Kalamazoo Stout = Easy Decision

The annals of history are full of decisions made by great men and women, and most can be placed into one or more of the following categories: Good, Bad, Shitty Shitty, Tough, and Easy.

• Good

All fat. All white. All the time. Also, who the shit didn't sub out Pettis???

My mom bought me a Nintendo with Power Pad for Christmas when I was about 8 years old.  For those of you who don't know about the Power Pad, it is a plastic mat laid on the floor that requires the player to run and jump in order to control the character(s) on the screen.  So it's basically video games and fat camp all rolled into one.  It came with this evil game that required you to run around the woods and jump over logs, and it was fun for the first 15 seconds before I got tired and almost shook the house down to its foundation.  I told my mom that the game didn't work, and I was allowed to trade it in on a new game.  I chose RBI Baseball which to this day remains the benchmark for all baseball video games.  You can take your realistic graphics, season modes, and non-white players somewhere else because RBI Baseball ain't having none of that crap.

• Bad

So simple yet so evil

I've been blessed with a bladder that's roughly the size of a gnat's turd after a big steak dinner.  80% of my trips to the bathroom have the potential to turn into a Code Yellow disaster before reaching the urinal.  Guess what?  Donning a pair of button fly jeans ain't doing me any favors.  Choke on my wet pants, Levi Strauss.

• Shitty Shitty

I decided it was a good idea to steal baseball cards at a local gas station when I was 13.  I wasn't aware at the time, but apparently clerks are trained to spot suspicious teens shoving boxes of Stadium Club packs down their pants.  Bad idea but a great life lesson.  But holy shit those cards were glossy as all get-out.  

Did I mention the cards were glossy?

• Tough

Fuck it.  I'm eating oatmeal for breakfast.

I'd rather solve a Rubik's Cube at gunpoint.

• Easy

Tim Burton's take on King of the Hill

Ah yes.  This is a beer blog, so maybe I should at least mention beer once in this post.  Bell's is an awesome brewery in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and they have a damn fine selection of beers to choose from.  Their Oberon brew is a great starting point for virgins of the Bell's variety.  However, I'm here to talk about their Kalamazoo Stout.  Put into simple terms, this is a fantastic American stout that has become my "easy decision" when browsing the beer aisle at the local grocer.  The smell and taste makes me think of black licorice (Note: Black licorice is superior to red licorice in every possible way) and hints of coffee.  It's not a "coffee beer", but it has the perfect balance of a rich tasting dry stout and an easy drinking ale.  Most stouts, save for Guinness, leave me full and bloated after a few pints.  However, this is a stout that I could drink all day.  It's not a beer that will blow away your taste buds and rewire your olfactory senses, but it is a beer that will leave you wanting more.

9/10  (or a 1 on the binary scale)

Old Speckled Hen

This is an english ale, and typically I wont even give an english ale a chance. I was drinking a Guiness today at the local pub and I saw someone order an Old Speckled Hen. It cascaded when poured just like a Guiness, yet had an amber color that looked very invited and refreshing. I ordered one and was immediately pleased. This beer is incredibly smooth. It has a nice malty taste with notes of toffee and caramel. I have found other english ales unapproachable but this one was very easy to drink. It has 4.5% alcohol, perfect for a couple pints at lunch before returning to work where I am now, clearly working extremely hard. If you are like me you are the type to not even consider an english ale, give this one a shot. You most likely will not regret it.

Acme California Pale Ale Awesomeness

Do you like beer? Do you like crisp, refreshing, delicious beer? Do you like redheads clinging to a rope with one hand and holding a pale ale that can go to toe to toe with any and all comers with the other?

Then Acme's California Pale Ale is for you, my friends.

It doesn't get much better than this beer. We're talking beer you take to a desert island with you, beer you thank the beer gods for after every sip, beer you pay whatever price they're asking because you'd be a mouth-breathing, drooling, shit-stained moron if you let an opportunity to drink this magic beverage pass you by.

I turned 30 this past Wednesday and received a few gifts from family and friends. All were greatly appreciated and all brought a smile to my face. None bigger than the six pack of Acme California Pale Ale my brother handed over. I love this beer.

Summer Solstice Cerveza Crema: say it four times fast

I'm reading each and every comment left at Anderson Valley Brewery's page for their Summer Solstice Cerveza Crema, and my mind is splattered on the wall behind me. It seems everyone who drinks this beer is head over heels in love with it. Everyone that is, except me.

