Beers Eye Drunk

These days, I'm stupid for a lot of reasons. Eight dollars of that stupid comes from my purchase of a 22-oz. ale at the Alamo Draft House. I have heard that Rogue's Dead Guy Ale was pretty decent, so I figured I deserved a treat, because frankly I am feeling too lazy to foster real joy and excitement in my life and I find it much easier to try to purchase said happiness in the form of movie tickets and chicken strips. More stupid.

Dead Guy was good, a tad bitter, smooth, but actually kind of watery. There was a bit of a hint of warmth, alcohol, and maybe some malt. I read these reviews on the inter-web about people falling all over this beer and its surprising malt taste due to its Maibock recipe applied to Rogue's PacMan ale yeast... Bah! It was as hoppy as many weak-ass ales I've had. In fact, I probably wouldn't have had much recollection of it at all if it hadn't cost me eight hard earned American dollars. And no, I didn't taste PacMan either, which I imagine tastes something like processed ghosts.

All in all, Dead Guy was an okay beer, but it wasn't a memorable experience. And I need quality beer experiences in my life. On the plus side, when I find life disappointing, I can blame beers like this for not giving me a return on my ample investment. You see, in the business world, we'd call this a "drainer" beer, which instead of adding value to my life, drained my operational cash flow due to a lower than anticipated ROI. Given this occurrence, I was forced to have a long chat with my operations/support manager, and he mentioned some total crap about having trouble budgeting his time between my requested costs analysis and filing my underpants in alphabetical order. My advise to him as always is "Quit your bitchin'! If you want a see a REAL waste of your skill-set, fast-forward to five minutes after I fire your ass and you're back home picking your nose and watching Comedy Central, you lazy little priss!" He returned meekly to his cubical, where he shall forever remain a small and broken man who is lucky to suckle on the dregs of my success as a beer blogger.

It’s times like these I remember that although this beer blog employs hundreds of people, this company is fueled solely from my intellectual property. And while it’s okay to blame my other people and beers for my occasional pitfalls, the reality is that I’m responsible to my fans and my stockholders to make quality beer selections. My wasted money is their wasted money, and I must be respectful of that. Since Rogue set me back a bit, I’ll be forced to fire my marketing manager, who will probably go from touting the virtues of my beer blog to everyone he sees at the mall to telling everyone he sees in the men’s room that I suck balls for $99 a piece. Any publicity is good, right?

Yes, today's beer is called Dinkle Acker. Only the Germans would be able to put "Dinkel Acker" on a beer with a straight face.

Wow. Really, what else do I have to say? What else can I say? Do you really want to know how this tastes? Or are you more interested in whether it lives up to the name on the way out?

Let me just say that Dinkel tastes a lot like Beck's Dark, maybe a bit stronger and cleaner. It's brownish, but it tastes like a light pilsner with a little less carbonation. I must confess I'm not a real big fan of this beer. It tastes a tad like an overbearing champagne. Despite a faint scent of apple, there's no honey-sweetness, fruitiness, maltiness or any other kind of -iness. And I'd expect at least one -iness out of a beer called, Dinkel Acker. It's marred with strongly over-ripe alcoholic flavor, like a bad box of wine.

It's not too awful for the $4.99 I paid for the six-pack, but really I'm starting to question these so-called German Purity Laws, which apparently account for everything except whether or not the beer tastes like the spit bucket behind a wine bar. Over all, I wouldn't touch Dinkel if I were you. Though, for folks who really can't handle the odd European-style funkiness of beers like Stella, this might be an acceptable substitute or training wheels for other more vibrant and interesting brews.

Though, I would like to take this opportunity to raise my fresh Dinkel to you all. Cheers and happy beers to yah!

I am so high right now. My girlfriend told me not to spray my shirts with Spray-and-Wash while I'm still wearing them. Dude! This stuff smells great! Like puppies fresh from the dryer, without the whimpering! It's put me in a great mood, which makes me fully capable of telling you that Old Growler is awesome!

It's great, lively and consumes your palate with a veritable Aurora Borealis of flavor. If you like chocolate stouts, then you'd probably like this. Though I must say, it's smoother than those sometimes murky, smoky, and gritty-ass stouts. If you like a dark lager, then you'd like this too. It has a real depth of flavor. If you like English-style pale ales, then you'd appreciate the smoothness and fruity overtones. And if you like Corona, you should probably die.

