Beers Eye Drunk

Beers Eye Drunk: Sam Adams Summer Ale Review

A few weeks ago I had the worst ROI of any beer analysis conducted to date. I bought somewhere around $18 worth of beer, including the modestly priced Sam Adam's Summer Ale, on sale for $5.50 a six-pack. Through a series unfortunate events, I found myself drinking the beer rather quickly, taking little note of it at all.

I watched Germany get eliminated from the World Cup and most of the beers disappeared through the course of the game. I remember nothing about the beer or the game. I don't remember hating either. In retrospect, I could have been more present for both.... This is why I don't get very much out of life. I drift off, ignore details, and flop through life moment by moment with no real drive or interest in anything...

So, I bought six more of these Summer Ales thinking that perhaps the beer was so good and smooth I simply drank them too fast to recall them... Well, somewhere in this week's blur of job applications, interviews, and cover letters, five more of these beers got knocked down without so much as a scribbled post-it left behind. And the saddest part, for me and the beer, I don't really remember what the hell this stuff tastes like and can't even begin to describe it. And so there is now just one left, and it falls to the destructive power of video and the restorative magic of video editing to bring artistic merit back to the blog.

In the meantime, I have been craving a beer so bad I even drank four Lone Stars, which is the taste equivelent of flossing with a wet mules' ass hair. But still, I've been too lazy to set up the video camera and there are several lighting issues that I can't quite resolve. Mainly, I'm too lazy to put a new bulb in the living room.

Are we catching the general theme here?

I'm too lazy.... too lazy for the craft of studious beer drinking... instead, I'm a guy without a job, who invests large sums of his shrinking finances on beer, not because he cares enough about beer to even remember how it tastes... Nope. I am a man who drinks for no particular reason, every day I can.

It's really no wonder things didn't work out with me and work... When even beer is too much work, then you've got a serious problem. At least problem drinkers are aiming to get fucked up. I think the only reason I'm not is because it takes too long... I hope to have the second video beer blog up before Friday, anyhow... but I really wouldn't bet on me at this point.

Beers Eye Drunk: Celis Raspberry Review

Part I:
A Discussion on the Differences Between American and English Beer and Warnings Against Dating While Intoxicated.

There are few things I've learned about the world through drinking beer. Amongst the most important, you don't stand a better chance with women when you're hammered and America is stupid.

Some reasons include:

America gives anything over a measly 6% alcohol the foul label of "malt liquor" and girls give my drunken breath the equally foul label of "get away from me before I kick you in the balls".

America's idea of Hefeweizen is flat, watered down and fruity compared to the European style, which can have a strong wheat smells, heavy carbonation, and a cottony sweet finish, and in the meantime, girls don't like it when you puke on them no matter what consistency or flavor.

America thinks that pale ales have to be incinerated with hops and thus lack subtlety, much like you, loaded with hops, who may stare directly at breasts from across the room for a solid five minutes before going over to talk to them.

Part II: Critical Information about English Ales, Bears

Whitbread Pale Ale is a good example of an English Pale Ale. And when I mention pale ales to anyone around here, they quickly assume that it's a hopstravaganza like Stone or Firestone or something other kind of rock. Even the most well-known pale ale imports, Bass and Harp, are fairly hoppy, though bare the a tad bit of the creaminess and style of some English pale ales. They don't do much to sway the "common knowledge" that pale ales are dry and bitter.

English Pale Ales tend to sit in a glass like beef gravy, rich and heavy, a warm brown liquid that dumps smoothly down the throat at a slightly warm temperature. There can be a good deal of surprises in English pale ales, from a floral smell to baked fruit. Most of the time, they're fairly creamy, fairly sweet, with a long lingering flavor; a crafted design rather than a head-splitting train wreck of hops.

Whitbread, though, will give you a headache for a different reason. At a cold temperature, this beer tastes like nothing but straight-up liquor. The overtones of alcohol pound a dirge into your skull after two sips. And I admit, I was pissed off, since I was expecting a heavy considerate mixture of flavor and not an unwelcome wallop to the brain. Though, after this beer has time to settle in the glass, other characteristics gurgle to the surface.

There's a sweet malty touch to it that's got a bit of a marzipan flavor. If you don't know what marzipan is, then you've got to go out and rent some Paddington Bear cartoons, because he was nuts about it. You could probably buy some at a candy store, but to really get the sense of it, you've got to see that bear. He's incredible. In fact, you're not going to understand much of anything in this world if you haven't seen Paddington Bear and that's all I'm going to say about it. In fact, I will go so far as to say people who do not know and love Paddington Bear should be swept of the face of the earth indiscriminately in some kind of ecological disaster and there's a hint of bitter cherry.

