This is a beer whose artwork can Kick Your Ass, Burn Your Village, and Decimate Your Culture for Decades To Come (and will Later Become the Mascot for a Football Team). This beer’s artwork scoffs at the so-called “badass” artwork of Colt 45, King Cobra, and the like. This beer’s artwork eats Steel Reserve for breakfast. I can’t even get into how it lays waste to the Country Club.

And yet the beer itself didn’t quite live up to the label — maybe I’m unfairly comparing it to Samischlaus, the 28-proof brewed-only-once-a-year uber beer I just reviewed. If I’d been drinking Coors all week, I’m sure SkullSplitter would have knocked me on my shield (which is oddly shiny and clean, for a Viking). This is definitely not a weak beer, and I’m sure it earns its name the next morning after drinking a six-pack. My wife (Mrs. Liquor) took one sip and her appendix burst (not really, but same facial expression), so it might be me. I may have to conclude that I’ve broken my taste buds. I also inexplicably taste licorice in all Scottish beers, including this one, leading me to think I can’t be trusted to objectively rate beers anymore. And why does a Scottish beer have viking iconography? Historical glee at how the Vikings were one of the few cultures to subjugate the British, subjugators of Scots, Irish, Welsh, India, and the rest of the world?

It’s not a bad beer, though, and definitely packs a wallop in alcohol. It has a vaguely thick fruity taste, strong initial bite, not bad aftertaste, and possibly discovered America hundreds of years before Columbus. I would in fact judge it to be about halfway between McEwan’s and Samischlaus (though I haven’t tried enough other Scottish beers to really fill out the coordinate system there). If not quite conjuring up feelings of gnawing on a giant roast wildebeast leg at Valhalla, it’s an interesting beer experience and worth a swig or two.

Before I begin, I would like to point out that written on this label are the words: “Original Bayrisch Gfrorns”. Preach on, shiny nonsensical bottle, preach on.

Trips to the store with Lil’ Frosty have proven fruitful in the past, so as I stood confused at the wall of beer, I once again deferred to the toddler for my ticket to inebriation.

“Get that shiny one!”, I was told. Putting my faith in the hands of someone who eats boogers, I picked up the overly shiny bottle and brought it home.

My first impression was that someone spent a lot of time on this label. Some like, say, Liberace. I do applaud it though. Despite the garishness, there is something appealing about a bottle that takes risks, and isn’t afraid to adorn itself with nonsensical sentences.

Unfortunately, the cliche’ about “overcompensating” proves itself true here again. I honestly didn’t quite know what to make of the beer itself. It was a bit overly fruity, but not too offensive, and thankfully was pretty free of cheek smash. But despite that generic assessment I just gave, the only way I could describe it was that I just didn’t like it. You’d think that something with virtually no hop flavor would be a big hit for me, but alas. It was like the anti-Easy Drinkin’ beer. By the time I was 3/4 of the way through it I had to pour it out.

I found myself having to force it down, drinking it had become a chore. Like that time in college when the beer goggles wore off, but you still weren’t ‘there’…not that I’ve had any experience with that sort of thing…

Our next installment of the Beers of Evil comes to us from jolly old England. Brewsters Brewing Company has the distinction of being one of the few breweries with a female brewmaster. Kudos to you sister. And kudos on this beer! Wicked Women Mata Hari is named after a World War I woman labeled as “Europe’s queen of unbridled eroticism, an exotic dancer, courtesan, harlot, great lover, spendthrift, liar, deceiver and thief.” She was later convicted by the french, virtually without evidence, of being a spy for Germany and was executed by firing squad. If that’s not inspiration for a beer, then I don’t know what is.

I’ll admit, I was totally gun shy after installment one. For no good reason, I cringed as I started to drink this beer. But you know what, it was good! Its a nice copper colored ale, with a real smooth drinkability. It has a bit of fruity wheat taste, kind of like the summer wheats I dig so much. All in all, quite enjoyable. Sort of the British equivalent to “Easy Drinkin’”.

In addition to the good taste, I also have to give kudos to the Brits for the bottle. It has that funny British bottle shape, but unlike their smelly southern neighbors, it holds 1 pint, 9 ounces. That my friends, is appreciation for the drinker. And just another reason why England won the war. I’m not sure which war, but damn it I’m sure they won.

It was an indecisive day at the wall of beer. As I sat contemplating what to buy, my local beer pusher, Sally, remarked how many of the beers on the wall seemed to have a devil, evil, end of the world theme. Perhaps the brewers of America know something we don’t? I figured, well, if I have to go, I should heed the message at hand. Theme week! What better way to understand brewmaster revelations than to drink the beers themselves. For the next couple weeks or until the world ends, whichever comes first, I will be subjecting myself to and revealing to you … the Beers of Evil.

This first beer I chose, some french* job named Belzebuth, immediately grabbed my attention with its gratuitous marketing. Taking up most of the neck was the massive announcement that this beer was 13% alcohol. Savoring dreams of being piss drunk after just one bottle, I poured the bottle into a glass and realized the second thing evil about this beer.

It didn’t fill the glass! (See the picture to the right). I knew the french were annoying, but to make me angry before I’ve even had a single sip was a special accomplishment. I soon discovered however, that the bottler was actual doing me a favor.

A little bitter, but still excited, I took a sip. Reaction: “WTF is this?”. It was like I was chewing it. Full of all sorts of heavy flavors, like gulping a rotten fruit salad. I was a trooper though and resolved to get through a bit more. Thankfully the next sip didn’t taste so rotten. As a matter of fact, it didn’t taste like beer at all. It was more like tonic water with a bunch of whiskey poured in. The kind of whiskey that comes in a plastic bottle. Evil indeed. This stuff was so nasty that even though I poured it out after only three small swigs, the boozy hobo aftertaste stuck with me for the rest of the evening.