I'll be honest with you, I love Anderson Valley's beer. I do. I'm an Anderson Valley Brewery fan. I celebrate their entire catalog. For my money, I don't know if it gets any better than their Boont Amber Ale.

When it comes to summer beers, I don't know if it gets any worse than their Summer Solstice Cerveza Crema.

I love summer beers (Sierra Nevada, Alaskan, Sam Adams in particular, in that order) and combined with my respect and admiration for Anderson Valley's other work, I was fucking EXCITED to drink this beer and drink a lot of it. I didn't even know they made a summer beer. This was going to be awesome.

Sigh.

Perhaps I had a bad batch. It could have sat on the shelf too long at a less than optimum temperature. Maybe, and this is a big maybe, a Total Wine employee opened the bottles, filtered it through his socks after masturbating into them and capped the bottles back up. I don't know what happened with the beer, but I know I was not a fan of this particular beverage, not a fan at all.

Instead of a smooth, slightly sweet, easy-drinking beer, I found SSCC (I'm sick of typing that shit out) to have far too much going on. It was fruity, bitter, and even spicy. Beer and spice don't do it for me. Never have, never will (I hope those clowns at Sierra Nevada are reading this and taking notes for this year's batch of that abomination Celebration Ale.)

There's a chance I'll try it out again next year, give it another go, allow SSCC to redeem itself. A slight chance. I don't deal well with disappointment.

Shiner Smokehaus tastes like, well, smoke

Every once in a while I'll have what I call "six pack Friday." I have a certain amount of freedom at my place of employment, where I can nearly do whatever I want. Drinking a few beers at my desk on a Friday is sometimes the thing I want to do.

Today was one of those Fridays, and the beer selection was Shiner's Smokehaus. Now, I love Shiner beer. Everything I've sampled from their brewery has been delicious and I've always wanted more.

Not so with their Smokehaus.

I read the label, and knew full well what I was getting into. It says "mesquite smoked beer" front and center. I have no one to blame but myself, as there should have been some thought in my head of "this beer probably tastes like a combination of Shiner Bock and liquid smoke."

Which it does. It tastes like Shiner Bock when it gets past the lips, and tastes like liquid smoke on the way down and at the finish. I love smoke, I love bbq, I love drinking and bbq'ing.

I do not love Shiner's Smokehaus and it's liquid smoke tinge. It's not for me, and I have a hard time believing it's for anyone out there.

It pains me to say, but I've found a Shiner product I will never purchase again. It's bad enough disliking a new beer, it damn near hurts when it comes from a favorite brewery.

To quote the great Kelly Bundy, "case of rum, case of rum."

Shiner Bock is the Awesome

1 - purchase Shiner Bock
2 - drink Shiner Bock
3 -
4 - PROSIT!

I've enjoyed every Shiner beverage I've sampled in my beer drinking career, but none more than their Bock. Delicious, balanced, and reasonably priced, it's my kind of beer.

I don't have any crazy stories to tell involving this great beer, or any jokes to beat into the ground at its expense. All I'll say is if I'm looking to come home from work, do some grilling, listen to Avail, and have a beer or two with dinner, Shiner Bock is at the top of my list.

I'd totally go gay for the Shiner ram.

High Life still reigns supreme

Holiday weekends kick fucking ass. I know it, you know it, hell, even Michael Jackson knows it, and he's as dead as the pigeon my neighbor's cat gutted and left in my yard Saturday.

There's nothing quite like an extra day away from work, an extra day to do whatever the hell you want, be it sitting on your ass and drinking beer, bowling and drinking beer, grilling and drinking beer, or even mowing your demon of a lawn and drinking beer (hint: I did all of these this wonderful holiday weekend.)

What doesn't kick fucking ass is going back to work. The joy of a three day weekend can only be taken down by the misery of a Monday, and take down that joy is exactly what Monday did to me yesterday.

The details are boring and don't really matter, but my Monday sucked giant donkey balls and left me hating life. Thankfully, man invented beer. More to the point, the fellas at Miller invented High Life.

It's delicious.

It really is. Smooth, tasty, and cheap. It's the perfect beer to drink after getting repeatedly kicked in the balls by Monday. I love it, I love it, I love it.

Now, I've been on health kick recently, and admittedly, it's gotten a bit ridiculous. So ridiculous in fact, I don't drink beer during the week.

Sigh.

