Beer Complaint


Miller Brewing Company
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201

Dear Sir or Madam,
I have been a drinker of Miller beers for many years (actually, ever since that other company donated a big chunk of change to Handgun Control Inc. back in the mid 80s). Initially, my beer of choice was Lite, but some time in mid-1990 while in Honduras I switched to MGD smuggled up from Panama. Now, for nearly six years I have been a faithful drinker of MGD.
For these past years, I have come to expect certain things from Genuine Draft. I expect that whenever I see that gold can of MGD, I am about ready to enjoy a great, smooth brew. But wait! Sometime around the first of the year, my beloved MGD changed colors, so to speak. That familiar gold can was no longer gold! Knowing that I am, by nature, somewhat resistant to change, I forced myself to reserve judgment on the new can design. Gradually, I grew to appreciate the new label.
That was until about May of this year. That was when I discovered (empirically) that I really didn't like the new design. Further investigation of the cause of my distress resulted in the following observations:

  • Your cans are made of aluminum.
  • Aluminum is a great conductor of energy.
  • Your beer is commonly consumed outside, and thus, the container may be exposed to sunlight.
  • Sunlight striking the can causes radiant warming of the surface of the can.
  • The resultant heat (energy) is transferred through the aluminum, by conduction, to the contents of the can (the brewskie).
  • Warm beer sucks.

This is a process that can be observed in just about any beer. However, this process is significantly accelerated in MGD because you painted the damn can black!!!
Who was the rocket scientist that designed the new graphic for the can and implemented the change right before summer? Granted, this process may not be real evident up there in Wisconsin, but down here in Oklahoma where the summers are both sunny and hot, this effect is quite a problem. There's no telling what the folks in Texas and Arizona are having to put up with.
Knowing that you would probably not address this issue unless you had firm evidence of a problem, I and several other subjects conducted extensive experimentation. The results of these experiments are listed below.
The experiments were conducted over two days on the deck next to my pool. The study included seven different types of beer (leftovers from a party the previous weekend) that were initially chilled to 38 degrees and then left exposed to sunlight for different lengths of time. These beers were sampled by the test subjects at different intervals. The subjects, all normally MGD drinkers, were asked at each sampling interval their impressions of the different beers. The length of time between the initial exposure to sunlight and the point where the subject determined the sample undrinkable (the Suckpoint) was determined. The average ambient temperature for the trials was 95 degrees.

Beer Type   Average
Suckpoint (min)
Miller Lite (white can)   6.2
Bud (white can)   5.5
Bud Lite (silver can)   5.2
Ice House (blue and silver can)   4.4
Coors Lite (silver can)   4.1
Miller Genuine Draft (black can)   2.8
Coors (gold can)   0.1

It was evident that the color of the can directly correlates to the average suckpoint, except for Coors which was pretty much determined to suck at any point.
It is to be hoped that you will consider redesigning your MGD cans. All beer drinkers that are not smart enough to keep their beer in the shade will thank you.
Sincerely,
Bradley Lee
Beer-drinker