50th Anniversary Miller Lite Gold Cans Hit Shelves

Miller Lite is celebrating its golden anniversary. And to mark 50 years of being in the beer game, they’ve released some limited-edition gold cans.

You’ll find them on shelves now in 12 packs of 16-ounce cans and single 24-ounce cans.

The 12-pack package and 24-ounce cans both have QR codes that allow drinkers to enter for a chance to win commemorative hats or $500 gift cards.

On paper, those prizes fall a little flat for such a momentous milestone. Far be it from us to tell Miller Brewing how to run their promotion, but it seems like giving out some sort of exclusive gold coin, or a can-shaped gold bar would be more fitting. In fairness, we haven’t seen what the hat looks like. Maybe it’s really cool. Or made of 24k gold.

Anyway, they say only the packaging is different and the beer inside is the same, but we wanted to find out whether they are just being coy and have some kind of special anniversary surprise mixed in the recipe, so we picked up a 12-pack and loosened up our drinking elbow.

Before we get to our findings, a word about journalistic integrity. The Drink Wisconsinbly Week in Review Editorial Board has none. We happily accept gifts, bribes, and special treatment in all its forms; however, know that we purchased our own Miller Lite to conduct this experiment, so you can be confident you’re getting unbiased reporting this time. Here’s how it went:

We hopped on the couch, turned on a basketball game, and got to work on our twelver.

Beer 1: Same flavor profile. Game is fine so far.

Beers 2-4: While we had no rooting interest, cheers got progressively louder.

Beers 5-6: Criticism of coaches became more frequent and more profane. Beer the same.

Beer 7-9: We couldn’t decide between pizza and tacos, so we ordered both.

Beer 10: Turned stereo up loud and played air guitar. Uptight neighbors complained.

Beer 11: Can barely taste beer. Began sending text messages to exes. None replied.

Half of Beer 12: Fell asleep on couch.

So, in conclusion, the story checks out. There’s no difference between Miller Lite in the limited-edition gold cans and the regular ones. Nothing unusual happened. Just an average Thursday night.

The 50th anniversary gold cans are available through the end of July. While the beer has no magical ingredients, maybe you’ll win a hat.