If one can call this beer, then I wouldn’t hesitate to call it about the worst beer ever. Quoth Mike Myers: “It’s not just evil, its ‘e-veel’. Like the fru-its of the de-veel”

     A beer from Monty Python’s comedy crew, brewed (I envision) by stiffly-moving british police in a hand-cranked meat grinder.  I of course picked this up purely for the label, as being a card-carrying geek I would proudly drink any beer brewed by Monty Python, Dread Zeppelin, They Might Be Giants, rock tumblers, graphing calculators, 24-sided dice, etc.  (I could go on…)  I know I’m being suckered by niche-marketing, and I know the true beer snobs will complain this is the wrong way to pick a brew.  But let’s face it, you’re not reading Walt Liquor’s beer reviews on this site for my nuanced palate, are you?  (If you are, I urge you to read my Grammy-award-winning series of reviews on Beers Whose Artwork Can Kick Your Ass.)

The joke of the label itself is a little broad, given the off-kilter Monty Python humor — the beer artwork says “Holy Grail”, with the “GR” crossed out and “ALE” written in below.  Yes, thanks, I got the joke — broadcasting your joke that loudly I’d expect instead from something Jay Leno pasted to a black card, not from the folks at Monty Python.  And yet, the beer is actually really tasty…  it’s got a nice thick ale taste to it, something you might imagine enjoying with a bratwurst or salt & vinegar chips in a British pub somewhere.  I had figured that an essentially gag one-off beer would show the signs of a lack of priority on taste, but it’s the real deal.  Of course after five straight reviews of the very worst in beer (again, see my Stanley-Cup-winning series on Beer Whose Artwork Can Kick Your Ass), Formula 409 might get three out of six from me at this point.  For that reason I give myself a handicap of one off my first impression of 5 out of 6 for this beer.  I heartily recommend it.   And I wear high heels.  And I like to press wildflowers…

Ok, sorry about the posting delay. My liver and I had a heart to heart, and it had asked me kindly to give it some time to recoup from the onslaught of the holiday booze fest to let it return to normal. I relented. For awhile. But with reality creeping back in to remind me of why I drink in the first place, it’s on with the review.

Long a favorite of mine at the local German Pub, Gustav’s, Spaten Optimator is one of those beers that makes you feel like swaying your mug right to left and singing some drunken pub tune. Its got a certain “I’ve never been to Germany but I bet this is what the beer there is like” taste to it that I enjoy. Dark, malty, with a bit of “foreign dark beer kick” which seems to go away the more drunk on it you get. I had 48 ounces one evening with Foobar and by the end it was the smoothest damn beer I’d ever had, and I had solved the problem of world hunger, world peace, and spilled on myself. Good times.

I give this a 4 instead of a 5 however, because as one would expect, the bottled version isn’t nearly as good as the draught you get at Gustav’s. And unless you readers happen to leave in the northwest, the bottled is all you’ll get. It’s still good, but teeters on affirming my old saying: “all beer in green bottles tastes funny”. Yeah, you heard me Heineken.

“Woah” I said as I took my first swig. And I didn’t mean a good woah.

I was feeling adventurous, so I decided to grab this rather cool looking bottle and try something from our friends down south. Apparently “Carnivale” isn’t the only wild and crazy thing in Brazil, cause this beer is wacky. The odd initial flavor, and ass-y aftertaste is difficult to describe. Fruit? Wheat? It is “Unfiltered Wheat Doublebock”. Apparently what they didn’t filter out was the “funk”.

I give it a 2, cause I made it through at least 1/3 of the glass before the inevitable sink pour.

I present his here to you as a cautionary tale.

Grandpa Goodness was in town, and we shared some of the yummy Hitachino Nest, both coming away with what we thought was a new appreciation for Japanese beer. Sadly, one day while I was away at the salt mines, Grandpa, flush from the success of the previous evening, decided to go to the local beer pusher and pick up something new from Japan to try.

And so begets what is about the worst beer I’ve tried in the 60+ reviews on this site. It’s been a long time since I’ve had those college mainstays Keystone and Natural Light, but if my memory for nausea serves me right, they have a Japanese equivalent. Light like urine, rancid tang like urine (wait, how would I know that?) this stuff was … less than stellar.

There are quite a few things I like to recall from college, but what the frat party beer tasted like isn’t one of them.

So there I was at my local beer pusher the other day, when I was approached by the wiley dealer. “Hey wanna try something awesome?” she said with a crazy enthusiasm. Given my general enjoyment of beer experimentation, I ignored the silly little wine glass it was offered in and tasted what has to be the most unique “beer” I’ve ever had.

Brewed by this crazy little brewery in Japan, this “Commemorative Ale 2008″ tastes like no other beer I know. A hallmark of Japanese beer, it goes down real dry, but then has a bit of fruity aftertaste that I can only really say tastes an awful lot like champagne. And not the bottle cap kind either. Real pop the cork and break a window kind of champagne.

How can I rate a beer I can’t even adequately describe to you as beer … a five? Because despite the ludicrous $4.50/bottle price tag…I actually went back to buy more. Crack dealer 101: the first hit is always free.

I mean, with a description like “Czech Dark Beer”, how could I not have picked it up? It’s almost like going to Prague in person. Or so I imagine, never having actually been there. this stuff is sort of like a brown, with dreams of being a stout when it grows up. It’s similar to New Belgium’s 1554 beer. Dark, sort of a nut-like aftertaste. Something I’m sure Downtown Brown would hate, but I found it quite yummy. The only real downsides to it are the relatively low alcohol content (4%) and the limited availability for the general populace (only 1.99 a bottle!). Next time you are in the Old Republic … or a cool beer store, pick up one and give it taste. Tato hovno cítit blaho!