He'Brew Origin Pomegranate Ale

He'Brew Origin Pomegranate Ale
Shmaltz Brewing Co.
San Francisco, California

Seeing as the price on this bomber was cut to $3.99 I figured it was as old and stale as the muskmeloned frappé groin fur on a nun but alas- it tastes fresh. Fresh, semi-fruity and grass-laden. Hearty grains with caramel extracts and a little figgy pudding in the corpuscles of the bulging wheats. Add some nectar and you have a Garden of Eden beer nativity scene with the ox and lamb keeping time. Think about that. Of all the things in Christian lore and tradition how is it that a fucking lamb and ox can keep time and nobody questions it. On grounds of common decency I beseech you to believe whatever it is that you will about God and man just don't be hoodwinked into believing that farm animals started up a hoof beat to the virgin birth. It didn't happen people! Now the Jingle Cats are a whole other matter. Those multi-faceted and talented singing and dancing cats can do the jig and strum an acoustic six string all in one motion. My God what treasures this Earth is immersed in. This beer will enhance that pleasure more than it will swamp out this stada baba world.

-Wörtwurst

Roxy Rolles Autumn Seasonal

Roxy Rolles Autumn Seasonal
Magic Hat Brewing Co.
South Burlington, Vermont

When I think of autumn I get an acorn light bulb above my head, squirrels dancing the hoochie coo around the barren boysenberry bush and leaves crunching underfoot as the humansaurus rex moves into one more resting season before eventual extinction kicks in. Yeah, yeah... global warming and the coming of gawd aside, man's doom is sealed. Winter, nuclear winter specifically, will be the end season for man and autumn the next-to-last sunset. So why is it that he has to be portrayed as a beefcake laissez-faire free spirit roughneck when he ought be a stick-figure hangman's prize dangling from a stick figure gibbet? All of these questions and no answers. Well, I have an answer for this beer: it's a farking IPA! If this is an oktoberfest or a autumnal seasonal then I have a carp's mouth and a fishing hook mentality because I certaunly taste the fishbine in this beer-o-mine. Sure, it has some amber and red qualities and that's fine by me because objectively speaking this isn't a bad micro-hopper. It just doesn't distinguish itself from a common pale or India pale ale. Plus the label is ignorant even if Roxy Rolles means more than just a name. I'm not interested enough to find out the who, what, where or why. Onward to my salsa and chips.


-Wörtwurst

Boffo Brown Ale

Boffo Brown Ale
Dark Horse Brewing Co.
Marshall, Michigan

I'm not going to kid any of you fine beer purveyors because like you I think that the odd-shaped Boffo caricature depicted on the bottle looks an awful lot like a cat-eyed piece of dried up dung straight from the African Sahara. Taste-wise this is a corpulent-lipped brown sugar heavy on the molasses with a skirt fritter of maltese falcon pumped into the adrenaline glands. A very strong brown ale approaching a porter with variant stout attributes as well. If turned to the right light and given the proper tongue acerbations there is a funkiness which is swimmingly appropriate for the flotsam and jetsam yeast which swims about unfiltered and uncontained. This brew lives up to its name in the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition: extremely successful... right at the spot where the margin meets the word and then some.

-Wörtwurst

Ol' Red Ceast & Desist Wee Heavy Ale

Ol' Red Ceast & Desist Wee Heavy Ale
Erie Brewing Co.
Erie, Pennsylvania

I know that it probably seems like a conspiracy against my home state that two reviews in a row featured Erie Brewing Co. selections but I can assure you that it's purely coincidental. I bought them nearly two weeks apart but they happened to settle in the beer drawer of the fridge just right and now I will have imbibed them accordingly. This is a boon!

Not the heaviest weewee in the world but it certainly brings out the scraggly wire bristles on my eyebrows to squiggle and dance their follicular gravitas and grand glandularistic ritual. Ol' Red the Scotchy had it right when he lifted his kilt and tea-bagged the blue-eyed world of bland beers and said, "Arrr...ye nutbags do not make dah mun bud dey certainly ken make him heppy if he points dem in da r-r-r-r-r-oight di-rection." I'm pointing you knobs down the straight and narrow with this hard sinker of malty proportions. Thank me later and wear your knickers so that I don't have to see your hideous junk piles.