However, my new, healthy outlook on life was no match for the High Life last night. It didn't stand a chance. Being healthy was playing checkers while the girl in the moon was playing chess.

A 12 pack of High Life. It'll cure what's ailing you, even a horrible case of the Mondays.

Samuel Adams Triple Bock (2008 remix)

Samuel Adams is known for 3 things. Patriotism, beer, and hardcore revolutionary-era pornography. Unfortunately, they only sell one of those at the beer store. My buddy Mike got drunk one night and made a liquor store run, and picked up a bunch of random beers. Cue to next week, after polishing off most of what he bought, and my monthly work trip to Dallas became a beer-sampling expedition. For some reason he had been saving this, since it was expensive. I wish he hadn't.

I didn't see our previous review before opening this son of a bitch, which was my mistake.

Price - 0.0/10. 5 bucks for an 8.45 oz bottle. You could water it down and fill up a 24oz container, though.

Smell - First test by Mike, "a fuckin tawny port". He's fucking right. Straight up raisins and chocolate in your ass. In fact, I couldn't smell anything other than that, including anything you would normally associate with beer. The raisins and chocolate did smell nice though, so I don't really know what to make of it. Unrated.

Taste - 2/10
It tastes like beer raisin syrup. There are enough sediments in the bottle to pan for gold in. A little too harsh aftertaste for a beer. I drink beers in under 10 minutes as a rule, and half a glass took me 30 minutes to wash down. The tallboy of Coors I had as a chaser was much better. However, it might actually be better used as a sauce for meat. Neither of us want to venture into actually using it, as we own actual seasonings and Tapatio hot sauce.

I would never drink this again, even if I was paid for it.

Hangover Potential - 8/10
Having 1 after 6 Millers at the bar. We are guessing it's around 14%. Don't try this at home.
Update:
I had several Coors after that. I overslept for work, and walked around in a haze most of the day. No headache or extreme stomach issues, even after accidentally inhaling a good amount of the black death at the bottom of my glass.

Randomness - So I hear from folks that there are good triple bocks (or tripel bocks, fancy pantses). This was my first introduction to them, and from Flood's review, this is definitely not the one to get your feet wet with. Try some Belgian shit. Seriously, don't do it.

MGD 64

According to Miller advertising, MGD 64 has fewer calories than the following drinks:

* A 6 ounce glass of red wine (128 calories)
* A 6 ounce gin and tonic (172 calories)

* A 6.5 ounce margarita (246 calories)

As convincing as those numbers are, there was still a part of me that felt an unbiased study needed to be done. Believe me – it’s not that I don’t trust the brewers of this fine country. Hell, without them we wouldn’t have Zima, Bud Light Chelada, or Tequiza. Despite the proven track record of these alcoholic national treasures, I felt that I owed it to our loyal reader(s) to dig a bit deeper. I had the boys in the YLHY lab run some unbiased tests. Please remember that the YLHY scientists aren’t real scientists. In fact, most of them are still waiting for their G.E.D. test scores (cross your fingers).

That being said, they know beer. So, without further adieu, here’s what they came up with.

We setup shop outside the local Wal-Mart (Wal-Marts for our readers in Indiana) and asked volunteers to help us with a little old-fashioned market research. Here’s what we learned from the fine shoppers of the South West side Wal-Mart:

* 5 out of 7 shoppers over the age of fourteen don’t wear shoes

* adults have up to 24 teeth

* the Plymouth Sundance is a damn fine automobile

* Lynyrd Skynyrd’s "Bullets America ’76" tour t-shirt comes in both black and faded black

* Apple is yet to make the iPod available to Iowa consumers

* 23 out of 25 dirty babies will cry when flicked in the face (I apologize for the limited sample size of dirty babies – this was due to our testing being done at 2 in the morning)

Upon returning to the lab, we poured over the numbers for countless minutes before coming to the following conclusion: we forgot to test the beer. Shit. After intense soul searching we decided that another trip to Wal-Mart would not be a good idea. This probably has something to do with the monster truck that drove over our folding table during our initial visit.

So…here it is. MGD 64 has absolutely zero redeeming factors in the realm of ‘taste’. In fact, remember the classic Jim Croce song “Time In a Bottle?” Well, Miller Brewing has taken old Jimbo’s concept one step further because they have now managed to effectively market and distribute “Piss In a Bottle.” Seriously, it tastes like what I would imagine Kevin Costner’s piss tasted like after he ran it through that crazy filtration system in Water World (quit acting like you didn’t watch Water World, asshole).

