Dragonmead Final Absolution Trippel

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Dragonmead Final Absolution Trippel
Dragonmead Microbrewery
Warren, MI

You get me everytime trippel tripel triple! You are born as a hefeweizen and grow to become several things: bread, water, fruit and sacrament. I don't know if I mean this in a positive way either. A strict adherence to laws and regulations makes a dry palate methinks. But it's at least slippery with one-half banana peel that carries the dryness to the depths. There's also three parts tangling vine: hops, spices(cloves? pepper) and appley-sweetness. As the bottle exclaims, "'Tis better to curse the darkness than to light thy hand on fire." What that relates to this brew is beyond me. A pleasant enough beer with or w/o the egregious banner.

-Wörtwurst

Victory Storm King Imperial Stout

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Victory Storm King Imperial Stout
Victory Brewing Co.
Downington, PA

I know this one scores high on the beer advocation barometer of pomposity but it is a bit disappointing to me. When I think of some of the Russian Imperial Stouts that I've had this one tastes a bit on the light side. I don't mean alcohol content either because that's in here, just the general feel and density of the chocolate, smoke and coffee toffee barrage. It seems muzzled by a hoppiness that isn't even that bitter or prevalent but channels most of the taste through it's dirty subterfuge. As far as quality goes I'd say this is upper tier but taste-wise it's just so-so to me.

-Wörtwurst

Rogue White Crane Bitter Ale

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Rogue White Crane Bitter Ale
Rogue Ales Brewery
Schwelm, OR

This brew goes through more permutations of change than a southeast Michigan spring. From the onset there is the musty musk smell of hops and this follows the taste through a mild but bitter beginning. As the beer gets towards the middle there is a middling of pine sweetness and malty malt and that's for the better if I have my say so and I do. Towards the end it evolves more into a standard balanced amber but with a sort of medicinal and menthol mouthwash taste under the fat tongue of Cerberus. The dregs are a creamy smooth malt pacifier to aid in sleepytime. Long live the dregs.

-Wörtwurst

New Beer Blog: My Beer Pix

I found this upstart beer blog while browsing around today. According to the profile it is maintained by Beer Molly:

I’m Molly and I love beer, particularly porters and stouts. The darker the better. (Among my favorites are Stone Smoked Porter and Black Butte Porter.) I’m always in search of great new beers and spend a lot of my time with my husband and beer drinking partner seeking out new brews and brew pubs.

And also her "Beer Buddy" and hubby:

I’m Sager, Molly’s husband and beer drinking partner (as well as the guy who fireman-carries her out of the pub now and then). Unlike Molly who likes a dark, smoky, chocolately porter or stout more than anything, I’m a total hophead. Given the choice between 30 and 130 IBUs, I’ll take the 130 every time. Among my favorites are Pizza Port’s Hop 15, Bear Republic’s Racer 5, and Stone Brewing Company’s India Pale Ale, but I like to try just about anything that’ll give my tastebuds a challenge.

It looks very promising and hey, they already had me blog-rolled so they can't be too bad now can they? Look them up, beer-dummies.

Schwelmer Alt

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Schwelmer Alt
Brauerei Schwelm
Schwelm, Germany

Remember when Ted Nugent or one of those guitar slingers put out the live album "Intensity in Ten Cities"? I don't either but I do recall the album title being as bombastically stupid as can be. But it's the first thing I conjured up when I thought of what this beer is: intense. Not intense like an Arrogant Bastard but intense in that many things are going on simultaneously. It's hard to really get a handle on it because I keep thinking bock due to the toffee/caramel explosion within, but then the alt floral sweetness kicks in and steals the show. A modicum of mild hops rounds it off way short of bitter. So...is it a bock or is it an alt? I think the main focus of any brewery is to make a distinct product and thus the styles kind of overlap and borrow from each other. This isn't a bad thing at all. It opens up the opportunity for me to make up new words like Altbock and Balt. Baltabock. Buy it. It's worth the value of the swingtop alone and the brew is no slouch either.

-Wörtwurst

Stoudt's Pils

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Stoudt's Pils
Stoudt's Brewing Co.
Adamstown, PA

The pils is a strange little creature. I always remember them as being sweet and clean tasting but upon re-reading past reviews for the likes of Prima and Scrimshaw and then drinking it again, I see that the hop-citrus gang-bang whisker twister is omnipresent, though not overly God-ish. A strong, clean summer smacker with a gritty backbone. You might like it and hell, I might even like it if I was you for 15-20 minutes but luckily for you I am not. It's a good beer if you want to sandpaper your tastebuds but I, like any half-bearded fe-man, want a mouthful of candy even though I know it kills my figure and my appetite.

-Wörtwurst

Beerly Retarded - Episode 0.5

One of my faithful readers Beer Retard has put out a sample podcast (co-hosted by Ms. Beer Retard) featuring craft beer and indie music as the impetus. Give him a listen and some feedback!

Coopers Best Extra Stout

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Coopers Best Extra Stout
Coopers Brewery
Australia



What to do with sediment in conditioned bottles? I say toss ye barnacles overboard and sink ye vessel lest somebody else drink it. Arggggh! The yeasty flakes are suspended in the beer soup like constellations in the midnight summer sky with a crescent moon sunken as low as it can go on the horizon. It's an odd little stout. Bulky with some heavy smoke and half chocolate/half coffee tentacles that don't quite leave you adrift at sea but sure enough put the roiling waves into your spine and spirit. Upper medium grade dark casted beer that approaches the high shelf and gets a finger over the lip of the ledge of excellence.