-Wörtwurst

Heritage Alt Beer

Heritage Alt Beer
Erie Brewing Co.
Erie, Pennsylvania

I was reading an article today about how Atheists deal with Christmas and I thought "what kind of mental dildos are these people?" Listen, I don't follow any religion, believe in a Creator or think that life has any great significance beyond one's personal values (and also that it's better than being dead!). But these Atheists with a self-identifying capital A and a grudge against the Jesus man have got it all wrong. I'm an atheist by definition but it doesn't affect my life whatsoever. These Atheists though, they are angry at the Christ-man and though that's their right, it's kind of a self-defeating complex to have. I find it odd that people who don't believe in something are so vociferous against that non-belief. I suspect that most of them are former or disillusioned Christians who no longer believe because somebody forced them into it or maybe had their peepee touched on the church bus. Who knows. Let me go on record as being one atheist for Christmas. My favorite song is Silent Night and the best version I ever heard was from church bells a half a mile away from an old apartment in a misty foggy snow slopped evening at Christmas-time (obviously).

If there is a good reason to believe in Gawd then a few beers into an inebriated state is a start. Euphoric greed in the pleasure department. This is a cross polination between a well-crafted porter and a solid brown but so much smoother than Kojak's dome. If I have to explain the intricacies of the porter and the brown then you are more akin to a non-believer than am I.

-Wörtwurst

Bell's Christmas Ale

Bell's Christmas Ale
Bell's Brewery
Comstock, Michigan

We're friends, right? I mean, I'll always be there for you just as long as you knock on my door 76 times or ring the phone 111 cycles and I'm certainly there for you when you need me. What I'm saying is that I wouldn't lie to you. So when Bell's came to me and asked, "Hey Wörtwurster J. Knockwurst & Co., ye of the shiny red nose and epiglottis, what do you want in a beer?" I quizzotically exclaimed, "Gib me da gobdug good stuff mudder fuckas." Well, that's just what they've done here. An irrationally malty maltburger registering 3.8 on the Fujita Scale of Egregious Malts and varying but not overbearing hops in a state-of-the-art beer bottle with label and hand-crankable top.

Are there Christmas spices in here? I don't think so Pompadour Bill. Is there a little funk in the tinsel old St. Worty? I tink so amigo. Are there chestnuts and an open fire? Only in the mind's eye and that bi-focal is glancing towards the glass sides trying to figure out how to muscle 200+ pounds into a mug the size of a coffee trough. Hell, the corpulent red suited man and his hefty sack goes down a dozen billion chimneys so why can't one fat bastard climb down the yuletide ladder 'o love towards beerland? He can if only he believes it so. And I do.

-Wörtwurst

St. Benedict's Winter Ale

St. Benedict's Winter Ale
Stevens Point Brewery
Stevens Point, Wisconsin

Karma says that you get what you give. Well, I gave a shout out for this brew and they returned the favor by sending me a six pack of the presented winter seasonal to sample and review. If nothing else this beer is perhaps the prettiest seasonal that I've tried. I think it's red. I mean it looks dark red but my red-green colorblindness could be playing tricks on me. It's pretty nonetheless.

If you're into Christmas beers then this cinnamon spiced bread laced warmer is for ye. While it's classified as a winter warmer -- and mostly it is with its malty dough and caramel center -- it also has many characteristics of a solid red ale as well with minor hop notes that enrich the beer but doesn't pollute it. The thing that separates this beer from other winter seasonals, I think, is that it has a sour sweet funk from the yeast, as if it were a Belgian of sorts (and I think they do classify it as such considering the name. Doy!). A very drinkable seasonal that could easily be a session beer as my three minute downing of this beery treat surely proves. A great stocking stuffer or a trusty stick shift on your beer and spirits sleigh.

-Wörtwurst

Majestic Wheat Ale

Majestic Wheat Ale
North Peak Brewing Co.
Traverse City, Michigan

I'm sure that in every American state there is banal terminology to indicate one's proximity to another spot on the map. In Michigan everything not Detroit is basically Up North or Down South and other permutations of western seeking ambition. Well, this stub-nosed beer is made Up North. Through some familial alliance between Jolly Pumpkin, Grizzly Peak and God knows who else it has made it's way Down South to the Detroit area.

