My buddy Bobby shot me a link from Men’s Health “Eat This, Not That!,” which details the best beers for your health. The premise is simple – a beer a day does a body good, but you must choose wisely lest that daily beer expand your waistline.
I found it amusing that the list is almost perfectly backwards in my opinion. The highest ranked beer is the one I would least want to drink, and the lowest ranked beer looks pretty tasty indeed. I don’t think the beer drinking experience was given much consideration from the editors, but it’s usually the only consideration around these parts!
Check it out here – it’s worth a peek. Are there any “light” beers you actually enjoy?
Beer & Whiskey Brothers 
First of all, did anyone else tire of reading their inane attempts at innuendo? “If you’re hooked on this beer, make sure to stick with just one.” Ugh. What happened to decent copywriters?! Oh right, recession.
Not a single lite beer I enjoy…it’s not like I feel like I’m actually drinking a beer anyway, so why bother?
Right. If you’re gonna drink beer, drink beer. If you want to get drunk in the fewest calories possible, I suggest vodka. If you’re drinking socially, just have a sparkling water. The point is there’s no good reason for “lite” beer to exist.
I agree with you Jim that the list is reversed… and the comments were pretty dumb. At least they had the brains to list 2 Sierra Nevada beers.
Yeah, the comments are dumb, but I imagine it’s hard to come up with something pithy after the 30th attempt at writing the same thing. Of course if they knew about beer, that might help. But then again, if they knew about beer the list would probably be much different.
I guess Red Stripe is healthy as long as you don’t drink it while you are in Jamaica.
Yeah, then the Red Stripe would be down your shirt, after you wander off the heavily guarded resort grounds and meet a local with a machete. I tend to shy away from vacationing at places guarded with machine guns. I dunno, it kinda ruins the whole “relaxing” bit of the experience for me.
My plan is just to eat less junk and run a bit more to be able to drink the beer I want to drink. It’s pretty easy to get rid of those calories in other places.
Amen, Billy. Life in balance. Eat smart (and tasty), work out, enjoy beer responsibly, and repeat as necessary. But life is too short for “lite” beer. There is always a better alternative, whether it’s a more satisfying beer, a bit of whiskey or even a cold glass of water.
I have had a few of the beers in the top 5. The Miller 64 (their top which was obviously done before Bud 55 came out) is extremely light. Not too flavorful, but around these parts if I go to a sports bar and have to drive 20 miles home I might nurse 5 or 6 of these because they only have 2.7% ABV and they are uber sessionable. The Amstel Light which is number 3, is actually pretty flavorful for a light beer. Not bad, but not outstanding. I quickly flipped through all 40 of the slides and it became apparent after a few slides in that the only criteria they looked at was calories. Big surprise!
This list is specific to carb count and calories, i believe. It seems as though MH was trying to plug other articles rather than focus on taste or quality. Just another example of healthy living being bland.
I love seeing Guiness as # 11 on this list. It’s as filling as a meal and less carbs/calories than one would expect. Stella ain’t so bad either.
First off, thanks for sending me this link, Bob. You’re right about their priorities, they are focused on being able to “get away” with drinking a beer from a caloric and carb standpoint. But I don’t want to get away with having a beer, I want to enjoy it. Otherwise what’s the point?
There are a few beers on this list that I think are okay, but only a couple I’d actually buy, and only then if there was nothing else available. When we were at Hershey and the selection was limited, Caryn ordered a Guinness Draught (#11 on the list here) and I opted for a Yuengling lager (#13 as it turns out). We compared both and came to the consensus that the Yuengling was more flavorful. Didn’t see that coming! I had forgotten what a really nice little beer it was.
I also love me some #34, Guinness Extra Stout. When I think about having a Guinness, I think about one of these. You can almost eat it with a knife and fork it’s so thick!
there it is again mental health is completely overlooked in this country.
Ha ha! Great way to put it, Elena. Men’s Health is all about smart choices and sacrifices for your body image. But I prefer a more balanced approach, where you eat tasty and healthy stuff, stay fit and indulge responsibly. For me that indulgence is good beer. Like you say, it’s good for my mental health (and probably those around me as well!).
Not a horrible list. Sam Adams, Guinness, Pilsner Urquell, Sierra Nevada, Bass, Magic Hat, and Hoegaarden are suggestions. As Don mentiones, its obviously geared toward the low carb/calorie thing, but one could do worse than try some of the beers from the higher end of the list.
I agree that there are some okay beers here. Probably few I’d actually buy, but that’s just me. Pretty much, as the you get closer to the top of the list, my interest in the beers diminish. Except for Yuengling lager, which I’ve had a hankering for since having a couple on vacation in Hershey, PA.
Yet, I find this list unsatisfactory. It’s methodology seems somewhat off. We have more mass-produced lagers in this country than this list lets on. They really only take a few selections from the big 3, yet Michelob, Stroh’s, Schlitz, Old Milwaukee, Milwaukee’s Best, Busch, Keystone, Rainier, Olympia, and Lone Star as well as their “light” counterparts are missing from the list. I find it hard to believe selected choices from breweries such as Magic Hat, Guinness, Samuel Adams, and Sierra Nevada are lower calorie than the overlooked light lagers I mentioned.
Are they trying to throw us craft beer drinkers a bone here? Probably so, yet I’d rather see two distinct lists one for fizzy yellow “beer” and and one for beer. But then again, we base our choice of beer on factors other than calorie/carb content, and so the second list for beer is really a pointless exercise.
And as far as a “light beer” goes, give me a traditional pilsner or a blonde ale any day.
It looks like they tried to add a few non-macro beers to the list so it wasn’t a big-beer fizzy yellow water list, which it could have been. I think as you get to the top, it becomes harder to stay away from the big boys, as they are the only ones brewing beer for people who don’t want to actually drink beer.
Still, I’d like to see more variety in the lower numbers, as there are lots of great craft beers that weigh in at 200 calories a bottle.
And I also go for pilsners when I want something lighter, and recently lagers too, thanks to Victory Lager reminding me what a simple pleasure the style can be when it’s done right.
Not too many (good) lagers here in the NW. Every once in a while, a brewer will get adventurous and try their hand at a pilsner. A local one down the street last year put out a black pilsner. Not bad at all. Actually, it was a hit last summer.
These last couple of weeks, I was back in the homeland (Texas) visiting family and was able to sample Shiner 101. It’s brewed to be a classic Czech style pilsner. The clarity was good, yet there was sufficient body and flavor to distinguish it from other triple-hops-brewed beverages. Thumbs up!
We do better out east with the traditional German beers, especially in PA. There’s good water for them and lots of respect for traditional brewing.
I just had a great non-traditional pilsner from the Voodoo Brewery, a tiny place in PA. They took the traditional Pilsner and turned it up to 11 and it was great. A hard beer to do right even if it seems simple.
Wow. Not sure if I wrote “traditional” enough. LOL.
Has anyone seen this older Men’s Health article on healthy beers? Has a focus on nutrients rather than just calories.
http://www.menshealth.com/men/nutrition/food-for-fitness/healthy-beer/article/a9ce8fec5d1b7110VgnVCM10000013281eac