And to think, I was embarrassed to even post its name

On Tuesday, Phin saw single bottles of the Sam Adams Longshots series available in Whole Foods.  By Wednesday, they were gone.

Clearly, we needed to buy a six pack of these guys before we lost our chance.

Wednesday night I had a chance to try a couple of them: the Blackened Hops and the Honey B's Lavender Ale.

Blackened Hops:
Yikes, this one is not my style at all.  All I got was hops, hops and more hops.  I wound up getting to the point where I just had to drink it as fast as I could.  To someone who enjoys the American microbrewery style of hopping the shit out of everything, I can see how this would be a likable beer.  Frankly, I disliked it to the point where I can't even rate it.  It gets the first I that I've ever given.

Honey B's Lavender Ale:
I was nervous as hell when I opened this one.  I thought I was about to drink Bed Bath & Beyond in a bottle.  My nerves weren't really helped when I took a whiff of the beer and got...nothing.  No lavender, no honey, no hops or malts.  I truly couldn't smell anything.

I've always been a believer that the "aroma" wasn't really all that important in a beer because it's almost always very similar to taste, but I now realize my mistake.  If nothing else, the aroma lets you know what the hell you're about to get yourself into.  I took a sip and found that I actually liked this one.  It's got a pretty strong honey flavor, but that's a flavor that's always worked for me.  Combined with the light hops and the lavender flavor, this was a surprisingly good beer.  I give it a B.

Finally, tonight I drank the Friar Hop.  I was saving it for last because I anticipated it being my favorite, but as it turns out I actually liked Honey B's Lavender Ale better.  The beer is a Belgian Ale with an American twist--namely, the hops.  While a lot of hop heads get bored with the different Belgian style ales, I think it's best to leave them as they are.  The hops were interesting, but in my opinion they made things worse.  I give it a B-.

Have you had any beers from this or a prior Longshots series? What did you think of them? Let us know in the comments!

Breckenridge Vanilla Porter

Even as much as I have gotten sick of the giants of the beer industry, I have to give them credit.

They are very effective marketers (even when they run stupid campaigns like this.)

They make it a point to add gimmicks to their products, and they convince people that they make high quality beer.  

Breckenridge Brewery in Denver is launching a hilarious new ad campaign that's poking fun at the major beer companies (well, mostly at MillerCoors).

You can check out the commercials here.

We've got a bottle of Avalanche Ale in the collection, but we drank the six pack of it months ago and I didn't get a review done, so Phin and I decided that we'd head over to the liquor store and grab something else by them.  We went with the SummerBright Ale.  I downed my half of the six pack last night and sprinted to the liquor store 15 minutes before it closed to grab a six pack of their Vanilla Porter.  I had read some good things about it on Beerit, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

One of the things that I read about it was that it was a great dessert beer. That had me a little nervous, as I thought it'd wind up being a Summer Shandy-like. Fortunately, there are still qualities that I'd associate with beer in the brew, and in my opinion the combo of the sweet flavor in a porter really works.  Maybe for people who are bigger fans of the style, this one doesn't work, but I like it. 

I give it a B+.

Vanilla Porter on Beer Advocate
Vanilla Porter on RateBeer
Breckenridge's take on Vanilla Porter

Have you ever had Breckenridge Vanilla Porter? Agree with my take on it? Let us know in the comments!

I should have known better

Last night I made a terrible decision.

With the Oklahoma City Thunder beating the Memphis Grizzlies by 6 points in overtime, I told my roommate that I would "finish a beer by the end of every overtime".  We had done something similar during the epic six overtime game between Connecticut and Syracuse a couple years earlier, when the two of us and a couple other friends finished a game of beer pong during every overtime.

Given how ridiculous this series has been, I should have known better.  Thanks to a last second three pointer by Greivis Vasquez (who seemed to be throwing up a junk shot in hope of drawing a foul and getting 3 free throws), the Grizzlies were able to take the game into a second overtime period.  Nobody took control of overtime number 2, but fortunately the Thunder were able to finish it off and save my liver in the third overtime.


And on a side note, I absolutely called Vasquez taking that shot after Mike Conley and O.J. Mayo fouled out.

But anyway, my beer of choice last night was Bell's Oberon.  I didn't really start getting into the craft scene until August of this year when my roommate turned 21, so I missed my shot at Oberon last year.  But thanks to a well-placed ad (that will be the topic of a future article), I tried some at a local bar and loved it.  I threw one into a mixed six pack while I was at Woodman's, and my dad decided to get me a couple of six packs of it for my birthday.

While a lot of "beer snobs" don't like it because...well...they're hipsters and love to hate what's popular I guess, I think it's great.  (On that hipster comment: a lot of people I've talked to who don't like it cite "the fact that 'commoners' like it" as a main reason they're not big on it.)  I've had other beers that tried to mix traditional wheat beers with hops, but in my opinion they tend to make it all about the hops.  This one has a great balance of the two, and it's a good beer for almost any occasion.  It's a "lawnmower beer" that tastes good enough to be consumed one or two at a time.

In terms of overall quality, it's not as complex as a lot of others, but I don't really care.  It's a versatile beer that I think tastes absolutely great.  I give it an A.