I think I taste pear… Why is that? Mysterilicious!

Old Growler is high-impact and delicious, and despite the boasting of some Trappist beers being "alive" in the bottle (which I think is freakin' creepy, in a Day of the Dead sort of way), this beer actually tastes alive, which is something I find uncommon in beers with complex flavors and real girth in your mouth. Yes, I like real girth in my mouth... from my beer. From my beer! Fuck you guys!

Anyhow, I give Old Growler my highest recommendation. Definitely the best beer I've tried in months. It's actually changed my life. I'm spending my off-hours pining for Growler, rather than twitching sporadically fighting the urge to make myself a pot of Maxwell House. I might just kick caffeine with the help of beer after all. Let's face it, I'm a beer drunk at heart, and this coffee drunkenness is only a symptom of my poor mental outlook*. And this Spray-and-Wash has totally corrected that! I may even love kittens now! Wait, nope, still hate 'em. I checked. I still find their pain amusing and never-you-mind how I checked.

Get some Old Growler. I see fairies! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

*Poor Mental Outlook 2005 is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation, the makers of System Administrator - Your Mailbox is Full of Suffering and MS PowerPoint At the Boring Charts on the Wall While Scott Falls Asleep.

I have been drinking more coffee at work, because it's free and it comes from a robot. And if I could I would suckle the teat of the robot coffee lord all day long until my eyeballs finally shoot out of my skull, but alas by 3:00 my jaw is clenched so tight with nervous energy that I can't even open my mouth to speak a full sentence let alone drink another cup of French Roast.

Needless to say, I can't sleep that well or accomplish simple tasks like laundry and most of the time I feel like having a seizure just to get all the caffeine out of my system and to really show my coffee table who's boss... You'd have to know the guy, but really, I can personally vouch for the fact that he's an asshole and he thinks he's better than everybody else. I won't get into the story about how he broke his leg and blamed it on me. I'm way off topic as it is. This sort of thing keeps happening to me since I upped the coffee intake and thus it has become imperative I drink some calming, soothing, and delicious beer to restore the delicate internal balance that gives me my super powers.

As I twitched and puttered around the apartment yesterday, my minions sought out beer for me to drink.

Centennial Liquor in Austin has almost no beer of note. It is a complete waste of time if you're looking for beer. Forget it. You'd stand a better chance at finding a quality beer by drinking the first four items you come across; proceeding to wake up in a dumpster which will probably contain a few remaining swallows of a much better and wider selection of brews. Suck on that review, Centennial! And get yourself some freakin' beer for Christ's sake! All they had that I haven't tried was Real Ale's sample pack, which was totally against my "No Lousy Microbrews" rule mentioned in one of the historical chapters of this blog. Nevertheless, rules are much like my coffee table, in that they're meant to be broken as part of my ill-fated attempts to practice for a future career in Lucha Libre.

Yesterday, I tried Real Ale's Full Moon Pale Rye Ale, which had a delightfully crisp aroma, and a extremely bitter, hoppy flavor. I was reminded quite a bit of Racer 5, but Full Moon Rye (wasn’t she a VJ on MTV2 or VH1?) actually has a lot more staying power as it seems to have a tad more carbonation. All in all, it's not the best or worst pale ale I've ever had, and is not a truly distinct one at any rate. It reminds me of that girl I dated. What's-her-name wasn't that memorable, but I can assure you that she's probably extremely bitter, too.

Moving on, I tried the Brewhouse Brown Ale, which was a chocolaty, dark beer lacking the gritty, smokiness of some Brown Ale's I've had. It didn’t really possess the depth and drinkability of Independence Brown. Yet, if you're looking for something a grade above Honey Brown, and you want it to have a hint of bitterness to keep you awake through the qualifying rounds of Olympic curling, let's say, then I could see recommending this beer. Again, not the best or worst of its kind, but not at all bad, either. It's just not unmistakably original. Like Boston or Styx or Bad Company… Can anyone tell those bands apart?

