After reading about Frosty’s “Stump Tart”, I went on a swilling run to Haggen and raided their beer stash.

I didn’t find any of the fruity Bridgeport swill in stock, but I did stumble across two nice surprises:

Fraoch Heather Ale - I expected horrible things to happen in my mouth when thinking about tasting this, but my love for Celtic culture made me ignore my misgivings.

It turns out that I was correct to not listen to my brain when selecting beers. This stuff is fantastic; even at $4.50 a bottle! It’s very well balanced and easy to drink. You can almost taste a little bit of the heather flowers this stuff is brewed with. So, if Frosty can go fruity, I can go flowery and call it a good day of swillage. The world takes all types, flavors, and colors.

Coopers Brewery Sparkling Ale - The sparkly name on this puppy (paying homage to Frosty’s shiny beer choice recently), and it’s decent single-bottle price tag made it worth a shot to try. Another blast over the outfield fence here.

It’s not quite as “clean” as the Fraoch stuff, but it’s still infinitely drinkable and tasty. It’s got a little bit of yeasty funkiness, but it works well in a beer this clean tasting. It’s Australian even.

My two forays into the world of other-worldly, or other-country-ly, beers was a distinct success and renewed my faith that there are still great, if previously unknown, beers to try on the shelf at your favorite swill emporium. Both worked well with the smoked salmon spread on crackers that the wife and I had for a late-night TV viewing snackfest. Both even tasted good with the apples & caramel dip wehad for dessert.

If you had to choose only one of these two beers as your choice for a dying wish beer, go for the Fraoch Heather Ale! You’ll die with a foamy, Heathery smile on your face, even having never been with Heather Graham before your demise.

This Swill Jockey was glad to have hopped in the beer saddle last night. Two solid 5s here.

For a change, before buying this, I actually felt with it and hip. If it hadn’t been for some pressing home matters, I would actually have been at the “release” for this brew. Or at least the tasting. So much was my surprise when I went by the wall of beer and saw a nice big bottle of Stumptown Tart sitting there. I mean look at her, how could you not grab that bottle.

In stark contrast to Walt’s testosterone fueled bottle art, this label not only wouldn’t kick your ass, but would most likely do something entirely different to it. But since this site needs to stay SFW, let’s move on.

The first pour of this told me how good it was going to be. The color alone was inspiring. Ruby-purple. I mean come on. I may be gushing a little too much because I just drank the whole big bottle, but I loved this beer. It takes fruity to the next level.  In all fairness, it’s probably closer to a lambic than an actual “beer”, but its damn good. It’s like drinking an alcoholic carbonated fruit juice.

My only semi-complaint about it, which may seem sort of nit picky, is that the serving size is too big. Because of the size of the bottle, and the desire not to have flat gross day old beer, you feel compelled to drink the whole thing. But man, is that a lot of sweet. I like a good tart as much as the next guy, but there can be too much of a good thing (chaffing?).

Still, super kudos goes to Bridgeport, who currently hold a 6 and a 5 on this site. I’ve been wary in the past since they sell beer at Trader Joes … but hey, everyone is allowed one mistake in life. With this and Haymaker, Bridgeport have climbed the mantle and can now hold on to the coveted “Frosty’s Official Portland Brewery” medal.

In closing, I bid you all to key an eye out for this sweet tart. And when you find her, grab her gently, take her top off, and wrap your mouth around … uh, er … you get the idea.

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…