Summary Review of Whitbread Pale Ale

We've touched on a lot of topics... America, dating, England, Paddington... But through this journey, you may feel as though I've inadequately described the overall value of Whitbread. Perhaps, I've meandered off-topic and used too many colorful devices and thus sacrificed the straight-forward character that was the original charm of this beer blog. All right then, you smart asses, let's cut the chase then:

I don't really like it. The bitter start and unsavory malty middle makes me tired and bored, like listening Bea Arthur sing my tax return. It's not a bad beer, but it doesn't speak to me, or if it does, all it’s saying is that in fifteen minutes I'll have to pee. Depth and style are there, but I'm not. I'm watching the history channel completely distracted from the beer. And when the plumbing of Constantinople is overshadowing your beer, it can't be that good.

I like to shop at Central Market sometimes. They have good soup and mostly hippies shop there, but it's expensive, so only executive hippies shop there; The kind that listen to jam bands nostalgically in their studio lofts, smoking pot in constant terror of a random office drug test.

The checkout clerk was a forgettable hippy, like most people in Austin, with a zit-ravaged mug caged in dirtlocks which look like the wad on miscellaneous gunk I sometimes find from behind the stove. It took me a full week later for me to actually hear what he said to me, since for me, conversation with strangers is like a sudden-death game of ping-pong on a very short table. I concentrate on fast reactions so I can end it as quickly as possible.

He had stated that Samuel Smith's is the best Organic Ale, he's ever had. And I probably recommended that he shower or try St. Peter's Organic Ale. He asked if they had it at Central Market, and I said I believe so, but later I found that they stopped carrying it. I felt a little bad about that, since I usually like to tell the truth. When I lie, I usually go all out and include Big Foot or UFOs, and it was a shame to have missed the opportunity. Still, I felt better when I realized that I had been somewhat duped by Sir Stinks-a-lot.

Samuel Smith's is an Organic Lager... not an Organic Ale. For you non-beer drinkers, that's like someone saying to you, I think Red Fire truck is the best Red Shoe I've ever worn.

Well, thanks hippy, because I'd have never tried this beer at all if it weren't for your suggestion... And I take suggestions from hippies for the same reason you might listen to a troll under a bridge. You know it's going to turn out bad, but you can't help yourself. It's enchanting, in a hairy sort of way.

Samuel Smith's, however, is the exact opposite of troll-ish, best described as pleasantly clean and crisp. Light in flavor, middle-weight in texture, and a little heavy in the glass, the organic lager maintains a brightness and obvious quality through a very pure flavor, a perfect combination of ingredients, with no overwhelming bitterness or alcohol.

Samuel Smith's is a tad bulkier than a typical lager, due to its full-bodied malt and hop mix, and could potentially disappoint Organic Ale lovers, seeking earthy aromas and fruit finishes, and lager drinkers, expecting something a little more livelily on the tongue. This beer doesn't take any serious chances, doesn't pander to any expectations, instead concentrating on a very pure and smooth blend. In fact, it's complete lack of discernable flavor notes, undertones, and scents, provide an incident free drinking experience. This can be quite refreshing with the right food combination.

. For those without a strong passion for lagers, specifically, I would imagine this beer going over fairly well. But it's like going to the store, asking for rock n' roll and someone giving you Kansas, rather than a Led Zepplin album. Something about that just doesn't sit right with me, which is why I'm not going to give a strong recommendation to this beer. All and all, there's not a whole lot write home about when it comes to this lager. Such a pure and smooth mix, it's like a muted easily digested, Top 40 hit, version of a lager beer. To keep with musical metaphors, Samuel Smiths is able to sing in key of beer, but never quite produce a symphony.

Fyi. If you're on a first date, it is not such a good time to demonstrate your ability to sing in the key of beer. It is considered rude in public places.


Fyi. Bigfoot says this is the best beer blog on the web.

Many of you long-time readers of the blog know that St. Peter's is one of my favorite brewers. Of course, I understand you also probably also know a lot about faeries, snuffalupicus, and the lost city of Atlantis, because any supposed "long-time readers" of the blog most likely belong to the realm of fictional creatures. Since this fact turns the blog into a class of literature akin to a letter to Santa Claus, I won't feel bad about boring you with some trivial details before describing this latest beer selection.