Samuel Adams Triple Bock (1997 Vintage)

I'm not going to lie to you - I like shiny things. I am more likely to buy something if it's in a cool package. Case in point: Samuel Adams Triple Bock. It is neither a tripel or a bock, but what the hell, it sounds cool. Even more important, the packaging of this beer is second to none - cool black (I'll come back to this later) bottle, fancy script, and a neat little cork all promise to provide a great drinking experience. Hey, I can't argue with that logic. Hell, those 3 reasons are why I once found Sinbad funny. However, let's cut to chase: this is not beer. Some may classify this bad boy as a barleywine, but that isn't accurate because barleywine doesn't taste like a concoction of soy sauce, 20 year old raisins, and Wild Turkey. Samuel Adams Triple Bock, my friends, is nothing short of a fanciful five act play that takes the consumer all the way from excitement to agony, from beauty to Rocky Dennis-like horror, from Rob Deer's batting average to a routine fly ball made miraculous by a loafing Jim Edmonds, etc.

ACT I: The Bottle

As you can see by the photo, Samuel Adams pulled out all the stops for this one. Not much to say other than "wow".

ACT II: The Pour

I'm not sure what the automotive background is for the typical YLHY reader, but this stuff pours EXACTLY like used motor oil. Zero carbonation with a few noticeable floaters.
Note: It was not until now that I realized the true color of the bottle: blue. Yeah....I too was surprised.

ACT III: The Taste

Notice the wide, powerful stance and forward lean. Also notice the clenched fist. While you're at it, notice my dog, Maggie, calling for help. Eat your heart out, Lassie.

ACT IV: The Pour (part II)

This was actually the best part of the entire experience. To be fair, I took more than one drink. However, there was no way in hell I could finish all 8.4 ounces of this clearly carcenagenic substance.

ACT V: The Aftermath

The carnage that this brew left behind was nothing short of pure devastation. My sink claims to be "stainless", but I'm thinking I just found its cryptonite and it's name is Triple Bock. And let us not forget to take a gander at that once beautiful piece of glassware. Damn, I'd drink out of my grandma's bed pan before using that glass again.

In closing, this is not a good beer. In fact, this is not beer -- it is gross.

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.

Dogfish Head: Raison D'Etre

I took three years of French in high school but I can't remember what raison d'etre translates to. Keep in mind though I'm the same person who flies off the handle when someone who was raised speaking and writing English substitutes sans for without.

Raison D'Etre is a raisin beer. Yes, raisins. The little sun-dried grapes that bind your shit together and assists with poo log formation.

It's a pretty dark beer and full flavored. Dogfish Head calls it a mahogany and explains it's brewed with beet sugar along with the aforementioned raisins. Sounds to me like the guys who brew Dogfish Head are of the smelly, hippie variety.

I didn't know what to expect with this brew but must say I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't overly fruity or sweet and very balanced. The raisins don't really hit until you've gulped it down but even then it's subtle and hardly overpowering.

I had four of these suckers one night, one the next (a friend had the 6th and final beer.) With an 8% alcohol content, it's a potent brew. By my fourth all was right in the world. I will say though these were better the first night. The solo bottle I had the next night was not nearly as good, as perhaps the novelty had worn off...or the subtleness of the raisins did.

Side note: Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre may be an aphrodisiac. Be sure your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/neighbor's dog knows you're drinking these because you might end up fucking anything that moves. Trust me...strong like bull.

I bought the 6'er at BevMo, a fancypants liquor store I believe is owned by CostCo. You would think with their buying power they could do something about the price. Sadly, that wasn't the case, as I threw down $9.99 for a sixer of these suckers.

Now, it's my understanding that Dogfish Head is a small operation and that maybe raisins and beet sugar are hard to come by, but 8% alcohol content or not, it's not quite worth $10 for six. Close but no cigar, especially for a beer that when it boils down to it, is more novelty act than delicious beverage.

Taurino Cerveza

I swear I'm drinking one of these right now. Really, I do. However, I challenge you to find another review for it online or even a damn picture of the beer. You won't. Well, maybe you will. My google skills are worthless and weak.

The beer seems to be sold exclusively at Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Markets, a sort of minimalist approach to grocery shopping. Pretty sure it's a British thing. Unlike spotted dick, it ain't half bad.

