The short answer is no. The long answer is sometimes. The type of beer Budweiser and Coor’s light are is “North American Light Lager” aka “Macro-beer”. These beers are designed to be relatively flavourless, highly carbonated and refreshing, which these breweries do a very good job at accomplishing. Craft breweries can produce lagers but they will generally have a bit more flavour and utilize higher quality ingredients.
I like to call macro-breweries the McDonald’s of the beer world. You can get a Budweiser in Japan and a Budweiser in the United States and their goal is that both of those beers taste identical, which they do. They also achieve their flavour profile by utilizing corn or rice to add fermentable sugars for the yeast to turn into alcohol, but overall adding very little to the body of the beer, keeping these beers very light and refreshing.
Craft beer, or micro-breweries, on the other hand have made an identity of being significantly different than macro-beer. The furthers from macro-beer would be the IPA. Loads of flavour, hops, heavier and higher alcohol. However, in recent years, craft breweries have been leaning towards consumer demand and producing lagers to try to appeal to the macro-beer consumer.
Craft breweries are more than capable of making light lagers, however it kind of goes against the mantra of what a craft brewery originally was trying to accomplish. Letting the North American consumer know that there is more to the beer world than light flavourless lager. That being said, it’s quite possible to have the best of both worlds, producing a light lager that is easy drinking, yet doesn’t lack in flavour. The recommendation would be to find a craft brewery that specializes in these types of beer giving them the attention to detail that they require. Definitely not a biased opinion, but Newark Brewing is one of them.
Cheers
Griffin