Category Archives: lager

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Kona Longboard Island Lager, Hitting the Salty Curl and Getting so Pitted, No Barrels Brah.

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It is hot out, your mouth wants a lager. Admit it. I don’t mean Kuhnhenn Raspberry Eisbock or something crazy, I mean a regular old pale lager. Admit it. In today’s review, we see how it stays light out later in the summer. We learn how the other side drinks with an American Pale Lager. We learn to stand in someone else’s flipflops.

I had this in Maui, appropriately enough. This picture is probably from somewhere in Fresno.

Longboard island lager
Kona Brewing Co.
Hawaii, United States
American Pale Lager | 4.60% ABV

A very light pale gold color with a thin yellow pallor, open any mainstream lager, and well, there you go. What else do you want me to say? When was the last time you poured a pale lager into a glass and had to go retrieve your socks, having them knocked clean off? That’s what I though, Reality Czech, but that doesn’t count. Not a bad looking beer, but a solid type of girl who shops at Forever 21 and begins sentences with “not even gonna lie-” that sort of pedestrian shallowness is what we are dealing with here.

Whenever I hate on pale lagers, the mouthbreathers get all up in arms and defend session beers. Raters gonna rate.

S almost nothing a slight lemon and a hint of bread, water is the overriding note. What does water smell like? Like the salty pipe when you are carving so hard on the barrel getting so pitted. Water smells like a Point Break marathon. It also smells like Trumer Pils, Rolling Rock, Beck’s, those all smell like water+x.

T the taste is very fleeting and imparts a light honey and apple character overall it is water and thin croissant notes. I would make up something flambuoyant or clever but there simply is nothing here but a mild initial taste with a crisp finish. It’s like biting into a malty piece of celery. It is super refreshing and I can see models and size 0 women enjoying this beer judiciously, watching it turn warm in their palms since it serves as a perfect prop so as to say “look, I am slumming it and not drinking a cosmo because the setting dictates such.” It is refreshing and you can drink, well you really would HAVE to drink several, for the desired effects.

Not everything that happens on the beach is a good idea.

M there is almost nothing to comment on, it is exceptionally thin with no coating. The bubbles cascade the limited flavors up and about but, like most Drama club kids, it just doesn’t bring a lot to the table. I would say a Gose would remind me of a longboard, but the limited sweet notes would probably be pretty enjoyable on a hot day. You know what else reminds me of longboards? Long Beach, and no one wants to be reminded of that foul den of iniquity and Sublime fans.

D this is great for manual labor or pushing nerds into trashcans. I can see its refreshing character as having some utility, but the fact is that there are more delicious ways to attain refreshment. Witnessing a high school sophmore deliver a book report on Island of the Blue Dolphins is refreshing, but hardly rewarding. Such is the case with this beer.

SKERLER WE NEED MORE FLAVERS. WE ARE IN DANGER.

Narrative: Tatum’s parents got divorced at age 8, they said it wasn’t his fault. He never got those Streetsharks action figures that he always wanted, he knew it wasn’t his fault. He got placed as a second string nose guard when he was a Senior on the football team, he convinced himself it wasn’t his fault. Somehow, this lackluster individual carried on day by day. He worked diligently at Blockbuster Video, until Netflix arrived and, that really wasn’t his fault either. Ultimately, Ohio’s economy had too many Tatum’s, too many Skylers, too many Aidens, Braydens, Jaydens, Haydens, Maydens, Raidens; but I digress. His strength was his utter lack of individuality. These days, when you get your auto insurance claim handled just appropriately enough, that was the sweet work of Tatum. Update: his job will soon be outsourced.

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Girardin Black Label Gueuze, Srsly Guezue Read This Guize

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I started trading with a short sighted idea to review all of the top 100 beers on the top beer sites, well this one used to haunt that shit like Boo Radley and put shit in my tree all the time. Well how do you kill a Boo Radley? You hire Atticus to burn his fucking house down. Whoa this mixed metaphor went off the rails real quick. I traded for it and got an amazing gueuze in the process. WE WERE ALL STRONGER AS A RESULT.