Taurino Cerveza ain't half bad either. It isn't fantastic by any means but as far as Latin American beers go, I'll stack it up favorably with Corona, Tecate and Modelo.

It's smooth tasting and easy drinking like the other beers I mentioned. The big difference however is the price. $7.99 for a 12'er.

Maybe it's because it's from El Salvador or maybe it's because Fresh and Easy has tons and tons of the stuff and must sell it exclusively or maybe it's because no one knows about it, but this is pretty much a Corona, with an image of a bull slapped on it and a 25% or so discount.

If there's a Fresh and Easy in your area, seek out Taurino Cerveza. After comparing it to Corona I guarandamntee you won't pay $12 for a 12-pack of Mexican beer again.

VIVA TAURINO CERVEZA! VIVA EL SALVADOR! VIVA FRESH AND EASY!

Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA

Dogfish Head is a wonderful brewery in Delaware that is most well known for its IPA, most notably the 60 Minute version which is easily found and the 90 Minute, which is supposed to be a hoppier IPA than the 60 Minute (probably because the number of minutes in the beer is how long one of them will fuck you up) but actually doesn't taste like that.

A local fancy pants beer and wine deli here carried the much rarer 120 Minute IPA, only brewed in a handful of batches every year, so I decided to pick one up.

Taste: 9/10
All the hops punch you in the face. There's not a lot of carbonation due to the fact that this mother is 20% ABV. That's right, 20%. Six pack in a fucking bottle. I'm not one to drink an IPA on a regular basis, but if there would be one, this would be it. There's a lot going on all the way through the beer, and the aftertaste doesn't ruin the back of your tongue like a lot of IPAs I have. You can taste a whole bunch of other shit in there but my palate is not very refined. I eat Wendy's too often for that.

It says on the bottle "ages well", so I bought another to drink sometime next year to see if it will get any better, but this blog will probably be long dead by then.

Aroma: 10/10
I smelled a lot of hops, and something else smelled like fruit in there. Like I've said before, my sense of smell sucks, but even my retarded ass could tell that this was going to be a great beer. Except for...

Price: 0/10
9 DOLLARS A TWELVE OUNCE BOTTLE. You'd have to use the empty to mug a guy coming in the store to make drinking this very cost-effective. I have never paid that much for a beer before and I never will again. Fucking recession.

Hangover: N/A
I sobered up after an hour or so and still had a couple of hours before I went to bed. Nothing bad happened, but I base it on my course of action. Drinking this right before bed, like I do with the others, probably would have resulted in disaster. I'm not going to try that again. This guy chugged one, though...




I'm guessing he didn't feel too great if he went right to bed afterwards either.

The entire Dallas/Fort Worth area only got 50 cases of this stuff, so good luck finding it somewhere near you. If you have money to burn, it's a wonderful way to do it. Since most of us don't, it'll just be the expensive beer the bourgeoisie drink while they figure out what to do with all that oil money.

Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat

According to their website, Sunset Wheat "has a soothing taste that will leave you speechless." Oh yeah? Well, that would make for a pretty shitty review, so I'll just try and work through my sudden bout of speechlessness.

It's really difficult to give an unbiased review on this fine beverage because my love for Sunset Wheat has been well documented - I drink Sunset Wheat like it's my fkn job. In fact, the frequency in which I crack open bottles of Sunset Wheat would probably be comparable to the number of jerk-off sessions I had between the years of 1994-1999. I often refer to this phase of my life as The Troubles. Not The Troubles, but the time of my life I spent praying for a freak accident involving a pool of Jello, a 12-Volt battery charger, my dick, and an anonymous vagina falling from heaven. Needless to say, I never did find that pool of Jello nor did I get enveloped by the business end of a labia majora. However, my mom did get me a 12-volt battery charger for my birthday one year.

Score.

On to the beer....

This is the beer I fall back on when wanting to relax with friends - whether it be a warm day at the golf course or a chilly December day manning the grill for the last time of the season. Its drinkability score is off the charts, and the great thing is that I NEVER get tired of the flavor. Some people compare the taste of Sunset Wheat to that of Fruit Loops. To that I can only reply with a hearty "go fuck yourself". Seriously, I want proof of said self f-ing session in the form of a) polaroids; b) conventional 35 mm film; or c) stinky pinky.

I highly recommend this beer, so go buy some right now. Either that or show up at my door with pinky extended.

