Beer review of the week: Beck's Premier Light

I truly hope nobody is reading this blog to learn anything about triathlon. You certainly won't get any smarter by reading this stuff. If you're looking to boost your Tri-IQ, I suggest you navigate over to our Senior Editor's blog (www.MattFitzerald.org). Consider this more of a lifestyle blog. In keeping with that theme, I've decided to offer up a once-weekly beer review, as I scour the aisles of BevMo in search of the perfect beer for triathletes. What makes a beer perfect for a triathlete? To answer that, I'll be rating each beer on four criteria:

1. Calories (Triathletes have to keep it lean)
2. Antioxidants (More is better)
3. Refreshment (Nothing is better after a hard workout than a cold, refreshing brew)
4. Taste (The last three criteria aside, a beer has to taste good if you want to enjoy it).

Every beer will receive 1-4 stars (*) in each category; one star meaning that it really sucked it up in that category and four stars meaning it kicks serious ass.

To kick things off, the first beer I'm reviewing is Beck's Premier Light; the lowest calorie beer available in the U.S. It may be the most "lean" beer on the planet, but with so many microbrews in Europe, there may be one that's lighter. Beck's PL only has 64 calories, about as much as a shot of vodka, and about 30% less than most light beers. Each bottle contains about 3.9 grams of carbs and only about 3.0% alcohol. Those scant numbers mean that you could drink 50 of them and probably die of hypoatremia instead of alcohol poisoning -- but I can't verify that -- I only had six. Here's how Beck's PL stacked up:

Calories: **** It's hard to top the lightest beer in the country in this category.

Antioxidants: * If you can see clear through the beer, chances are there aren't too many flavnoids floating around.

Refreshment: *** It's pretty much purified water spiked with a little alcohol and hops, which makes it quite refreshing.

Taste: ** I was going to give it only one star, but the taste is actually halfway decent, considering it has about as many calories as two unflavored rice cakes.