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!

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.

The title of this post, I shouldn’t have to say, should be read in a voice imitating Samuel L. Jackson. Part Four in my worshipped-around-the-world series of reviews on Beers Whose Artwork Can Kick Your Ass, my review of King Cobra Malt Liquor represents a homecoming of sorts, to the malt liquor of choice as a youth. Malt Liquor and other assorted beers and paint thinners form phase 2 of everyone’s introduction to alcoholic beverages, where phase 1 is of course yummy fruit drinks like Boone’s Farm, and phase 3 is discovering that first non-terrible beer that you drink for the taste, not for the liver-trashing. Phase 2, which is all about the liver trashing, usually coincides with leaving home for college or your first apartment and the resulting lack of funds therewith. And every Ramen-eating thrift-store-wearing blood-donating Hare-Krishna-meal-eating college student has for a while become enamored with the magical combination of high alcohol content (too high to be legally called “beer”, hence the “malt liquor”) and cheap-as-dirt price of malt liquors. In my days in phase 2, I was a King Cobra drinker. My brother liked Old English, another friend drank Laser, but for me the royalty of crappy booze was clearly the best. Ah, sweet memories…

As I’ve mentioned before, the key lesson you quickly learn in drinking these bloated, nasty concoctions is to drink them COLD. Serving them ice cold beats down the horrible flavor — you do NOT want these puppies to warm up to room temperature to volatilize all those nasty petrochemicals. You soon find yourself in a race against the clock, hurrying to chug it down before thermodynamics catches up with you, sometimes resorting to gripping the bottle around the tiny neck to avoid accelerating the warming from your hands. The last few ounces will be precisely the same frothiness as fresh pee, so you better hope it’s not the same temperature, or you’ll be heading for technicolor yawn. All that being said, King Cobra was my favorite of the bunch, and over time (i.e. the couple months I spent in phase 2) I developed a fondness for it, memories of which all came rushing back at my first sip, now 10+ years later. I think it’s that this beer has the least odious qualities among all other malt liquors, so it shines in comparison — not as gag-inducing on the first sip as Old English, not quite as much hints of a Greyhound bus station in the bouquet. And, of course, wrapper artwork that could kick your ass and then possibly eat your foot…

The other night I sat down to watch the Comedy Central roast of Flavor Flav, and cracked me open a 40 of Steel Reserve. Somehow the perception shift induced by malt liquor renders Flava more normal and understandable.  At the first sip, you’re still approximately sober, and Flava appears (correctly) to be from Mars.  About halfway down, he starts making more sense, and so by the time you’re nearing the bottom of the bottle, it looks to you like you’re watching George Plimpton read from the Economist.  Once you finish off the last foamy disgusting swig, you’re officially a producer on three tracks on the latest Ol Dirty Bastard album. 

Part three in my tony-nominated series of reviews, Beers Whose Artwork Can Kick Your Ass, Steel Reserve is yet another malt liquor beer that I (a pencil-necked balding geek who could get sunburnt from a dashboard light) have absolutely no business drinking.  And yet, it wasn’t bad.  If drinking Schlitz is like punching yourself in the face with a cinder block, Steel Reserve is like slugging yourself in the stomach with a can of pumpkin pie mix.  (And of course Miller Lite is like a weak slap to the face with an envelope of petunia seeds.)   It didn’t have the sharp skunkiness or odd medicine-y taste that the really bad malt liquors have in that first whiff — served sufficiently cold, Steel Reserve will admirably serve your purposes if your purposes are funded at less than the 3 dollar level. 

I realized in writing this review that I should research why the hell there’s a “211″ on the label, and discovered it’s the medieval symbol for “steel”.  There, someone can now use this blog as a book report.  While you’re at it, include this little nugget (and remember to cite wikipedia):  “Due to the high alcohol content and low price, Steel Reserve is widely consumed by alcoholic homeless people.”  Which brings into stark relief for me who the target audience is for my set of reviews on Frosty Goodness.  Unfortunately Steel Reserve is banned in parts of Seattle for this reason (drunken homeless crime, not my posts on this website).  So I heartily recommend this El Cheapo beer, and urge you to try it before it is inevitably banned by your metropolitan area.  911 might be a joke, but 211 makes for one wild night with five-foot-three former rappers…

Part 2 in my continuing series on Beers Whose Artwork Can Kick Your Ass. The giant blue bull flaring its nostrils at me from the 24-oz can of Schlitz I bought should have been a clue as to what this stuff would do to my stomach. Much like the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, the Running of the Schlitz through my digestive tract the other night led to lots of goring, trampling, and internal organs running for cover. My gall bladder jumped out of the way just in time, climbing up to the top of my ribs to avoid the rampaging $1.19 beer. This crap is horrible! I guess that’s no surprise — you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Really, Schiltz is not that great-tasting of a beer? Thanks a bunch, Mr. beer-rater-guy. Next, can you get to work on that whole global warming issue.”

So why do this to myself? Why should I complain, when after all, I’m named “Walt Liquor”? More to the point, why should you bother reading it? Because I believe there are tolerable cheap beers, and then there are ungodly awful cheap beers. And it is worth it, nay it is imperative, that we figure out which is which. Because if you’ve only got $2.19 to spend, you might as well spend it intelligently.  And my friends, Schilz is NOT the way to spend that money.

That, and I’m too cheap to buy an expensive microbrew every time I want to review a beer…

The particular 24 oz. can of Mickey’s that I purchased had a picture of an Ultimate Fighting champion on it, with gloves on, dukes up, ready to pummel your liver. Surprisingly, it wasn’t terrible — like most malt liquors, it is tolerable if served extremely cold. Also like most malt liquors, the horribleness factor rises sharply as you approach the bottom of the can. Near the bottom, as your hand’s warmth causes the actual flavor to come out, and as your repeated swilling stirs up lots of frothy bubbles, the remaining beer is absolutely undrinkable. You gotta like the marketing with UFC, though — this beer might be bad, but it’ll kick some butt on the top shelf of your fridge. Don’t put it near the mayonnaise, or someone might get hurt…