Oberon on Beer Advocate
Oberon on RateBeer
Oberon on bellsbeer.com (it should be the first one that shows up)

An exception to the rules of The Wall

Found the bottle in my apartment's trash room.  Making an exception to the rules.  F.

Sorry, I can't do it

Moving on.

Cinco de Mayo (Part 2)

While the Whole Foods down the street has been pretty good to me in terms of my beer purchases, it also poses a major problem.  Namely, you have to read the hell out of the labels if you don't want to sit in line at the register for a beer that winds up being much more expensive than you thought.

I can't find my camera, this is not Bohemia

Back in November, Phin and I went to Whole Foods because he saw a 6-pack of Bohemia for 4.99.  We had no idea what Bohemia was at the time, as we were really just starting to get into beer, but we hadn't heard of it being a notoriously bad beer, so we decided to give it a shot.

We grabbed it and went to the cash register, where the cashier told us we owed over 7 dollars.  Turns out the 4.99 beer we thought we found was stocked where some mini-bottles of Corona were supposed to be.  Sadly, it took me about a dozen more incidents like that before I made it a point to look closely at the labels.  Yeah...I can be a slow learner sometimes.

Anyway, a few weeks later I was at Woodmans and found the six pack for 5.99.  It's still not as good as the price we originally thought we had found, but for basically a dollar a bottle, it worked for me.  I brought 3 of the Bohemias back to Milwaukee and we had them with what I'd call homemade "street tacos".

Of all of the Mexican beers I've had, Bohemia is one of my two favorites (the other being Dos Equis Amber, which I'll review shortly).  It goes down easy and tastes pretty good.  While it doesn't have the flavor that a lot of beer reviewers look for, I find it to be pretty solid, with the flavor that it does have being good, unlike a lot of other cheap beers *cough* Tecate*cough cough*.  Add to it the story about how we went about getting it and I'd give it a solid B.

Have you had Bohemia? Do you agree with my take? Let us know in the comments!

Cinco de Mayo (Part 1)

Cinco De Mayo!

What better day than today to get a handful of the Mexican beers in our collection reviewed?  September 27th you say? Shut up, know-it-all!

On my way back from a pretty brutal presentation in my Marketing Management class, I passed my old apartment.  The apartment is located just a couple blocks from a corner store that I remembered having a pretty good selection, so I figured I'd head over and take a look at what was there.

I realize that by now you've probably figured out what beer I'm reviewing and you've come to the conclusion that the corner store didn't have as good of a selection as I remembered.  You would be...incorrect.  The store does have a nice selection of beers, mainly Wisconsin brews and European imports.  However, I didn't have a lot of money on me since I wasn't really planning on buying anything that afternoon.  Due to the date and my wallet, I settled on Tecate.

Tecate is...a cheap adjunct lager.  I knew there was a reason I never bothered buying it before; even at 6.50 for a six pack it's not a particularly good deal, though I can't really complain.  I'm pretty sure the guy gave me a dollar too much change, so I wound up getting them for under a buck apiece.

There's not much flavor to this beer, it's an unoffensive beer that'll give you a buzz after drinking them for awhile.  There's definitely a time and place for a beer like it, but I'd rather have a few better tasting brews with more alcohol.  I give it a C.


Tecate on Beer Advocate
Tecate on RateBeer
Tecate.com

"What were you drinking when...?"

There are certain events that are so big that you remember forever exactly where you were when they happened.

I've only been 21 for a little over a year, and I already know that for a lot of these instances I'll remember exactly what I was drinking too.

Belgians know beer

On May 1, I was at Comet Cafe with my roommate when our waitress asked us if we'd like to go to the side of the restaurant that had a T.V.  We had been there many times and this had never happened, so we were a little puzzled.  While everyone else was reading that there was going to be a speech from President Obama about a "matter of national security", all we had heard was that the President was going to speak.  Obama had several speeches scheduled on nights we went to eat at Comet and none of them had ever generated as much of a reaction, so we decided to go check out what all the excitement was about.

We walked over to the other side of the restaurant right as the cameras cut to a shot of the President walking up to the podium.  Our jaws dropped as it was announced that the Navy Seals had killed bin Laden.

Anyway, on to the beer.  That night I drank a Delerium Tremens.  I'd had Nocturnum and loved it, so I figured I'd try another beer by the same brewery.

Tremens is a great Belgian Strong Pale Ale.  It's very smooth and has a pretty intricate fruit flavoring.  It's got a high alcohol content, but you'd never know that from the flavor of the beer.  This is one that would definitely qualify as "dangerous". 

After drinking Nocturnum, my expectations were high, and fortunately this beer was actually able to meet those expectations.  I would give it an A.  It's not going to get front shelf placement on The Wall because Nocturnum's already there and I like the label more, but it's a damn good beer.

Delerium Tremens on Beer Advocate
Delerium Tremens on RateBeer
Delerium's take on Tremens


And for the record, no: I didn't ever think I'd tag a post with both Delerium Tremens and Osama bin Laden.

Have you had Delerium Tremens? Agree with my take? Let us know in the comments!