As I sit down to write this article, I am being grilled, excuse the pun, for my inappropriate use of the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Machine. You see, I cook about two to three cheeseburgers a day on the machine as I am trying to gain weight for my pending career as a circus strongman. Until then, I have little to no use for this over-sized leopard-print loincloth I got used on ebay, which is okay, because I think I've only completed 9 of the requisite 47 washings before it is again wearable.

However, in the meantime, I'm getting a talking-to about the grill's complicated fat-trapping mechanism, which is an ingenious piece of plastic that fills with lard periodically. Apparently, lard and discarded cheese attracts bugs, which is bad, however, since I'll be making another cheeseburger in about five hours, I decided to let it sit in the dish choosing to clean it out later in the day... This decision was viewed as unwise by the powers that be, and thus the resulting lashing has put me off a great a deal from the spirit of this article.

I'm no longer in the mood to tell you about St. Peter's English Ale, especially since you the reader are not likely to even exist. So, accept this multiple choice quiz instead of a full review. By applying simple principles of logic, you will rightly guess the character of the beer for yourself. If you do not, and I have wasted your time, remember that you are a fictitious creature and time is likely irrelevant to you, due to the agelessness of your conceptual/spiritual nature...

1. Which of the following statements is false?
a. St. Peter's English ale contains organically grown hops, but is not the same as St. Peter's Organic Ale.
b. St. Peter's Organic Ale is English, but is not the same as St. Peter's English Ale.
c. 1 PINT is 0.9 FL.OZ
d. your mom

2. St. Peter's Pours Like Which of the Following?
a. a brick dropped from a helicopter onto a sidewalk
b. your fat, sweaty cousin rolling off the couch onto the floor
c. like leafy rain water out of a tire swing
d. mostly (c), a little bit of (b), but without the smell, and a tad bit of (a) but less fun

3. St. Peter's flavors and aromas did not remind me of...
a. A lightly sweetened spot of English Breakfast tea
b. Old Farmer Caruthers burning autumn leaves again out behind the barn
c. A wet German Shepard
d. the need to clean the fat trap on my George Forman grill

4. St. Peter's English Ale is...
a. Rich, smooth, but already in a relationship
b. Medium weight, derives its liveliness from complex flavor rather than carbonation, and is gay
c. even more flavorful at a slightly warmer temperature and knows how to kill you with a piece of paper
d. the secret ingredient in Central Market's bean and turnip soup.

5. St. Peter's English Ale is recommended to...
a. Everyone except people from Minnesota
b. Any who likes English style ales, beers with strong earthy flavor characteristic, while not overly filling like many porter/stouts.
c. Professorial circus clowns on sabbatical from Clown College
d. This guy:

Now, I'm very critical of Hefe-Weizens, mostly because they tend to be the favorite beers for brunch-eating, Mac-toting, journal-keeping Indie chicks who don't even like the taste of beer. Many commercial Hefes are watery, weak on flavor and carbonation, and basically exist as a garnish for a lemon wedge. Still, I'd much rather drink a boring hefe with a lemon in it than a hard lemonade.

Hefes can vary greatly in quality and overall effect. Some are very European in character, with a bitter cottony sugar content and heavy carbonation. Some are more lemony with a clean and watery character often chased by a bouquet of fruit flavors. The bookends of bad taste for the genre, though, would be the flavors of sun-throttled oranges and Ivory soap. Somewhere in this spectrum of ill, lies Pinkus Muller, a very disappointing Organic Hefe-Weizen from The World's First Organic Brewery in Munster Germany (the two dots above the U have been painstakingly removed by our editoral staff denoting a mindful lack of respect).

At first, I was very optimistic regarding Pinkus, since the label boasted more than the usual crisp and refreshing promises. It was certified organic. To put it in perspective, my feces is also organic, but I'm not sure it's ever been certified as such. And THAT I was sure would make all the difference. I was at least partially wrong.

Pinkus fell like an anvil flatly into the glass, retaining some lacing, and a powerful aroma that I could only describe as 50% lemon and 50% dryer sheet. The taste was nowhere near as dank and saturated with wheat as I expected from an unfiltered organic brew. It instead bore a mild wateriness that lacked any easily discernable flavor characteristics.

The beer's flatness and lack of flavor magnitude created nothing short of a dull experience. The soapy-lemon overtones were vaguely memorable, but by no means enjoyable. And this beer, I would imagine, is tolerable with a lemon wedge in it, may even be refreshing on a hot day, but so is a glass of water. Last time I checked I could buy a tons more lemons, water, and soap for the $3.00 I wasted on Pinkus.

