Posts Mentioning RSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Frosty 10:17 am on February 13, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    Hitachino Nest Espresso Stout. Coffee + Beer = Sink. 

    Run away!Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you poured cold coffee in beer? Well wonder no longer. Hitachino Nest has answered that question by brewing up their Espresso Stout. A “Japanese dark beer brewed with coffee beans”. A beer, best described as tasting like rancidity and sadness. Now, I’m no fan of coffee in general, but everyone else who tried this also gave it a resounding “yuck”.

    In an effort to brew something that satisfied both the night before and the morning after, they instead created what is officially the worst beer I’ve ever tasted.

     

  • Frosty 12:38 pm on November 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Ow my Mouth! Bayern Dragon’s Breath 

    2009-11-01 13.21.18My local beer swiller has a “bargain bin”. Sometimes, I find some real gems in there. Like the Mendecino Black Hawk Stout. Other times however, what I find there truly deserves its shelf location. I should have known better when I saw the full six pack sitting there, instead of the usual single bottles.

    I won’t labor on the review too much other than to say “ew’. Like “omg ew”. Like, what were they thinking? Its labeled a “Dark Heff”, but I’m not sure what that even is supposed to mean. It is an assault on the tastebuds the like of which I haven’t had in awhile. The flavor was so all over the place, its almost like something I would recommend everyone try, just so I could watch the look on your face when you drink it. Its the beer equivalent to “Hey dude, this reeks….come smell it”.

    When you think about it, they did warn me a little by naming it Dragon’s Breath. That being the case, I’ll finish out this little review with an unintentional review from dear Gollum: “[Dragon's Breath] It burns! It burns us!”

     

    • Robin 12:42 pm on November 2, 2009 Permalink

      Sounds pretty lame. What’s the local beer swiller? I’m looking for good stores. I pop by Belmont Station from time to time, but I need more ideas.

    • Frosty 12:52 pm on November 2, 2009 Permalink

      It is pretty nasty stuff. I got it at Market of Choice. Belmont Station is good. I’ve also heard good things about Beermongers (1125 SE Division St), although I haven’t tried it yet.

  • Frosty 11:41 am on May 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Set adrift in nasty. Widmer Drifter Pale Ale. 

    widmeryuck-7An hour or so ago, I made a Twitter entry that proclaimed my intention to drink this, given that I had nothing else in the fridge. “In the land of the thirsty, the one starred beer is king” it proclaimed. Well, it turns out that the land of the thirsty is a lawless place. Not even my desire for a beer could get me choke down this swill.

    Hoppy where you don’t want it, tart in the rest, its just some kind of beer experiment gone wrong. Like, the flavors so bad that they decided to overcompensate by adding citrus “flavors”. “Needs more dog” as the saying goes.

    You know, the bottle has this tagline on it. “Brewers of Quality Beers”. Really? My sink doesn’t agree. Don’t get me started on Widmer, whose business lobby makes you pay for little things like tatoos and stickers. Somewhere along the way, local Oregon brewery turned into cash obsessed money machine. And the taste of the beer seems to gone along with it.

     

    • Swill Jockey 8:05 pm on May 23, 2009 Permalink

      Wholeheartedly agreed.

  • Frosty 9:51 pm on February 20, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Lost Coast Raspberry Brown – Fruit gone wrong. 

    Fruity beers can go one of two ways. An awesome brew of fruity flavor, ala Stumptown Tart, or a nasty, syrup tinged nightmare like Lost Coast Raspberry Brown. I mean this stuff is terrible. What would possess them to make something that tastes like Raspberry Syrup poured into Brown Ale is beyond me. I assume there is a Brown Ale in there somewhere, but its hard to tell past the pucker.

    Because Lost Coast’s Downtown Brown is so good, I will chalk this one up to the brewers having too many evenings over in “herbal” Aracata. Now that i think about it, I guess that explains the wrappers.

     

    • joebarstow 1:51 pm on March 30, 2009 Permalink

      Hmmm. I had this ale last night at the bullpen and thought it was very refreshing! although I only had a few sips and gave the rest to my girlfriend who enjoys rasberry sweet stuff. Anyway, this deserves 2 mugs at least!

    • Frosty 6:57 pm on March 30, 2009 Permalink

      To be fair, the bottle I drank looked like it had been sitting around for a while. For a reason maybe?

  • Frosty 9:31 pm on January 18, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Blech … Jubelale 2008. 

