Over the past few months I’ve written quite a bit about the hard seltzer craze and all the different brands out there. I’ve done taste test comparisons between the industry leaders, Truly and White Claw, and I’ve done blind taste tests between a variety of brands and flavors.
Time and time again I keep coming to the same conclusion, White Claw is on top for a reason.
All of their flavors taste way better than any of the competitors. Regardless of which flavors you find gross or which flavors you love, White Claw has the best overall flavor profiles of any of the hard seltzers out there… or at least that was the case before Bud Light hit the market with their new hard seltzers.
I finally got a chance to try the Bud Light Seltzers a couple weeks ago and have come to the conclusion that they deserve to rank up there with White Claw.
Bud Light Seltzer Review
We had a few people over a couple weeks ago and it seemed like the perfect time to pick up some Bud Light Seltzer for an impromptu taste test. I always like to have other people tasting stuff like this with me so that it’s not just my terrible taste buds determining whether something is good or not. That’s why I’m still so confused about how City Water Seltzer is getting all this positive buzz when I had 10 different people taste it and everyone came to the same conclusion – it’s not good. Although it could have just been the flavor we chose to try, I even had the guy at the grocery store tell me that he’s had people tell him they thought something was wrong with it when they took their first sip. But we’ll save that for a time when I get to try all the different flavors.
As for the Bud Light Seltzer, I was able to pick up a variety pack which included all four of their flavors: Black Cherry, Strawberry, Mango and Lemon Lime.
And while the flavors differ slightly from those produced by White Claw and Truly, the general idea is still the same… always gotta have that black cherry and some sort of lime flavor, then mix it up with a berry and a sweet fruit. So when it came to comparing these to White Claw, I was basically just pitting the similar flavors against each other, while also taking into account the ones that were overall the best.
Now, I do want to put a disclaimer on this. I don’t drink a lot of alcohol on a regular basis, so the fact that I drank all four flavors in one night may have skewed the results of the ones I drank later in the night, as I got more intoxicated. Take that as you will, but I still enjoyed all of the flavors and a couple of them were definitely better than the White Claw counterparts.
So let’s take a look at the flavors.
Black Cherry
Every single hard seltzer out there seems to have a black cherry flavor in their arsenal. And while it seems like they would be delicious, not all of them are… Truly’s black cherry flavor, for example, is not very good. And White Claw’s black cherry is probably my least favorite of the White Claw flavors. But the Bud Light black cherry wasn’t terrible. It seems to have a bit more flavor than the White Claw version, and was just as refreshing. It definitely doesn’t taste like medicine like the Truly one kind of does, and there’s no bad aftertaste. Overall though I would say that the Black Cherry flavor was not my favorite of the Bud Light Seltzers, but not my least favorite, that would be the next flavor I tried.
Strawberry
I’m kind of weird when it comes to strawberries. I don’t like eating them and I absolutely hate the smell of them… can’t stand it (ask my wife), but I could sit and drink strawberry daiquiris by the pool, or Strawbaritas all day… it’s weird. So I’m not surprised that I didn’t really care for the Strawberry flavor. And it’s not because it tasted like strawberries, it’s because it tasted like nothing. There was little to no flavor with this one, it just didn’t do it for me. I don’t know if it’s just that strawberryies don’t have any overpowering flavor in watered down beverages, or what, but I just couldn’t wait to finish the can so I could move on to the Mango flavor.
Mango
Now this one had quite a bit of flavor to it. It reminds me of the flavor you get from the Ruby Grapefruit White Claw, but with Mango obviously. This is definitely the most flavorful of the Bud Light Seltzers and one of my favorites… and I don’t even like mangos. Again, I’m clearly super weird when it comes to eating fruit vs. drinking it. So in terms of where this ranked on the flavor scale, I put it as my second favorite, behind the Lemon Lime.
Lemon Lime
This was my favorite of the Bud Light Seltzer flavors, which actually really surprised me because the Lime White Claw is probably my least favorite. However, I think that splash of Lemon flavoring that Bud Light added to this one makes it that much better. Again though, this was the fourth hard seltzer I had that night, in a shorter amount of time, so the other three before this could have warped my concept of “good”. It was just the right amount of flavor, not too watered down, not to overpowering. I would rank this up there with probably my favorite hard seltzer next to the Ruby Grapefruit White Claw.
And there you have it, Bud Light has actually created a worthy rival to White Claw in the hard seltzer market. I think with Budweiser’s reach and their marketing, and maybe some word of mouth, we might start to see Bud Light overtake Truly as the second best Hard Seltzer supplier in the country, but I don’t think we’ll really know until the summer hits and everyone starts to jump on the bandwagon again. I know I don’t have a problem drinking hard seltzers year round, but it’s definitely more of a summertime drink.
Have you tried the Bud Light Seltzer? What do you think compared to the other options on the market right now?
The plural of strawberry is strawberries. Seriously.
lol, you are absolutely right… probably shouldn’t have been drinking these seltzers when writing. Thanks for the correction, post has been updated.
I agree about the White Claw Black Cherry, not very good but I love their Ruby Grapefruit, that’s my favorite as well. I wish the stores near me kept that one instead of the Black Cherry, so I usually get the Pineapple or Mango Truly.I’d seen some good and bad reviews for the Bud Light seltzers so I’ll try the Lemon Lime and Mango for sure because the closest store to me only has them and I’d avoided them so far. Now I know just avoid the Strawberry, no one is saying good things about that one. Thanks, be well
Thanks for the comment. Ruby Grapefruit was definitely my favorite flavor before they released the 2nd flavor pack, now I tend to lean towards the Lemon and the Watermelon. I’ve found lately that my least favorite is anything with mango, even though they seem to be the most flavorful in general, I’m just not a big fan of mango flavor. Good luck with your taste testing, thanks again for the comment! Take care.
Bud Lights are my absolute favorite in this category. A squeeze of lime makes them even better. I always drink the strawberry first -4th place- and save the lime for last-1st place. Glad for a good gluten free beer replacement. Celiac disease sucks! Bud light to the rescue.
Yeah, the Bud Light ones impressed me way more than some of the other ones. I can’t imagine what Celiac is like, glad you’ve found an alcoholic beverage you can enjoy with out the gluten!
Bud Light seltzer uses a malt base for its ABV while White Claw uses sugar cane.
I don’t think that Bud Light Seltzer is a malt base, I’m pretty sure it also uses cane sugar. I’ve only done a little research, but everything points to cane sugar and nothing mentions a malted base. If you’ve got another source that says otherwise, shoot me the link, I’m curious. Thanks!