Beach Bum Blonde Ale

So it's summer, and Anheuser-Busch seems like foisting more crap on us. I didn't think their Widmer stuff was too bad, so on my last trip to the local Albertson's I discovered the Beach Bum Blonde Ale. It had some douchebag looking surfer dude on it, and that should have been my first clue. At least it wasn't Landshark, Jimmy Buffett's beer. That smells like weed as soon as you open the bottle.

I didn't have high hopes while buying this, but I was semi-surprised. It wasn't as disgusting as I imagined, while still staying true to the crappiness of a lot of Anheuser-Busch stuff.

Taste: 5/10
Tastes like a weak american ale, nothing to write home about, but nothing too terribly bad either. Slight hint of citrus-y type stuff, like it poured a shot's worth of Sunset Wheat in the bottle while in the manufacturing plant, but all covered by crap. I was expecting pisswater, so it was a nice change from the normal rotgut I subject myself to on a regular basis.

Aroma: 5/10
Smelled like a skunky Shiner Helles Lager for some reason.

Price: 5/10
An actual ale-type beer for 6.49 a sixer at the grocery store. It's not like they sell ales for cheaper than that normally, so no real complaints there. I'm not going to give it a better score because that's still more than I normally pay for beer.

Hangover: 8/10
I had four of these fuckers, and I almost threw up the next day. That doesn't happen very often, much less after pounding some club sodas and eating before going to bed. Either what I had was laced with E. Coli, or this is not a beer to be trifled with in large quantities. Again, I didn't expect this kind of stuff from a blonde ale, it's not supposed to be punishing. Fucking liars.

This seems to just be a seasonal beer, and I don't expect it to come back out next year, I know I won't miss it any. It's worth a one-time try if you're the adventurous type to see if you really like feeling like you got kicked in the gut the next morning. Good for you if you are. I'm going back to drinking beer I know is shitty.

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.