Pinkus Muller was very disappointing indeed. Interestingly enough, I had an Alhambra before and after the Pinkus and there was no contest. Alhambra had more unique flavors, more liveliness, and a memorable character. German hefes are always a gamble, it seems, either straining to adopt the qualities of a high class pilsner or languishing in a flat uninspired wheat puddle. Spain crushes Germany in this round.

I am not a professional beer writer. Today's review is a perfect example of how much my skill has degraded and perhaps, how limited it has always been. My first Alhambra was not properly refrigerated and then, during a scuffle with the dog, it was spilled on the floor. The dog, when enlisted for emergency disaster control services, had tasted some of this beer and gave it an unfavorable review, leaving me to clean up the majority of the mess.

My second beer from the six-pack was accidentally left on the porch outside when I was distracted from my duties by a higher calling to help my girlfriend hang some picture frames. I swear to god whoever invented picture frames must be some rightwing nutcase who enacted his plan to make sure bums like me couldn't sit idol for two solid minutes, even whilst jobless and surely.

Now, I am at last alone, and I strain to find the words to describe the third Alhambra. I'm far too exhausted by my day of solid squalor to even comment on its ample carbonation or the wheaty smell and aftertaste. Nope. I haven't got it in me. This beer has a medium weight to it, with a sweetness that glides gently over the natural flavors of amazingly clear, clean water... But who gives a shit? It's not like saying so will pull me from my dismal state.

Sure, there was a delightful lacing in the glass after the head dissipated, and the beer called to mind some quality Italian brews I fancy... But is that enough to wrench this miserable day up by its balls back into some semblance of worth? No. Let's face the facts, shall we? Alhambra is a great tasting, smooth-beer, whose quality components create a clean and simple delight. Meanwhile, I've spent roughly eight hours picking my nose, festering on my ass in front of the television, wasting my life away. A professional would rise above it all to tell you that Alhambra is definitely worth a try, especially if you typically lean toward watery beers in summer, but would like to take on something a tad heavier and smoother, with no fruit-wedge necessary.

I am no professional. I am a lousy jack-ass, who hasn't taken a shower in three days and smells like moldy bread and stale arm pits. Just know that a positive endorsement from a man in such a reprehensibly miserable state is a fair sign that Alhambra's worth your seven dollars. If you're not convinced by my latest putrid attempts to review a beer, I suggest you promptly eat shit and die.

Well, I've been a little bored of beer. It's a good time to be bored of beer, though. I'm looking for a job and going to the gym. Beer-drinking really doesn't really fit into either one of those agendas. It doesn't help beer's cause any that the only beers I've had in the last week or so have been Bitburger in a can and Old Thumper.

Old Thumper is bubbly, a little heavy, and has a tactless smattering of hops and grain, which make it very similar to Miller Genuine Draft. Of bottled beers of a reasonable price, MGD has to rank somewhere at the high-end of the middle, but it's not the spirit any "extra special ale" should be looking to evoke. There's a tough, angry boar as the logo, and you'd think that'd mean the beer was something strong and powerful. After a few sips, I realized that the boar spoke more towards the kind of constitution the drinker would have to have to get through the bottle.

It's not bad, but it's not at all interesting to me. I will say that it's slightly more intriguing a few degrees warmer, which sets it apart from the swill it otherwise reminds me of. It's got some spiciness and ample carbonation. The aroma is lightly floral, and you don't get bells and whistles like that from a C grade mass-produced piece of domestic crap, but Old Thumper will sadly appeal to that crowd just on the flavor similarities alone. I fear, though, that this beer might still be too thick for the casual beer drinker.

I find I have nothing to say about beer lately. Crap like this doesn't inspire me. It takes up space in my fridge while I feel guilty as all hell for drinking it. This shit's been here for a week and it's depressing me. I hate this beer. It's not really the beer's fault. It's the fact that at this time in my life, I need a strong support system, and being stuck at home everyday to face this supreme waste of time is making my brain want to grow claws and dig itself a tunnel to Mexico where it can get better beer... Yes, Mexico!

ugh!

A few closing details:

Shipyard is responsible for this beer... See the side panel for details. I should have known.

Doesn't Old Thumper sounds like it came out of the same playbook as the Dirty Sanchez.. It tastes like it does, too. Btw, Ringwood sounds like something you can catch from too many Old Thumpers.

A follow-up on the Southern Tier beer, my uncles Dave and Dave thought it was the worst shit they've ever tasted... They'd probably sooner enjoy an Old Thumper, though.