Miller Lite Files Lawsuit Over Bud Light’s Corn Syrup-Focused Super Bowl Ad

MillerCoors escalates its corn syrup fight with Anheuser-Busch

Two beer giants are gearing up to fight out their differences in court. In one of the biggest ad campaigns from the 2019 Super Bowl, a Bud Light King, a Bud Knight, and their wizard went on a journey to return a massive barrel of corn syrup to its rightful owners Coors Light and Miller Lite. The message: Bud Light does not brew with corn syrup. The National Corn Growers Association was not amused and neither, apparently, is Anheuser-Busch Inbev’s fellow Big Beer competitor. Attorneys for MillerCoors filed a lawsuit on Thursday alleging that AB Inbev’s ads are “false and misleading.”

Corn syrup and corn sugar in general are commonly used in brewing as a fermentation aid; the sugars are consumed by the yeast to produce alcohol and carbonation. The filing characterizes the ad as “triggering” to consumers who associate high-fructose corn syrup with obesity — counter to the philosophy of a “light” beer. Bud Light happens to use rice rather than corn syrup in its fermentation process, though the parent company does use corn syrup in some of its other products. “Anheuser-Busch is fearmongering over a common beer ingredient that’s used, by the way, in many of its own beers as a fermentation aid,” a representative for Miller-Coors tells the New York Times.

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