What's worse, though, is that I haven't been compelled or interested in either of these initial beers to warrant drinking the rest, which disables me from balancing out the exorbitant amounts of coffee I drink throughout the day. This is troublesome, because as mentioned prior, my excessive energy can have adverse effects on the coffee table's structural integrity. And don't think it's any coincidence that at work I kneel before coffee and at home I battle my coffee table for supremacy of the living room. You see, I have a love-hate relationship with coffee which has entrapped me in a vicious destructive cycle. I know what I must do, but haven't drank enough beer to accomplish the task.

I must slay the instant coffee robot. I must strangle him with my bare hands until he bleeds half-caff all over the breakroom floor. Can Real Ale help me re-kindle my love of beer giving me the strength to fight my addiction or will the evil robot coffee overlord continue to rule my life giving me just enough energy to stay awake through another grueling day of work?

Beer grant me the strength to fight all Evil.

The best thing I can say about Wychwood's Scarecrow is that it was on sale, enabling me to actually try it. I'm strapped for cash thanks to some serious ass-tasticism from my company. I was quite certain that my next entry in the blog was going to be a review of Michelob Ultra, and I was even toying with the idea of reviewing new Black Cherry Vanilla Coke, which tastes like Cherry Coke and Vanilla Coke mixed in one bottle... real creative stuff there. Luckily, H.E.B. had a sale on this beer I've been longing to try, but much to my dismay, it's not very good.

I'm sorry to say that. I really, really wanted it to be delicious. I like the label. I like Scarecrows. I like strange Pale Ales, and hey the promise of a so-called "Golden Pale Ale" made me fairly certain this was going to be one of the high-points of my beer-odyssey. Oh, but aside from the faint hint of apple in the aftertaste, this beer lacked anything of interest. And a flat, weak and unimpressive beer is the absolute last thing I need.

What can I say? I wasted my money at a time when I can't afford to waste money on beer. To make matters worse, I even planned for the worse, and my back up plan failed. I got myself a Sam Adams reduced price variety pack and all three beers, the Brown, the Black, and the Hef, all sucked. Well, actually, I'd say the brown ale was okay, but was kind of like a high school drama club performance of Shakespeare. It's a great script, but the execution was terribly lacking in maturity, subtlety, and sophistication. And that was the best of the three. The Hef tastes like I made it last night in the kitchen using cleaning products and ketchup packets mixed with Coors. The Black is a gritty insult to the its genre.

To put it in ever-popular football terminology, both Scarecrow and Sam Adams were called off the bench when I needed them most and they blew the big game. And I might be being a bit hard on them because money is tight, but hey, I'm an aficionado, which means that I have to use spell check a lot so I can make sure I don't look stupid when I try to use that word. It also means I am to beer, what Gandhi was to starvation. I make this look good. I own this turf and I don't have time for sissy beers no matter how cool the bottle looks.

Short of a major beeracle, which is like a miracle only it involves much more beer, I will be forced to review beers a little more sporadically. Pretty much the on-sale status of the world's finer beers will determine how often I am able to review them. I am currently writing a grant proposal that will probably be turned down... They're still upset about my other pending grant proposal to give the pope a face lift. I mean he's the pope. He's gotta look good for Jesus, right? See, no one understands me like beer does, and that's why I know we'll be back together again some day soon.

I am poor and I have no beer. If you would like to donate beer to me, please do so. I have no beer. I may go to H.E.B. tonight and buy a beer and some soup. I am so poor.

Hofbrau Maibock is made from two words that are not English. With a sophisticated taste and a floral character, Hofbrau is very pleasant, like those home-schooled kids who always win the spelling bee. But, just like those kids, there’s something weird about Hofbrau that you just can’t put your finger on. It might be the slightly sour aftertaste or the nearly metallic finish, but maybe it’s just my own prejudice against this clearly savant red ale.

It’s color, weight, liveliness, and taste are superb. In fact, they’re so disturbingly good that I really have no right to pick an old standard like Killians in its stead. Yet, what I guess Hofbrau will always lack for me, no matter how superior it seems, is heart and personal history… how do you have memorable life experiences with something called Hofbrau? I don’t think it’s possible. I mean, you love what you love because you like the way it does what it does, right? It’s hard to love a fancy beer that slides in and does it all better than you ever thought possible. A part of your soul softens as if to say, maybe it’s all in the numbers and there’s really nothing left to chance... Maybe one day, everything you like will be replaced by something you can’t pronounce and have no memory of puking up in Kevin Denney’s sink. Am I fast approaching this sad, sad future?

