Beer Review: Stella Artois

Stella Artois, steadily growing in popularity since 2011, delivers a non-unique flavor for a heavily advertised beer.

When opening a bottle of Stella Artois, the paper wrapping that ensures safety and elegance creates anticipation for the first taste. At the first smell, a dry aroma wafts from the freshly opened bottle allowing many bubbles to escape and reach the top.

The dry aroma transforms into a dry flavor that creates a mouth-watering sensation upon tasting the beer. This flavor reveals a bitterness that introduces itself at the tip of the tongue and resonates throughout the rest of the mouth. Afterwards, the flavor stops and a tepid flavor remains. After drinking a few sips of the beer, a subtle “off smell” arises. While difficult to describe, it relates to the smell of beer that has been chilled and then left to set at room temperature. This effect is known as skunking. The amount of carbonation in the beer makes it rather easy to drink, but the flavor lacks in complexity and can easily be compared to Budweiser or Coors. In fact, Coors may even exceed Stella Artois. While Stella Artois is a large beer company, the amount of pride in their product is overstated compared to how good the beer actually is.

The issue with this beer lies not with the flavor, but with the advertising. Brewed in Leuven, Belgium, Stella Artois boasts about the creation of their gold-rimmed glass chalice. They claim that Stella Artois is best served chilled in one of these special chalices because it enhances the flavor of the beer. This, however, is not the case. Stella Artois falls into a list of beer companies that try and try again to sell their beer based on some kind of gimmick. A common example of this is the spiral-necked-vortex beer bottle produced by MillerCoors.

Stella Artois spends too much time on the appearance of their beer, rather than the flavor. They sponsor many events like independent movie releases and even appear in Super Bowl commercials, but in the end, Stella Artois is only a pretty, more expensive, and less tasty Coors Banquet. This beer does not hold up the standard that other Belgian beers like Hoegaarden strive towards. The next time Stella is served at a party, go ahead and grab one, but definitely do not pass up a good micro-brew in place of this beer.