I didn’t age this shit since 1882, my Gilded Age beers are saved for when I rip off the proletariat in a significant way.

Girardin Black Label Gueuze, 5% 2011

A: This little stepchild is deep gold with some coppery hues in the center. Nice warm orange accents are illuminated by my opulent Ikea lamp. Huge carbonation greets you like a high school reunion but subsides into mild patterns. The lacing is minimal but, not incongenial. It cups my jawline gently then bites the shit out of my lip like a delta gamma.

Pop open an amazing gueuze and watch animals and small asian children lose their shit.

S: There is a deep funk to it like Jolly Pumpkin on steroids, crisp granny smith apple tartness, grape skins, tannic profile, some apricot to it. Lots of bright fruits and reminds me of Nana’s hand soap collection with juiciness to the funky aspects. You know, Nana’s soapiness. Right? Alright this is getting too personal.

T: This is incredibly interesting in the sheer taste balance that it presents. It is not overly drying but it presents a nice kick of chardonnay tartness. There is a mild fruitiness to it but the most overriding note that I get it a delicious lemony acidity with an expansive tart grassiness. It washes clean quickly and leaves a nice dry palate. Did I just eat an entire Fuji apple? Fuck I hope not. I hate fruit. PSHEW I WAS JUST GETTING WASTED ON EXPENSIVE BEER.

This beer seems pure but flexes hard and the true nature of this tart beast is revealed immediately.

M: This is dry, but not overridingly so. It doesn’t make me pucker up in revulsion like some gueuze that I have had. On that same note, it doesn’t overdo the fruit notes and presents an incredible balance. You know that perfect 16 year old parkor Olympian sort of balance. Am I alone on this one? Ok so, drink ability…

D: This is exceptionally drinkable, with the proviso that you have some water handy. You will get that “movie theater” mouth that happens when you decide to merk an entire box of skittles or sour patch kids to yourself. Stay thirsty my friends. This will keep you plenty thirsty and you should drink accordingly. Or maybe you just kiss to deeply, love hard my friends, this 3 year old beer has gone through a lot to meet your lips. Romcom’s finest.

like most ubersours, you just tuck your gumline, suck your teeth back and enjoy the destruction.

Narrative: It was a strange condition to be sure, not debilitating, but far from the norm. Waylon Roberts perpetually carried a 32oz mister bottle of reverse hydrolyzed water with him for the simple reason that, he could not spit. “An ten, the teachuh saids, ‘those are not for thuh students!’” His classmates looked upon him with silent disdain. Comedy is inherently based upon timing. It is also based upon proper pronunciation and diction. “Suh, anywasssshh” he pulled out his spritzer bottle and wetted his cracked dry lips, “ah there we are chaps, so who wants to grab some Munch Ems and go for a hike?” His peers looked upon him in amazement. He was fully aware of his condition but seemed dead set on defying all convention connected thereto. “Man, nothing on a hot day like this like some sweet Yoohoo, am I rith?” his voice cracked as he took a strong gulp of the milky substance. “HEY WHITEGUMS CATCH!” some bullies yelled as they pelted him with a packet of Quench Gum from Big5 sporting goods. Kids can be so cruel.

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Corona Extra (Coronita), Well Coronita Extra, for those times when 7oz is All You Need, You Only Live Once that’s the motto of the YOLO

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What can I say about this Lake Havasu gem? This is the “fancy” beer on menus at resaturants above and beyond that old pedestrian Bud Light offering, worlds above any malt liquors, and the universally accepts currency of easy girls here and abroad. Right? Is that the selling point of a beer? We will get to the bottom of this mystery before you push a lime into yourself in today’s review.

Turn a square girl into a bi-chick, we just out here trying to function.

Grupo Modelo S.A. de C.V.
Mexico
American Adjunct Lager | 4.60% ABV

I can just say what everyone is thinking: “WHOA HOLD YOUR HORSES, 4.6% I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR THIS SHIT” well buckle in because even when I turn the traction control on, shit is rough. Just pouring this beer reminds me of the cigarette burns in movie reels where you know a scene is about to be missing, but that usually takes place with this gem and other hard hitting interlocutors. No one ever got hurt on Coronitas alone. Well maybe, but they ain’t balling out like this, and no amount of 4.6% shit will pierce this Hydralisk carapace.