At first sip I'm not overly impressed. Second sip through last gulp I'm still underwhelmed. That's not to pigeon-hole the entire brewery on the basis of one beer but at this juncture I have a feeling about these guys. That feeling is that they are trying to be craft brewers but on a minimal scale. Obviously it's intentional because the beer has all the qualities of a finely crafted wheat beer but at the bare minimum. Kind of like a northern Shiners. This is a thin wheat with little of the sweet estery fruits of some of the standards in the movement. There is also a dry hop tinge to the back-end of the drink that doesn't really settle right with me especially for a wheatie. It's not bad and it's not great and I suppose that might be good enough for you Up North folks but for this Detroit-born numb skull it only makes my medula oblongata that much more mushy. The squat little bottles though will afford it another try at a future time.

-Wörtwurst

Harpoon Chocolate Stout

Harpoon Chocolate Stout
Harpoon Brewery
Boston, Massachusetts

I'm jonesing for some egg nog right now but while it's chilling in the lower realms of the fridge with the onions and yogurt, I am warming my multitude of membranes with this beer which chilled itself on the floor of the car's front seat all the live long day. You see..that's the thing with my abnormal self... I like my beer ice ccccoooold, my nog even colder and my ice cream warm enough to melt into a gelatinous puddle. Which has nothing to do with this delicacy.

Now this is a chocolate stout! It tastes like low grade chocolate -- think Nestle Quik -- and medium bodied stout goodness, nothing else. No fancy cocoa beans, alcohol aerosol, heavy-handed hops or burnt roasty fondue toasty goodness but just plain old stout and chocolatey-ness. Normally, and in most other styles, I'd probably call this a watered down version of the best beers of the genre but in this instance it hits right down the middle and that's the bar for me.

-Wörtwurst

Warka Strong

Warka Strong
Browary Warka
Poland

I was watching the Chronicles of Narnia tonight with my nephews and the part where the little girl meets Mr. Tumnus kind of perplexed me in a "I'm high on weed and will ask stupid questions" sort of way (even though I don't touch the pots and weeds). I understand he's a partial goat man and such but why wouldn't the dude at least wear a shirt in the land of always winter and never Christmas (is that where Andy Partridge got the title for his song from?)? I mean it's goddamn cold out, right?

So I have the same question about Kazimerz Pulaski: why is he on this bottle? Sure he was born in Warka but nobody puts a picture of famous people on a beer just because they were a great warrior, fought in the American Revolution and helped forge a new country for the power elitist nefarious lizards of the Illuminati. Seriously, imagine Samuel Adams on a beer label!

So this beer is an odd combination of many things. Sure, it's a lager but it leans more towards being an English ale with its sticky and cloying sweetness though minus the caramel and butterbean malt-itude. The lack of any hops though kind of gives it a kolsch-y flavor and its alcoholic flavor puts it out there in Warkaland with the 700 saviors of Warsaw and Chopin's ensconced chest pumperoni. Otherwise it's pretty refreshing in a way that you drink it once and then pass the remaining bottles onto your stepsister Janet as a nice basket filler in a housewarming present.

-Wörtwurst

2009 Celebration Ale

2009 Celebration Ale
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
Chico, California

'Tis the season eh? So in typical festive mood I walked the Big Black Bitch of a dog down the street tonight and along a trail near some woods and finally behind a former elementary school which is now a day care. It was raining and my shoes were wet and the dog leash around my neck was well-rested until we came upon one of those dogs that bounces up on the fence like Tigger and threatens to come over. Well, this one finally bounced high enough up and over and started charging at me and the BBB. I took the leather strap from around my collar and swung it lasso style a la John Wayne and cried out "Come on you son of a bitch" and made a few steps towards him. Which of course made the tanned beast turn on its heels and reconsider his bravado. I kind of reconsider mine every time I try a beer which is hop-enriched and have long come to concur with the critics who call me a girly-man. That I am. But this is also an unpleasantry that I could do without. Not much different than their Pale Ale classic though it is a tad more mild with a caramel affect. It doesn't feel very Christmas-y. In fact it feels almost Earth Day-ish in both soil-broth flavor and a hippy feel. If chestnuts are roasting then my bells are damn done burned.

-Wörtwurst

Steven's Point Brewery St. Benedicts Winter Ale

I received an e-mail from these guys this morning and thought I'd pass it along. Hopefully they'll send me some review bottles and I can review it as well.

