Cristal Cerveza

Being in Texas, we have a lot of Spanish-y beers scattered all over the place. Any gas station is a good place to find some crappy beer that the construction workers drink as soon as the shift is done (or as soon as the shift has started, at least for a lot of the crews around here). One of the hidden treasures I have found in the last, uh, day, is CRISTAL. This must have been what Snoop was talking about all those years ago. I couldn't fucking believe someone named a beer that.

The bottle is brown, with a medal that says 1922 on it. It's from Peru, a place known for Incas and the conquistador that went there first (mnemonic: Pizzaro peed in Peru). Right on the bottle it says beer from the Andes, I hope there is not parts of a rubgy team still inside it. I have never seen anyone else buy this beer, either it fucking flies off the shelves or it's been sitting there for 6 months. Either way, who cares.

Taste: 7/10
Pleasantly surprising. Light and lageriffic, although there's not much to differentiate it from a lot of the other South American lagers out there (we get a shitload, they are all pretty much the same). I am a lager whore, so it gets my seal of approval.

Aroma: 5/10
Smells like a cheaper beer, but nothing too out of the ordinary.

Price: 5/10
7.49 a sixer at the old Stop N Fuck. A little more expensive than your run of the mill cheap beers, but not too much that it's unbearable. Definitely better than some of the other fleecing going on.

Hangover: 4/10
I got drunk off Miller Lite before trying two of these last night, and felt like a million bucks this morning. Something reared its head about noon, and I didn't feel like doing much the rest of the day. Slightly worse than having two more Millers.

All in all, not a waste of time or money. Recommended for sitting outside grilling, or beating your dog. It's a nice step up from most of the Mexican beers in the area, with the same easiness going down. I wish it was a dollar cheaper, and then I'd have something to drink in the evenings without seeming like an alcoholic polishing off too many cans of cheap shit. Oh well, the world isn't fair.

Yuengling Lager

Yuengling's got the distinction of being America's oldest brewery, started in 1848 in Pottsville, PA. That's a damn lie. It's the world's oldest brewery, and the only one mentioned in the Bible. I've always said this is the only beer Jesus would drink, and after going back to the original Hebrew, there was an obvious mistranslation.

From Matthew Section 107, Row C, Seats 3 and 4:
"Jesus made Yuengling, blessed it, and gave it to his disciples and said, 'This stuff is the cat's ass. Also Judas is going to betray me so that shitdick doesn't get any.'"

They all got bombed on Yuengling then attended Jerusalem's punk shows (the lute was punk as fuck). Jesus's favorite band was Rise Against Pontius Pirate, with Barrabbas, Barrabbas's buddy Hector, and Dick Clark on the drums.

Anyway, we have my choice for best cheap beer in the world. Those of you who've grown up in the northeast US have no doubt been exposed to this wonder of humanity from stealing some out of the refrigerator when the folks aren't looking to paying a hobo 10 bucks to get a case.

Now that I reside in the sigmoid colon of flyover country, it's impossible to get, and with the bullshit restrictions on liquids on an airplane, I can no longer make 2 cases my allowed carryons (4 if the wife comes along). However if I drive back to Texas, I fill the car up with the good stuff.

On to the review...


Taste: 9/10
Tastes like a lager should. Not heavy enough that it will prevent you from knocking the whole case out in a couple of hours.

Price: 8/10
A lot more expensive in the southeast, but it's still 14 bucks for a 30 pack in Philly (at least it was last time I went)

Hangover Potential: 3/10
Tastes better than it should for saying it's pretty easy to stave off its after effects. I can get through about 12 in a few hours before really starting to realize I'm going to get my ass kicked the next day. However...

Hangover Effects: 3/10
Not the worst I've had by far, you get a little bit of the beer shits but the headache's not terrible and you can continue with the rest of the day without feeling like total ass.

Other notes:
I don't know where the fuck the name came from, it sounds Chinese and while I was living in Asia I got confused, since China produces something called Yanjing that tastes like nut sweat comparatively. Wholeheartedly recommended to anyone who is a fan of beer that is cheap and goes down easy. Odds are if you drink beer, and don't like this, then I don't like you as a person.