It is commonly assumed by beer snobs, such as myself, that rice is a no-no in beer. Well, that may be changing. Check this out from the LA Times:
"Rice is considered by many brewers what the nasty industrial brewers use to water down their beer," says Maureen Ogle, author of "Ambitious Brew," a book exploring the history of brewing in the U.S. "Craft brewers treat rice almost as if it's rat poison."
But recently, a handful of craft brewers in California, Colorado and Washington are challenging that blanket disdain for the grain by introducing complex, full-flavored rice beers. They say rice can lend subtle tropical notes and a bright finish to their lagers and ales....
Rice hasn't always had such a sullied reputation among craft brewers.
According to Ogle, the anti-rice sentiment is traceable to the early craft brewing revival in the 1980s. "It was all about, 'We're only using four ingredients, we're not like those industrial brewers making watered-down, cheap beer by using adjuncts like rice.'
"The mythology is that these giant beer makers began adding rice and corn to their beer after World War II to water it down, but that's simply not true," she adds.
The American brewing industry was built in the late 19th century by first-generation German American immigrants such as Adolphus Busch, Adolph Coors and Frederick Miller. Although these men, craft brewers themselves, initially re-created the full-bodied beers of their homeland, many Americans had not developed a taste for the malt-heavy style.
"They needed a domestic ingredient that would make the beers more effervescent, bubbly and lighter," Ogle says. "Rice and corn did that -- it was a desired flavor, not inexpensive filler."