Inexpensive Beer Report: Old Style

Ever hear of the great punk band The Queers? They're one of my favorites. On their album Don't Back Down, there's a great song called "I Only Drink Bud." In the song Joe Queer sings:

"People in Chicago
always brag about Old Style
before I drink that swill again
it's gonna be a while"

I've been humming the tune all night while putting down these cans adorned with a red and blue shield. However, it's hardly swill.

I find it to be a rather enjoyable beverage. I would definitely prefer a bottle rather than a can but something tells me this drink is best served from an aluminum container.

It's sweet at first taste and smooth on finish, with the sweetness sticking around just a bit. I'd like a bit more carbonation but with a beer of this value and it being served in good ol' Al, I can't complain too much, I knew what I was getting when I bought this beer.

If I had to compare it to another beer I've drank, it would be Bud Light. This is strange, because I'm not a fan of the beer promoted with the best radio ads ever. My dislike for Bud Light has a lot to do with the hangovers it usually causes. For whatever reason, a night of slaying Bud Lights is followed with the worst beer shits known to man.

Enough of this babbling and boring nonsense, onto the ratings:

Taste: 7/10

Again, nice and smooth, pretty balanced. No real surprises here, it's about what I expected and didn't disappoint.

I will say it isn't quite as good as the first time I had the pleasure of drinking it. That was in a hotel parking lot tailgating with friends.

Aroma: 3/10

Smells like aluminum. Which reminds me of picking up thousands of cans in college the morning after parties.

Ever smell your hand after drinking all night, and smoking an untold number of cigarettes and bong loads? It's not good. Not good at all. Cleaning up mostly empty cans of beer that have been sitting out all night only makes things worse.

The bile is starting to build just thinking about it.

Price: 5/10

$8 and change for a 12'er. And these are cans. As I said, as far as I know, Old Style isn't readily available in Phoenix. The price is proof. Fuck you, Walgreens.

Hangover: N/A

It's Thursday night and I don't plan on drinking any more than four of these suckers. If I did finish the 12-pack my guess is I'd be on the shitter half the following day, battling a raw asshole and a splitting headache.

I can see myself now, walking gingerly back to my desk, sitting down gently as my stomach continued to bubble and gurgle.

Inexpensive Beer Report: Milwaukee Classic Ice

On Saturday afternoon, the Good Brother and I decided to take the 45 minute drive up to Kenosha, Wisconsin to go beer hunting. Specifically, my brother was looking for Bells (which ain't available in Chicago) and we were both looking for the Holy Grail of Inexpensive Beer - Genesee Cream Ale. We hit up this HUGE grocery store called Woodmans, it was literally the size of a Super Wal-Mart, maybe bigger. Their beer selection did not disappoint - we got the Bells & Genesee along with a bevy of inexpensive beers that will grace the pages of Your Liver Hates You over the next month or so.

I was immediately drawn to the "Classic Ice" for the following reasons:

1. I've never heard of it
2. It was dirt cheap ($9.99 for 30)
   
3. It came in four packs

That's right people, four 12oz beers for sale. This absolutely blew my mind, what company would have the gall to sell 4 regular beers for a sub $2 price? Apparently the Milwaukee Premium Brewing Company, that's who!

Apparently the Milwaukee Premium Brewing Company (at least according to the fine folks at ratebeer.com) is a subsidiary of City Brewing. Ratebeer's listing of City Brewery's beers is a Who's Who of crap beer that I've enjoyed throughout my lifetime - Beer 30, Camo, DB Hobbs, Jaguar High Gravity Lager (which I also enjoyed thanks to the trip up north), La Crosse Lager, Schaefer Light and Sportz. These beers are all winners to a connoisseur of Inexpensive Beer like myself..... well actually Camo is absolutely terrible but in all the right ways. So my excitement level was quickly rising when I cracked open my first Classic Ice.

Now I love a shitty beer, but Milwaukee Classic Ice takes shitty to a whole new level. This is definitely one of the worst non MaltLiquor/HighGravityWhatever beers I've ever had. It doesn't have much taste going down, but it has a weird "texture" when drinking that I can't describe. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with an absurdly low carbonation level. When your sip is complete, the aftertaste kicks in. Not overwhelming mind you, but just enough to say "I'm here and you won't enjoy my company" - a most odd double whammy.