You expected some islander adventure and shit just went awry.

The pour looks like, agh, I have to go anywhere except the obligatory urine sample joke so I will say, the robes of an incontinent pre-teen? It has a mild radiance in the way the smoldering ex-boyfriend pictures have a faint resolute glow but the pain is still there. The smell is not, bad? It actually reminds me of when I was 19 and working out took full precedence in my life and I got to almost non-nauseating standards. The pear was least ripe, is what I am trying to communicate. This one time I read in Men’s Health that you should preserve the water of boiled vegetables, and I drank it. This is the smell i encountered. It has a deep b12, corn, sweet sucrose, and white rice. Not even mad tho.

I am not saying you should expect something high brow, just know that what you are seeking is inherently disappointing.

The taste kinda reminds me of those times when you say “fuck it” and eat a mint that has been washed in your jeans. You get a basic alkaline element that subsides to a strange vegetal aspect, like tongue kissing a vegan girl. When you exhale, it is like you know you aren’t getting into a club almost immediately. The rice aspects manifest themselves in a “clean finish” aspect that is akin to officious window washings from homeless people at a freeway turnpike. It feels clean but, you know the truth.

It's not that you don't drink good beer, you must also fail at beer by drinking this. Kevin Chang says so.

Ultimately, the drinkability crushes it out of the park and remains the single redeeming aspect of this beer. If you cannot drink other beers, this will be the ONLY aspect of redemption to you and that is fine, I can’t stand port, no one is bonging it up my ass, I am fine with it. This is ultimately a non-beer drinker’s beer, not for the aspects of “FUCK YOU, DRINK A 15% stout” but in the manner that the sheer taste and finish is closer to vegetables, soda, salt water, and pennies than the average beer. Not even trying to big league on this front, I love Rolling Rock without qualifier, and this shit gets destroyed in that bracket by all accounts. I guess in the off scenario that you are courting a tolerant 15 year old girl, this is your…go…to?

Even after a solid 6 pack of -nitas (42oz) I am wondering where my night wetn and when shit will begin.

Narrative: No. I refuse. This will be a pejorative story about some thinly veiled scapegoat character named Shitbot that processed corn and pushed out manure or something. Let’s not waste everyone’s time with an underhanded diss to the tune of 250 words, you can write your own.

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2007 Michelob Cherry Lager, I’ll Take You To The Cherry Shop, Let You Lick the Lager Pop

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Well Saints alive, what rare vintage have we been blessed with today? You read the foregoing correctly, a delicious Michelob Cherry Lager, aged for 5 years in a lava lamp. Shit is getting real in an around the field.

Some things age gracefully, like a sweet persian cat whos- ok I can't do it, this ages about as well as a Bolivian coal miner.

Michelob Celebrate Cherry Lager, Fruit Beer, 8.5% abv

A: I think it is ironic that they call this beer Celebrate because usually “Michelob” and “2007 lager” are not the things I would begin whipping up the cake batter for. This thing looks like the type of thing that savvy professional bowlers buy for their harem of harlots. It’s like if Sonic Burger started selling alcoholic drinks and their first foray was in ornate packaging. The bottle itself looks like a depleted uranium shell or a marital aid, depending on how freaky you like your shit. No lacing, no sheeting, mild carbonation: drink a cup of grenadine for the haters.

I just don't trust this beer after seeing the bottle and smelling what it is up to.

S: This smells like cherry lime aide and gives a distinct waft of bubble bath. If you you’ve ever chewed a piece of (yipes stripes) Fruit Stripe gum, you’ll know exactly what is going on here. The amount of hating upon the player that is your olfactory system is staggering. The finish is like if an escort spit a Sucrets into your nose holes and gave you a deep Fruit by the Foot smooch.

