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  • Walt Liquor 9:17 pm on May 16, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Okocim’s Mocne: Polish for “Works Every Time” 

    okocim_mocneIn a move that has the stockholders in a tizzy, I’ve managed in this review to combine my heretofore unrelated themes of Nasty Malt Liquors and Imported Oddities.   Today, we consider a product of the Polish brewery Okocim, a brew they named “Mocne”, which I presume is Polish for “Malt Liquor” and not some sort of slang contraction involving acne and some other body part along the lines of “bacne”.  Now before you start cringing at the anticipation of Polish jokes, let me assure you that I won’t go there — I’m Irish, and I’m rating beers, often quite bad beers, so I really can’t throw stones.

    As for Mocne, I can’t decide if I’ve been duped or not.  They’ve gone ahead and put “Malt Liquor” on the label — does this indicate a foriegn-brewery lack of knowledge about the stigma associated with Malt Licka’s here in the U.S.?  Or have I purchased Poland’s equivalent of King Cobra, thinking it was a fancy import, despite them giving me fair warning on the label?  The fact is, it’s not nearly as bad as domestic Malt Liquors, but it’s not nearly as good as the specialty quintuple-boch-uber-malty brews that must technically be called Malt Liquors because of their alcoholic content, but nevertheless are quite tasty.  The flavor has a faint whiff of whatever domestic malt liquor reeks of.  The head had that same super-fine-grained soapy bubbliness that you see in cheap 40’s, industrial solvents, ocean foam in Newark, but never in a decent beer.  I have to conclude, therefore, that this beer is to King Cobra what Harp’s Lager is to Budweiser — an imported, better-quality yet essentially in the same family of beverage.  Since being the Best of the Malt Liquors is a distinction akin to being the professional bowler with the fastest 40-yard-dash time, I’m not sure what the point really is for this beer.  If you were somehow constrained to the world of malt liquors forevermore, this is your best beer choice, but if you’re in this situation then you really have more pressing problems to deal with…

     

    • Szymon 9:20 am on July 19, 2009 Permalink

      “Mocne” means “Strong” in Polish, and you should avoid anything with that word in its name. It usually means “we added some industrial-grade spirit to reach the promised alcohol content”. We actually do have some decent beer brands here in Poland, but this is definitely not one of them.

    • Admin 12:24 pm on July 20, 2009 Permalink

      Thanks Szymon. Yet another example of Walt sacrificing his taste buds to keep the rest of us safe.

    • Walt Liquor 7:57 pm on August 3, 2009 Permalink

      Hi Szymon, and thanks for confirming that once again I made a bad choice in beers. (I’m used to it, as you can tell by my review of Budweiser-and-clamato…) I’m the typical american sucker who thinks that it must be a good beer, if they bothered to import it. Well, it was much better than the domestic malt liquors here…. nevertheless, next time, I’m looking for the *good* beers from your homeland!

  • Frosty 8:03 am on March 6, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    Laughing Buddha Mango Weizen. What’s so funny? 

    Insert Jelly Bean into Beer. Stir.

    There you go. I just gave you the recipe for Laughing Buddha Mango Weizen. Wanna talk sweet? Holy cow. This beer is funny in that it didn’t actually taste bad per se. It was just that it was so overpoweringly sweet and… semi-fruity that I just couldn’t drink. The fruit itself itsn’t even real fruit. It is to fruity flavor as grape Bubble Yum is to real grapes.

    So in short. Blech. If you are looking for somehting fun to try that won’t make to cringe or vomit, go for it. But if you want a beer you can actually drink, walk on by.

    And for the obligatory Buddha reference, here is a zen koan for you. ‘If it goes from the bottle to the sink, is it really a beer at all?” Meditate.

     

  • 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.

  • Walt Liquor 3:28 pm on December 21, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    St. Ides, patron saint of shockingly bad flavor 

    Whoops!  I’m a little late with my posts — didn’t realize how long it had been since my last Malt Liquor update (must be down to just a handful of brain cells left).  I’ve also exhausted all the Malt Liquors at my local brew pit, so I’ve had a harder time getting new dreck to review.  But I did get ahold of some St. Ides, from the 7-11 during a trip with the kids to buy a slurpee.  (And boy was that awkward, putting both of those on the counter…)

    After taste-testing six malt liquors in the past year, I thought I was able to handle the typical malt liquor.  St. Ides didn’t at first appear to be anything special.  But this is a malt brew full of surprises.  And, needless to say, surprise is NOT what you want when it comes to beer this bad.  At every turn, in all respects, I shamefully underestimated this dreck, and it made me pay for my miscalculation.  Here’s the rundown:

    *** Characteristic:   Flavor

    My expectation:    “Probably terrible, but I’ve done terrible before… bring it on!”