No. I don’t think so. Because Hofbrau costs $2.25 and that’s fucking expensive. I don’t care how good it is. You can lick my sweaty nut sack if you think I’m going to pay that on a regular basis. Because life is about the memories we make, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve loved money almost as much as I love beer. And so keeping large amounts of both is vastly important. Go ahead and try Hofbrau. It’s awesome. And I hope the two of you move to Europe and act like you’re better than us, while you eat your crab cakes and be rude to the wait staff. I’ll be here with a $6.99 six-pack when you get back and realize what a jack ass you’ve been.

Before I launch into a large-scale review of Piraat, I think it’s important to pay tribute to a person who made this part of the beer blog possible. My girlfriend’s uncle Kenny, this week, became a patron of blog by making a generous and charitable donation to my highly important studies. Through making this outstanding contribution, my girlfriend’s uncle Kenny has earned himself a trusteeship at my prestigious and self-accredited institution, wherein my students will daily beg his forgiveness for their insolence and seek redemption by taking my recyclables back to the store and through prayer. Yes, I am hoping he has set an example for all who read this, because the steps you must take towards ultimate beer Zen are to first appreciate beer and second, to offer it freely to Scott.

Piraat, much like my power over you, is strong and fierce. It will hurt you if it doesn’t get what it wants. And it wants me drunk. This much it told me in our brief, but productive meeting last night. Piraat has a fruity taste, almost akin to a hard cider. It’s heavy and lacks in carbonation, but it’s strong enough to really pop to life in your mouth. Every sip is like getting hit in the face with a golden brick of tough love. If I had to summarize, I’d say it’s an elephant on roller-skates: Dangerous. This is why beers should be left to the trained professionals like me who spent 4 years and several thousand dollars at Hartwick College learning how to pee in the sink while essentially unconscious. I know what I’m doing, and it’s time you people all recognize it and send me your beer for your own protection. Without a warning from me, you could sit down one day with a glass of Piraat and end up not being sober enough to stop me falling asleep inside your refrigerator. And as you stir your left-overs from Mi Casa to remove the faint imprint of my buttocks, you’ll have learned a valuable lesson. Send me your beer or I will invite myself over and drink it anyway. Either way, it is mine by my divine right. If god can tell Bush he’s supposed to be president, I can tell you that God wants me to drink your beer.

In a world where flamboyant or overbearing beers dominate the weak of taste, Svyturys 1784 takes a refreshingly balanced approach, teetering on a precipice where splendor towers dangerously close to dullness and bowel-curdling boredom. Svyturys sounds like clitoris, though any taste comparisons would thrust us unduly into a realm of subjectivity from whence no value can be easily drawn. And also, there’s no telling what those tasted like in 1784… it’s a different world altogether now.

Svyturys is pleasantly salty and mildly sweet, but with no lumbering honey flavor as with many other golden beers. I strained pretty hard to sense any undertones, overtones, key tones, or ring tones. Nada. Svytyrys is plain and simple, like the girl you were waiting to ask to the prom, because she was a sure thing and you might still have a shot at the really hot girl. Don’t worry, though. There’s almost no chance of her ending up going with your best friend and showing up looking 100 times hotter than you ever thought possible, while you’re stuck with Bertha: The Wonder Horse from next door, who’s two years younger and 50 lbs. more interested in clasping her meaty arms around you every time there’s a Abba song she wants to sing/sweat along too.

It’s not really your fault if you pass up Svyturys, not realizing its potential to be a kind and supportive beer. It’s plain and may be lacking in character, but you can count on this beer for sure. You don’t have to worry about her discovering herbs in college and finally learning how to party… If it hasn’t happened since 1784, then it’s not going to happen. It’s your call whether you’re going to pursue something a bit wilder, but remember this: Those bitter, hoppy beers may seem exciting, but when you’re on the can the next day complaining about how much it hurts, you might wish you spent the night with someone a little more peaceful. And it also sounds like clitoris, which is as good a reason to buy a beer as any I’ve probably given on this blog.