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  • Frosty 8:42 pm on September 23, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Et tu New Belgium? A dear John letter. 

    Dear New Belgium,

    For some time now, skylark and I have had an argument. He has claimed that you were unimaginative. He claimed that all your beers tasted the same. He claimed you weren’t the awesome microbrew heroes you claimed to be.

    And all this time I defended you. I said “No, 1554 is original!”. “New Belgium is awesome”. “They GET it.” I believed it in my heart… and then I saw this.

    There you were, nestled up next to the Pabst Blue Ribbon. And me, standing there mouth agape. How could I face skylark now? It’s like I was the guy angrily defending the fidelity of his best girl…while she bangs some guy under the bleachers at the monster truck rally.

    Good bye New Belgium. You can keep the singing fish plaque and the Garth Brooks CD. You’ll need it where you’re going.

    - Frosty

     

    • Hops-scotch 7:15 pm on September 24, 2008 Permalink

      New Belgium… In a can? What is the world coming to?

    • Swill Jockey 12:42 pm on September 27, 2008 Permalink

      I think the beer bubble has popped….just like the dot com and housing bubbles have.

      Frosty ‘Goodnesses’ may be fewer and far between these days.

      Where’s my government beer bailout??

    • Walt Liquor 11:23 am on October 23, 2008 Permalink

      Hey, if they degrade in quality a few more notches, they just might make it onto my list. Let me know if they start selling in 40 ounce bottles!

  • Frosty 9:30 pm on April 11, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Eisbock – At least the bottle is shiny 

    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…

     

    • SwillJockey 11:49 am on April 13, 2008 Permalink

      There is something delightfully tacky about that label, but you should have known better than to choose beer based on “bling”.

      Bad Beer Swiller, no brew for you!

      -Beer Nazi

  • Walt Liquor 11:35 pm on March 2, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Country Club Malt Liquor: Not as exclusive as I thought 

    country club small The next entry in my tongue-pummeling series on malt licka’s, Country Club Malt Liquor is interestingly one of the very few not to go with uber-macho iconography like Steel Reserve or King Cobra. Maybe only Old English, in the world of low-class beverages, even attempts to masquerade as similar heights of culture, but both brews are equally tragic in the futility of trying to fit in as a cheap malt liquor in the grocery store next to all the genuinely classy foodstuff like water crackers or the wines they keep behind glass. Old English at least has thinly veiled menace to keep it from being outright ridiculed by the high-class food — no amount of gothic font will hide that it could call on cousins Colt 45 and Steel Reserve to kick some butt in the fine cheese aisle if need be.  Snoop Dogg probably drinks Old English, after all.  Country Club, on the other hand, leads a pitiable existence, shunned (of course) by the food and beverages you actually would expect to find consumed in a country club, and equally scorned by the other malt liquors for being such a dweeb. Country Club is perhaps the only malt licka whose artwork most definitely cannot kick your ass, whose artwork in fact you could steal lunch money from, give a wedie, then a swirlie. I wonder if it hangs out with other supermarket outcasts, like the sardines, or the little thin cigars with plastic mouthpieces.

    The picture I include with this post is intended as testimony that I actually drank the thing. And I did make it all the way through, though just barely. It’s not outright undrinkable, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.  It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever had (see my post on Schlitz), but if you’re looking for a 2-dollar night of fun, you could do better than this.  It is actually pretty bland for a malt liquor — the flavor is bad, but in just a general way, without any of the surprising and novel petrochemical pungencies you get with Schlitz or Steel Reserve.  Heck, Mickey’s may not be much better, but it’s at least got character.  I may not enjoy drinking Mickey’s, but I can at least imagine myself while drinking to be a South Boston street rat who’s tryin’ to make good on his lousy life by makin’ a new start in the boxin’ ring.  Drinking Country Club, what possible scenario can I envision myself in?  A WASP-y guy named Bennett with a trust fund who incongruously drives a beat-up Pinto?  Nah, the cognitive dissonance between the pretensions of the wrapper and the contents inside are just too much for me.

    But it is still better than Schlitz.

     

    • Walt Micker 2:47 pm on September 29, 2009 Permalink

      You have to aquire a taste for CC. I used to think it was bad until I conducted a blind taste test of several malt beverages, and CC won hands down. I LOVE the stuff!
      I can’t drink any of the wimpy Bud-like American made beers anymore. CC has a smooth feel on the palate and great corn flavor. It’s a fine lager! And no hangover when consumed in moderation. Yum! Bring it back in cans!

    • Walt Liquor 3:50 pm on October 24, 2009 Permalink

      I hear what you’re saying, particularly about bud-like chuggable American beers — at least malt liquor has *flavor*. I know plenty of people who swear by Coors or MGD or whatever, but I always thought you might as well be drinking Sprite. Now, in regards to hangover, I have to disagree — nothing kicks up a hangover like a malt liquor, leading to “pull over! I’m gonna get sick” when you drive to breakfast the next day…

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