If you’ve ever rolled a Dodge Stratus into the curb reeking of Underberg on the way to your 8am sociology class, finally a beer has arrived for you. This unlikely merger of Jagerbomb preacher curl bros and grocery store Cascade hop stepdads was a long time coming. Those nascent seeds that later turn into cocktail fetishists and homebrewers are tucked into this bizarre digestif soil. No one asked for this beer but it was willed into existence. The nose is one part Jager spice: anise, orange rind, juniper and saffron. The other part is a militant overextracted all boil C hop chaperone, WARRIOR resin, wax shatter pieces and high school gym coach aspirations.

The offset.

It’s weird and not in the quirky “I matched with a life coach on Bumble, should I do it?” Way. It feels medicinal in this holistic essential oils way, residual cling like patrouli and burning sage. Ironically the prescription counter notes make this feel worse for you. The taste is like some good and plenties left rolling around the floorboards of a Pontiac Sunfire. Most p90x bros won’t know that neither Jager nor Arrogant Bastard are barrel aged, they are focusing on vascularity and whether the colts will cover the spread. You don’t need to focus on the lack of a barrel or the fact that this is a “hello fellow kids” marketing move that no one demanded but the current beer scene embraces in herbaceous novelty. It’s not good, but it’s such an insane eucalyptus meets sticky crystal hops mouth kiss from your aunt that you’re almost onboard for that offputting embrace.

This beer is made for a middle manager who clips his Nextel phone onto his woven JC Penney belt confident in his beer knowledge and Merona cargo shorts. To everyone else his eccentricity is a character trait, each wacky bottle he brings to cookouts a personality supplement. If you want juniper juice and the faded Malty underpinnings of chinook handjobs under the craft beer bleachers, the Pangs oF alpha acid past degrading the foreseeable future. You never leave this town, you marry the Cascade homecoming queen and both slide in bilateral domestic resentment and success. But you’re everyone else’s “beer friend” and you let the stretch marks show it.