T: Alright well, you ever have an awkward hook up that shouldn’t have happened, and you regret it, but at least you get breakfast afterwards? Well this is like that except you don’t get breakfast. This tastes like some old fruit roll-ups left in the sun, or perhaps a blowpop dipped in 4Loko, which by all accounts, is far too many Lokos. It reminds me of those sour ropes in the lingering distaste in my mouth that I usually associate with Jody Foster movies.

Just from its appearance alone, you know your mouth is about to get violated.

M: This was a fleeting experience, but I found myself pointing out on the cherry doll in court where the bad man touched my palate. No matter how much imperial stout I drank afterwards, it still hung around like a vengeful roommate, taking all my Crate and Barrel catelogs. Shit was not bitches. I could see Lil B the Based God loving something like this, sipping it judiciously through his well appointed gem-laden grill. But for the rest of us, I can just snort Mountain Dew Code Red and be done with it.

D: Spoiler Alert: I did not want to drink a lot of this shit. It was juicy juice nightmare and I can’t recommend a return forary into this western theater. The cherries were sickening and the lager base didn’t help matter much with a malt complexity. It just shirked there in the courner shaking awaiting for the cherry domestic violence to stop. I can thank my good friend Eric Hammond for this gem. I gave him Funky Buddha Raspberry Berliner, and this is the fruit treat that I received in return. Equitable exchanges.

This should have been obvious from the start, a 2007 vintage lager from Michelob? Shitstorm from the inception.

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The Bruery Humulus Lager, More Clouds Than an E40 Picnic

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Humulus Cumulus Lupulus Dupulus.

A: This beer has a nice cloudy yellow with inviting murkiness to it. It looks like a filthy lemonade with great carbonation. The lacing is minimal but the head is like a clou- no, I will not go there, it’s painfully apparent.

S: The nose is plentiful with lemons and zest with sweet biscuit and citrus hops. There’s a bit of grapefruit that feels like a single IPA, but it doesn’t override. It has more of a crispness to the smell.

Too many of these and some awkward iSituations could go down.

T: The taste is super refreshing with a mellow hop character that rounds out the sweet cornbread notes. It almost reminds me of a mellowed out Gumballhead with more of an acidic character. I feel that this is superior for Gumballhead, for the sheer complexity and balance that it attains.

M The mouthfeel is middle of the road but incredibly refreshing with a great hop resonance that serves as a gateway drug to any person with an IPA aversion. I know the Bruery said that they would never brew an IPA, but this is pretty close, by all accounts.

Solid beer, no mystery here.

D: This is incredibly drinkable because it creates this revolving door wherein you drink it, love the refreshing nature and the hops dry the palate at the end. The result is a moebius strip of refreshment that is ultimately rewarding. The drink ability is huge just hug, right up there with Alpine Hoppy Birthday and Live Oak Hefeweizen. The big league D squad, if you will, although you probably wont.

Narrative: The Celtis bush looked longingly across the yard to the supple humulus fields blooming with careless abandon. What was so different between the two pedigrees really? Was not the Celtis bush blessed with hearty, chloro- efficiency? The children frolicked and hid amongst the verdant leaves of the fragrant humulus bush, but not the old cantankerous hackberry. Everything was going fine until stupid old Pliny made a distinction between the two. It was all downhill for the loveable hackberry at that point. I guess being violently toxic didn’t help. “Oh, here comes a child, he. . .oh he’s counting, PERHAPS THE HACKBERRY SHALL NOW BECOME THE BASE FOR THESE TAG EXPLOITS!” Not within 4 minutes did little Jerry begin to wheeze and scratch himself violently. Two branches were ripped off and made into makeshift guns, later into circus whips for the children’s imaginary animal menagerie. “GOD DAMN YOU HUMULUS BUSH!” The neighboring female humulus bush smiled coyly and self replicated in front of the poor Celtis, no need for any pesky seeds or male intervention here. Stick vinuous tears soaked the fertile ground, poor Hackberry would live to see another day as a critical ingredient in Propecia. Then the joke will be on Humulus indeed. Two sides of the same floral coin.