Hamtramck Beer

Hamtramck Beer
Michigan Brewing Co.
Webberville, Michigan

I loved a girl once who lived in Hamtramck. She raved about how cool the town was and that being part of Detroit it was a hip-happening place. I'm sure that it was/is. Her college friends would party and watch bands there. I hate bars but went along a few times because her friends were just so wonderful and we should hang out with them more often. Sure we should. So into the bar we went and met up with her friends. Another friend or two were the featured band of the night. Sweety cheeks offered to get drinks while I and her friends sat at a shaky table and re-acquainted ourselves with each other. "We hear so much about you and it's great to see you." I just half-smiled because I was warned to be on my best behavior. Not too long into the get together I felt a rubbing against my leg. You know how sometimes you accidentally rub the support stanchions when sitting at an unfamiliar table and think some mysterious dwarf woman is rubbing your leg? I looked under the table and followed the foot to somebody who was not my girl. The mysterious rubbing was from the great great friend of sweety cheeks. I looked at her with less than amusement in my eyes and she eventually got the hint that I found her flirtations rather repugnant. Don't get me wrong, I regret my life entirely -- except for my child -- and in another lifetime I probably would have enjoyed the moment and not been such a surly prick but being that I am what I am, I was not amused. But that's a whole other bone to pick at completely.

I never told the girlfriend because I didn't want to mar her delusions of her great peeps. Maybe I can track her down now and perhaps ruin a wonderful friendship with a secret betrayal. Nah, I think I'll just drink this goddamn beer instead and thank my dim-bulb brain for not marrying the woman as she had told a friend that I must do or it was over. Haha. Yeah, that's a successful maneuver to use on a stubborn pollack.

Oh yeah, the beer. Well, it's not over-macro-nized as some BA limp-dicks have proposed that it is. Sure it has an adjunct feel but there is also some sweetkins parsed against a carmel spine which, if I think about it now, tastes an awful lot like an amped down version of Big League Brew which these guys also produced for Helmar. I'll be damned if my seldom flashbacks aren't wholly relevant at times. A counterfeit kolsch which could be a session beer for the many. I can't promise no adjunct headache the next morning though.

-Wörtwurst

Samuel Adams Winter Lager

Samuel Adams Winter Lager
Boston Beer Co.
Boston, MA

I get a lot queries on this blog but occasionally they tilt towards the odd and bizarre. Namely two recent ones "roughneck crossdresser" and "roughneck men with nice asses". So I did the normal thing and googled both phrases and found that the returns are #2 & #1 respectively for this blog. That knowledge and $2.99 will get you this bomber at Keg & Wine beer store in Redford, MI.

But enough about moi. You, however, S.A. Winter Lager, are getting a re-review here nearly three years after my original scribbling scrawl. Well, other than me being a clone-maker and the dollar taking a dump against the Euro, the Loonie and the Pound this is pretty much still a bock with typical horns. The seasonal spices don't appear now just as they didn't then. Hell, Santa will show up before those aloof orange peels and ginger affects make their showing. Still a good solid brew by the masters of the "just plain old good beer."

What? What else do you tag-alongs want from me? Oh yeah, here's Santa doing a drive-by down my old street about the time of the first review. You'll have to enlarge it to see his blurry visage but I can assure you that he does exist. Yeah, Donner and Blitzen and Co. are a hemi-powered machine. That's Motown Redux for ye.

-Wörtwurst

Sky High Rye

Sky High Rye
Arcadia Brewing Co.
Battle Creek, Michigan

I'm an accidental IPA drinker. I pick out beers usually by the bottle art, quality of name and the absence of IPA, APA, Hop Monster and Bitter Jizz Tumescence Hopslopper written on the label. That is: I don't really know what I'm buying or drinking until I open and pour but I definitely purposely avoid souped-up hop-trippers. I'm coming to find that half of these rye ales are surreptitiously hopping half-IPAs. The bitterness even permeates the foamscud head on this one and the bitters prevail on into the drink itself. There is also mild sweetness in spots, a fruity wheatness that also touches the lemon-jello dregs of herbal highness. At $3.99 per bomber it's moral equivalent is one-fourth a NI HAO KAI LAN HOHO DOLL which I am now a proud poppa of (too bad some poor sucker will pay that dude 2 1/2 times its worth). Hint: Target has them on sale for $17.99.

-Wörtwurst