    Reality:    “Oh my dear lord!  We’ve hit an iceberg!   We’re going down!  Oh, the humanity!”

    ***  Characteristic:   Intoxification-ness

    My expectation:    “I might be giggling a bit too much by the end, but I’ll be back to normal by bedtime”

    Reality:   “Ehhhh?  … I’m only down about halfway, and I can’t see straight…  my toes are numb…  I can see through metal, I swear…”

    *** Characteristic:    Hangover

    My expectation:    “Eh, a little water before bed, and I’m fine.”

    Reality:    “Could someone turn down the throbbing in my arteries?  I think I can hear my eyeballs moving in their sockets…”

    Maybe for some reason I was caught off guard (did I give blood earlier?  do I have a tapeworm?), but this 40 knocked me on my behind.  It was just like high school all over again.  Late that night I happened to catch a few minutes of the kid’s show “Oobi”, where all the characters consist of human hands with googly-eyes glued to the knuckles.  That show is surreal sober, so you can imagine my discombobulation.  So while I don’t have much remembrance of the flavor, quality, or other characteristics I usually use to judge the beer, I will give this one a rating of 2 beers as a reward for reminding me not to be complacent.  I gotta start training better…  where was that Rocky 8-track tape?

     

  • Frosty 10:47 pm on July 17, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Rogue Chipotle Ale – Claro Que No! 

    “Who is more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?”
    -Benjamin Kenobi

    Juan de la Cueva may have been a loon. For some reason in 1575 he wrote about some dish that combined Jalapenos and ale. Crazy? Maybe. But the real fools in this instance are the guys at Rogue Brewery who decided that this obscure story would make for a great beer.

    Have you ever tasted a shoe? No? Well, I’m not sure I ever have either, but immediately after taking a sip of this beer I was convinced it tasted like one. Then the shoe flavor left, and the real horror crept in. Repeat after me: Peppers do not belong in beer.

    The aftertaste was so wrong, completely awful on so many levels, that I was convinced I couldn’t really have tasted that. I tried again. I had Grandpa Goodbeer try it. All to no avail. This beer is gross. As soon as the otherwise odd flavor goes away, Rogue Chipotle Ale attacks you with the nuclear bomb of all Aftertaste Attacks. Dry, tangy, salty, throat scratchy, gross old jalapeno flavor. Its actually much worse than it sounds, if you can believe that.

    On the other hand…

    I did have to give it a 2. It worked pretty awesome as a marinade for Tilapia.

    I applaud Rogue for trying new things, I really do. But much like that random hallucinogen I tried in college, not all experiments are a good idea.

     

    • SwillJockey 12:25 pm on July 18, 2008 Permalink

      I came so close to buying one of those on that trip to Whole Foods. Now I’m glad I listened to reason and my empty wallet.

  • 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!

     

  • 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.

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

    Beers of Evil I: Belzebuth Blonde Ale 

    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.

    Drunk time!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.

    Yes thats all there is 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”

     

    • Frosty 9:14 pm on March 9, 2008 Permalink

      *until france supplies me with a beer that doesn’t offend me so much, I refuse to capitalize. Team America, f**k yeah!

    • Walt Liquor 8:18 pm on March 13, 2008 Permalink

      Hmmm, worst beer ever? I’ll be the judge of that! It can’t be worse than Schlitz, can it? [Shudder]

      I don’t think I’ve had a high-alcohol beer yet that was good — all those quintuple-boch brews wind up tasting like someone stopped the beer-making process too early and bottled up the wort…

    • Patrick 7:52 pm on September 18, 2009 Permalink

      I beg to differ, after a colleague and I stopped at this new dive in downtown, claiming to have 40 “adventurous beers” we came across a few interesting choices. And after a pint of Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA, the 8oz Belzebuth was a welcomed departure. The taste didn’t stick with me long, but I felt it when it was gone.
      Looking for retailers as we speak.

    • Large Hamster Cage 3:17 pm on January 30, 2010 Permalink

      been looking for something like this all day :) thanks.

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