Natural Light’s Controversial 77-Pack Makes A Spring Break Return

77, Natural Light’s Controversial 77-Pack Makes A Spring Break Return

And if you thing that its return around spring break, a notorious time for binge-drinking college hoards, is an accident, think again…

The Natural Light 77-Pack made its first appearance in College Park, Maryland around homecoming weekend in 2018 and not surprisingly sold out immediately.

It also incurred the wrath of Maryland’s chief financial officer, Peter Franchot, who is responsible for the taxation and regulation of alcohol in the state, and told USA9  that the fact that 77-Pack had only been released ONLY in College Park, a major university town, suggested that Anheuser-Busch was  “promoting binge drinking by young people.”

No friend of Big Beer, Franchot has been a big advocate for craft beer.

77, Natural Light’s Controversial 77-Pack Makes A Spring Break Return

Not our first choice

Last November he championed a major legislative package that would have fundamentally reformed the antiquated laws and burdensome regulations that have plagued Maryland’s craft breweries for decades.

Unfortunately Big Beer lobbyists proved influential and that legislation never really saw the light of day but we gotta think that there is no love lost between the two parties…

“The big brewers like Budweiser who are selling 77 cans of beer for .39 cents each to college kids, they don’t like craft brewers, unless they own them,” Franchot told the CBS affiliate.

Astutely described by The TakeOut as a “regular beer that’s been passed through a Brita filter 10,000 times,” the Anheuser-Busch Natural Light brand has long been a low-cost college staple.

And the return of these celebratory 77-packs, this time only in South Padre, Texas and coinciding with spring break, raises eyebrows…

In keeping with having already elicited mixed reactions in the past, Natural Light’s new 77-pack is also mixed…

According to Food & Wine this version offers a case of light beer, a case of ice beer and 29 cans of Naturdays, a newly introduced strawberry lemonade beer destined to send craft beer lovers running for the hills

All image credits: Anheuser-Busch 

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