8000 and Magnum.
But if malt liquor is a “sleepy” category, it’s also ripe for innovation, said Lester Jones, the chief economist for the National Beer Wholesalers Association. “Can you make a craft malt liquor? Of course you can.”
In August, Barrel Brothers Brewing, in Windsor, California, released Admiral Malt Liquor, a 9% ABV beer made with heritage grain. A month earlier, Samuel Adams and Narragansett Beer introduced Good Luck Malt Liquor, a toasty 7% ABV lager brewed with local grains and amber maize from Valley Malt in Hadley, Massachusetts. Off Color Brewing in Chicago and Wayfinder Beer in Portland, Oregon, have also begun making malt liquors.
These beers appeal to people who may not like aggressively hopped or bitter IPAS, said Lee Lord, the head brewer at Narragansett. “Malt liquor thumbs its nose at taking craft beer too seriously.”