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!