So Milwaukee Classic Ice has done what I previously though impossible - present me with a cheap, obscure, poorly brewed domestic beer that I don't really enjoy. Actually, now that I'm near slaying the 4 pack and its 6.0% ABV buzz is kicking in - I can think of worse ways to spend my time. Still, be wary of the Milwaukee Classic Ice, fine traveler....

Inexpensive Beer Report: Cerveza Caguama

The Kroger near my house carries a lot of interesting beers, the first on the list of things to try was Cerveza Caguama, mostly because it has a turtle on the front. The back of the bottle explains that Caguama means giant sea turtle, so now I have a beer made out of turtles. Either that or it comes from some terrible river full of needles that turtles fucked in in Mexico.

Beer review websites listed this as a solid C- beer. Those people are goddamned lunatics. Opening the beer, my wife recoiled in horror at the smell and she was 10 feet away from me when I opened it. This did not bode well for me, or my gastrointestinal well being.

Taste: 2/10
Take a Corona, open it, and then leave it out for a week. Put it back in the fridge, open, next to some cottage cheese. Dump some asparagus in the bottle. Whatever you want. That's what can approximate the taste of this stuff. It really is trying hard to be a Corona Light, but as everyone knows Corona Light sucks, and if it's aspiring to be that, well, there's trouble right there.

Aroma: 0.5/10

This is a crappy Blackberry camera phone picture of MacGyver, our crack beer drinking dog. We don't let the other dog drink, because he is already too stupid, and therefore can't spare the brain cells.

Mac has had most of the beers I've reviewed so far, just to see what he'd enjoy, hoping for a moment like there was with The Turtle. After sniffing a little bit of this in his bowl, he moved to the other side of the house and didn't move, and I took the picture above. I'd say that's a resounding fuck you to this beer, if even the god damn dog won't drink it.

As for me, I think it approximates closely to what I would imagine turtle piss would smell like.

Price: 7/10
$5 a sixer is nothing to sneeze at down here, cheaper than Bud/Miller/Coors. It's no Hamm's or Blatz, though. I wouldn't pay $2 for a sixer of this.

Hangover: 2/10
Four before bed and only woke up with an urge to relieve myself. I guess that's the bright spot in all this? To be fair, I was not in the same county as a buzz after 4 of these, so that's probably the reason. I don't like this blog enough to drink enough to make the pain. I was anticipating stomach hell but everything was copacetic.

I have never seen this beer anywhere else, but if you do, and buy it, you're retarded and I hate you.

Shiner Dunkelweizen

Here in Texas we've got a wonderful brewery that more or less takes up an entire small town. Shiner's most famous product, Shiner Bock, is (I'm guessing) exported everywhere around the US and is a fine, fine beer. In the last couple of years, they've been branching out with some success, and some weirdness.

Shiner Dunkelweizen evidently was their Winter Ale and they just decided to make up some bullshit sounding German name to call it so that they could sell it all year round. A Google search says that a dunkelweizen is the dark version of a hefeweizen, so that bodes well, as I love me some wheat beer. It's the only non-cheap beer which will fuck me up good and not make me feel too terrible in the morning, which really is my favorite quality in a beer anymore. Unfortunately for my long term health, I drink way too much.

Anyway, let's crack this mother open.

Taste: 4/10
Tasted more like a crappy ale than what I would have expected from a dark wheat beer. I don't think I could make it through more than two before giving up on my drinking for the evening (at least as far as the dunkelweizen is concerned). No hint of anything from a wheat beer at all.

Aroma: ?
It smells like dark beer. Even years after quitting smoking, I still can't smell shit.

Price: 5/10
7.49 for a sixer. For what I assumed this beer to be, that was about what I expected. I don't pay that much for beer on a regular basis but if it was better, I wouldn't have objected too much.

Hangover: 8/10
I wrote all this other shit last night. I made it through 3, and I felt like ass this morning. I did start the day off with a (free) Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA so that may have been a contributing factor. Even eating a second dinner of Wendy's around midnight while playing Dead Rising was ineffectual. I was dropping a bomb as soon as I woke up, and my head felt like microscopic dwarves had come in through my ear canal and were digging through the front of my head.

Randomness:
I found this in a gas station near my house but haven't seen it anywhere else around the suburb that I live, grocery stores, liquor stores, nothing, just this one gas station. I wonder if they're just repurposing beer just to fuck with me.

I'll be trying the rest of Shiner's newer beers at some point in the near future but this one has turned me off to their stuff for a while. It's too bad because their Bock is the BANC.