    I’m not going to spend too much effort on this, other to say that the 2006 version of Jubelale was nasty. 2007 was gross as well. In this regard, the 2008 version does not disappoint. Just as cheek smashy, just as odd tasting, just as quickly down the sink. This year, even the wrapper was bad.

    At least I didn’t have to pay for it. Except in watching the Charger game with the buddy who brought it over. But I’m not bitter, really. Jubelale on the other hand …

     

    • SwillJockey 10:35 am on January 19, 2009 Permalink

      I think the 2008 “Quickly Down The Sink” mean give this stuff to Swill Jockey and make him live up to his moniker and drink it.

      I’m scared, very scared. Someone hold me.

    • Frosty 10:46 am on January 19, 2009 Permalink

      Misery loves company.

  • Frosty 8:39 pm on October 29, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Hibernation Ale: Like Bad Anesthesia 

    Ever had one of those beers where it feels like the flavor wraps around your teeth? Like its originating in your molars, wandering your bicuspids, then slowly slithering its way into that part of your pallete that makes you shudder. The kind where it’s a liquid, but you feel the urge to chew, and chew. HArd enough to kill whatever it was that was assaulting your mouth.

    So goes Hibernation Ale by Great Divide. Someone in the brewery said, lets give it more flavor! And out came the funk dropper. The label says “Robust”. But what they really mean is “Really f*@$!ing Rubust”. Rubust like a sweaty sumo wrestler. And tasting the same too.

     

    • David 8:54 pm on November 2, 2008 Permalink

      I recently had the opportunity to try this beer too. I have to agree with the eff-ing robustness of this beer. However, I enjoyed mine much more after some Jameson whiskey.

      Of course, there are a lot more things that taste (feel, look, etc.) better with whiskey.

  • Walt Liquor 11:17 pm on July 3, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: My soul is now cursed   

    Budweiser and Clamato — My Stomach Wants a Divorce 

    This has been a bad week for my stomach.  First, we went to the county fair, where I had — you better sit down for this — 1) a deep-fried twinkie, 2) deep-fried oreos, 3) deep-fried Spam, and best of all, 4) a deep-fried WHITE CASTLE BURGER.  I believe these are coincidentally the forms that the four horsemen of the apocalypse will take when they reappear on earth.  Fortunately for us all, I neutralized them with my stomach.  Then, I found this beverage.  It was a moment that will forever live in infamy, a moment that will have entire chapters devoted to it in my children’s high school history textbooks, a moment that as we speak is forming the foundations of new religions.  The moment that I found…   Budweiser and Clamato.   Yeah, that’s right — Budweiser, a perfectly normal, profitable company, has put out a product that consists of a can, a can that contains beer, tomato sauce, and clam juice.  The resulting concotion is salmon-colored, cloudy, and carbonated.   And it looked just as disgusting as it sloshed down the kitchen sink drain as it did sitting on the shelf in the store.

     Clamato, as I read in wikipedia, is a mix of reconstituted tomato juice concentrate, reconstituted dried clam broth, and high fructose corn syrup.   Oh, and MSG.  Who the hell decided they needed to add beer to the mix?  It’s apparently very popular, particularly in Canada, but it is easily THE WORST BEER I’VE EVER TASTED.  And keep in mind, I’m the guy who actually finished forty-ounce bottles of Schlitz, King Cobra, and something called “Country Club”.  I managed two sips of this abomination before I had to eat a mop to get rid of the flavor.  It takes quite a lot to disgust me, and the fine folks at Budweiser have done it.  I raise a glass of Tums to you in salute.

     Sadly, I had poured it all down the drain before I realized I had not maximized the potential of this drink — clearly, what it’s meant for is dipping sauce for deep-fried White Castles.  Maybe next year, unless I wise up before then.  If I could give this drink a negative six, I could, but let’s just say that my digestive system will never be the same…

     

    • Ivana Goodbeer 7:37 am on July 4, 2008 Permalink

      You are a brave brave man. This was quite a sacrifice you made for the website. Bless you… (holds empty beer can and taps shoulders)

    • Frosty 7:40 am on July 4, 2008 Permalink

      OMG Walt! What did you do!? I remember the day I walked by this in the store and shuddered in horror. Your dedication to “taking one for the team” is both admirable and frightening. I guess I shouldn’t have canceled that Frosty Goodness medical plan…

    • Swill Jockey 7:44 am on July 4, 2008 Permalink

      Frosty, you deserve a demerit for not having a ZERO, or lower, on the rating scale here.

      Walt, there are an infinite number of demerits destined for you. Sigh.

