Is Beer Made With Corn Syrup? Bud Light Super Bowl 2019 Ad Controversy

Bud Light took a sharp jab at competitors Miller Lite and Coors Light with its 2019 Super Bowl ad, claiming that it does not use corn syrup, unlike the other two brands. The move was a direct attack because both do list corn syrup among its ingredients, but dieticians and nutrition experts have said that it is an insignificant detail health-wise.

Bud Light's 60-second Super Bowl LIII commercial shows a medieval setting where a huge barrel of corn syrup is mistakenly delivered to the Bud Light castle. The king then takes a long journey to bring the syrup to the Coors Light and Miller Lite castles. In an interview with The New York Times, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health nutrition professor David Ludwig said that this move is more of a marketing strategy than a scientific claim. Ludwig noted that beer is created by fermenting sugar, which is lost during the brewing process.

Regardless of the sugar that is used during production, the product is the same — beer — and the main ingredients consumers should be watching out for are the final carbohydrate content and alcohol content.

In a statement on its website, MillerCoors, which manufactures both Miller and Coors plus other beers and lagers, said that using corn-derived sugars is what makes its products easy to drink and light-bodied. It clarified, though, that none of the sugar components are present in the final stage.

Speaking to CNBC, NYU Langone sports dietician Nicole Lund mentioned that a client had expressed concerns about his beer intake shortly after the Bud Light Super Bowl ad was aired. Lund clarified that the health issue would probably be more related to the amount of beer one consumes a day than the supposed corn syrup content.

The strategy of highlighting corn syrup could be a marketing play for high-fructose corn syrup, which is the unhealthy ingredient and is an entirely different thing. None of the beers contain high-fructose corn syrup. Even the National Corn Growers Association expressed disappointment over the ad and then moved on to thanking the MillerCoors brands for supporting the corn industry.

In its defense, Bud Light said in a statement that they were just being transparent, which is what it owes consumers. The company said they are not badmouthing corn syrup and that it merely wanted to point out that it does not use this ingredient. The Super Bowl spot was aired just days after it started listing ingredients on its label.