Heineken Light (2005-), a 3.2% ABV, 99-Calorie, Mass-Produced Light Beer by Heineken (1864-), the World's Third-Largest Producer of Beer

[DonRocks]

Heineken Light is one of my swills-of-choice when I want to delude myself into thinking I'm not putting empty calories into my tank. I actually tolerate this beer *more* than the regular Heineken, but perhaps that's because there's "less of it to hate," or, restated, it isn't strong enough to smell like a skunk, which Heineken so often does.

So why do I dabble in it? you might (intelligently) ask, and it would be an excellent question. The insufficient answer: Because I'm willing to fool myself into drinking diet soda as a zero-calorie caffeinated beverage - why *not* Heineken Light as a low-calorie beer?

That said, there is some of the trademark Heineken skunk aroma, but not nearly as much as what's in their regular brew, so I not only get less calories - I actually dislike it less (you will not get me to state that in the contrapositive, no matter how logically you might argue).

Heineken Light is available in poor stores everywhere, for about $13-14 per twelve-pack. I'll say something right now that you'll hear me say - perhaps in variations - in the future: If it's available in CVS, then it, by that very definition, is a lousy, mass-produced, industrial product. I won't go to Safeway, or Giant, or 7-11 just yet, because there's no need, but make no mistake: Drinking Heineken Light for alcohol is the equivalent of drinking Coca-Cola for corn syrup and caffeine, and don't think for a moment that this isn't true.

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[dcandohio]

Does anyone know why "lite" versions of mass-produced beers give me raging heartburn? Regular beers don't have that effect.

[DonRocks]

Does anyone know why "lite" versions of mass-produced beers give me raging heartburn? Regular beers don't have that effect.

The thought that immediately came to mind is higher acidity, but I don't know that for a fact (acidifying wines is a very common practice).

[treznor]

I don't think its higher acidity (though it'd be worth trying an experiment and drinking a sour beer to see if you get the same effect). Sour beers come in around pH 3.1-3.2, other ales 3.7-4.2 and lagers 4.1-4.3 or so. I'd be surprised though if lite lager is more than a couple hundredths of difference, or maybe even a tenth, from their non-lite counterpart and regardless pretty much all ale would be more acidic.

The process of making lite beer is a bit more complicated than just watering down a beer. Basically you brew a beer, then convert all of its carbs (i.e. the thing that actually gives the beer flavor) into simpler sugars that yeast can convert to alcohol, and then since the beer you just produced is actually higher in alcohol than the original beer (since now ALL of the carbs are getting converted to alcohol), you water that beer down to where its lower ABV than the original beer. You've managed to lower the ABV and cut out a lot of the carbs that were in the beer. That carb splitting is down by an enzyme, either alpha amylase or amyloglucosidase (yes, I had to look up how to spell that). Alpha amylase is the enzyme in our saliva that breaks down comlex sugars into simple sugars.

Its entirely possible that there is some enzyme left over in the beer and somehow that gives you heartburn? The odd thing is that the only linkage I could find to heartburn and alpha amylase was that amylase should actually help heartburn, not cause it. But everyone's body chemistry is slightly different, so who knows?