    • Walt Liquor 4:23 pm on July 12, 2008 Permalink

      An update — I just checked the beer aisle at my local clamato mart, and they now have… Clamato and BUD LITE. What niche does that fill? Who could that possibly be targeted to, people who drink clam juice yet are calorie-conscious?

  • Walt Liquor 10:36 pm on June 21, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Old Milwaukee… just sounds delicious, doesn’t it? This beer dates back before they named brews after snakes. I’m not sure if this is technically malt liquor or merely cheap beer, but I drank it from a 40-ounce bottle shaped like a Saturn rocket booster, so I’ll refer to it as the malt variety. Once Frosty hires a fact-checker for us, I’ll be more diligent in my terminology.

    This one was not terrible, but it really stands out for fizziness. The “beer” was astoundingly carbonated. Just so much bubbles, fizz, and accompanying bloated feeling, that I wondered how much actual beer there was in the bottle along with the CO2. If it’s warmer this month than usual, blame my beer review for doubling the global warming effect. Malt liquors in general are more carbonated, and oddly carbonated, than regular old beer — you can tell that whereas a homebrewed beer, for example, contains bubbles from natural fermentation processes, malt liquors contain bubbles thanks to the support of some scary industrial surfactant. Needless to say, I was absolutely charming in the eyes of Mrs. Liquor that night, with my horrible beer breath and need to burp every 3 seconds.

    What’s this I see on the label? Lo and behold, Old Milwaukee is brewed and distributed by Schlitz, which makes my least-favorite malt liquor to date. Given the flavors of both, it seems that Old Mil is the upscale, high-quality product, the Lexus to Schlitz’ Toyota. I’d drink this over Schlitz, but not much else — I really can’t recommend it for taste. If you’re entering a burping contest in the next 30 seconds, or you need to inflate a lot of backyard jumpy toys by hand this evening, I heartily recommend it. Otherwise, save your money, and save our world from more global warming!

     

  • Frosty 2:22 pm on March 23, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Ninkasi Believer Double Red Ale 

    Ow my mouth…aka Aftertaste attack, OMG the aftertaste…did I mention the aftertaste?

    Some time ago, Skylark was waxing poetic about this brewery in Eugene, Oregon called Ninkasi. It had something to do with the brewmaster but I can’t remember whether he met him, slept with him, stole his dog or what. He spoke with a salvating tone about the opportunity to try one of these hard to find beers.

    So imagine my delight when I saw a bottle at my local beer pusher. ‘Here’s my chance to see what all the fuss is about’, I thought. I’ve often been a big fan of the red ales (Karl Strauss Red Trolley was an early favorite), so I decided to grab the intriguingly titled “Believer Double Red Ale”. From the bottle:

    The ancient Sumerians worshipped the beer they made, and praised the Goddess Ninkasi for the miracle of fermentation. Beer is a staple of civilization. Worship the Goddess.

    Well, my friends, count me among the non-believers. ‘Cause OMG the aftertaste. The shame is that the flavor of the beer as you drink it is actually pretty good. Its when you stop that all hell breaks loose. Its like it alive. The face twisting after taste literally feels like it wandering around my mouth, punching every taste bud it finds. I’ve had cheek smash before, but this is more like cheek ultra-violence. “Like rubbing a piece of cedar on your cheeks”, the wife says.

    I’m not ready to write of Ninkasi just yet, as they have some good sounding beers in the stable. Instead I just warn you to proceed with caution, its “that time of the month” and  this Goddess is vengeful.

     

    • Ivana Goodbeer 8:13 pm on March 23, 2008 Permalink

      It is like sucking on a hunk of cedar. (Great for keeping the moths away!)

  • Hops-scotch 8:51 pm on March 11, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Trader Joe’s Bavarian Hefeweizen… ick. 

    43172I haven’t had this beer in a long time. And yet, it hasn’t been long enough. I can’t even describe the bad that was the taste of this beer. This beer, if you want to call it that, holds the distinction of being the only beer I would not and could not finish. I know that Trader Joe’s isn’t known for its proper beer storage ways, but that can’t be the reason behind the flavor of the Bavarian Hefeweizen. It goes way beyond that. Only a temporary lack of sanity could lead to this sorry beer’s release.

     

    • Frosty 10:05 pm on March 11, 2008 Permalink

      I would like to propose that the temporary lack of sanity was in fact … the purchase of the beer. :)

      Trader Joe’s kills every beer.

    • Hops-scotch 8:16 am on March 12, 2008 Permalink

      Touche. I should have known better.

Older Posts →

c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
l
go to login
h
show/hide help
esc
cancel