-Wörtwurst

Guinness Draught

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Guinness Draught
Guinness Ltd.
Dublin, Ireland

I'm going to say the BA craft beer geek unthinkable: this is a great beer! By great I mean it is 1)distinct 2)easily drinkable with no ill effects 3)high quality. Who can dispute that? Or the CO2 induced faux head whipped up like heavy cream? It might not be a world beater as far as stouts go but as a stout that you can drink down 3 or 4 of and still drive home without going into a coma (see Great Lake Blackout Stout) or hallucinations it's brilliant. I will admit that it comes across more as a creamy beer dessert than a stout but that's all right with me because I like creamy beer desserts. In comparison to some of my favorites it's mid-grade, but as far as mid-grades go it is top of the pops.

-Wörtwurst

Pete's Wicked Ale

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Pete's Wicked Ale
Pete's Brewing Co.
Utica, NY

Once again I let my prejudices based solely on brand name and the bottle art affect my judgment and expectation of what a beer would be, as I did so wrongly with Dogfish Head. I figured Pete's would be some moderately weak beer with famined ribs sticking through a paper thin beer skin. Whoa, I was wrong with this one. It is nutly rich with a thicket of foam and malt density equalled by a picket fence tip worth of sticky hop pearls, all stuffed into this rather handsome brown brew. Though it tastes more like a general ale with hints of the brown nature it's still quite excellent and priced to sell.

-Wörtwurst

The Broken Balance

No, it's not a Robinson Jeffers reference but with this bulky load it might as well be. With my death plague sickness apparently put behind me, I can return from a 4 day sabbatical of rotgut and talk beerstuff. When pulling up to my now weekly stop at Merchant's Fine Wine for the upcoming week of reviews I saw a Bell's Brewery beer truck. A little compact truck that was so cute I could have hugged the Winnebago looking mofo. Luckily, I am a social retard and any moment exposed to the world is too long for my silly ass. Thus, I present my half-fortnight suds selection:

Sprecher Abbey Triple
From: Sprecher Brewing Company in Glendale, Wisconsin, United States
Style: Tripel
78 BA rating (Worth A Try)
$1.99

Dragonmead Final Absolution Trippel
From: Dragonmead Microbrewery in Warren, Michigan, United States
Style: Tripel
87 BA rating (Recommended)
$2.79

Stoudt's Pils
From: Stoudt's Brewing Co. in Adamstown, Pennsylvania
Style: German Pilsener
86 BA rating (Recommended)
$1.79

Victory Storm King Stout
From: Victory Brewing Company in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, United States
Style: Russian Imperial Stout
92 BA rating (Outstanding)
$2.29

Schwelmer Alt
From: Brauerei Schwelm in Schwelm, Germany
Style: Altbier
84 BA rating (Good Call)
$1.99

Coopers Best Extra Stout
From: Coopers Brewery Limited in Australia
Style: Foreign / Export Stout
86 BA rating (Recommended)
$1.99

Rogue White Crane Bitter Beer AKA Oregon Golden Ale
From: Rogue Ales Brewery / Brewer's on the Bay in Oregon, United States
Style: American Blonde Ale
84 BA rating (Good Call)
$2.49

High Falls JW Dundee's Original Honey Brown Ale

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High Falls JW Dundee's Original Honey Brown Ale
High Falls Brewing Co.
Rochester, NY

You've got a standard macro here with a nutty backbone that makes it better than the mass produced lager but nothing to write home about. Unless your home is a crackhouse and then it's a huge step-up from your live-long day filled with Colt 45 and ketchup fried cube steak. Throw on a wife beater and beat every wife or baby mama that you can swing your arms into. Hey, make sure that your non-beating hand is cradling this sweet puppy of beeriness and get on wit' your bad self. No, but seriously...outside of Trader Joe's sixers, you won't find a much better $4.99 six pack. Then again, there isn't much competition now is there?

-Wörtwurst

Van Eecke Poperings Hommel Ale

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Van Eecke Poperings Hommel Ale
Brouwerij Van Eecke N.V.
Watou, Belgium

If you like lace then get a suicide girl. If you like lacing in beer then get this frothmonster. If nothing else this brew is a rather pretty show pony. Luckily for us it's more than that. Although it started out like a hefe with the bready chewy malty banana tongue waggle it evolves into what I expected from a Belgian: fruity candy sweetness, a shake of peppery spice and an unexpected but welcomed hop presence. It smells wheat-fruity but is more balanced than the typical Belgian perfumed osculation (which I happen to like) and the three hop presence gives it its own distinct character not too unlike a farmhouse ale. It's American twin sister would be Bam Biere by Jolly Pumpkin which beer retard should have molested already but likely hasn't because he's an American craft beer slacker.

-Wörtwurst

Redhook Copperhook Spring Ale

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Redhook Copperhook Spring Ale
Redhook Ale Brewery
Portsmouth, NH

A major complaint on this APA is probably: "Where's the citrus bite?" In my mind that's the good thing about it. Unlike most craft beer drinkers my palate for bitterness will never be established. I don't enjoy it and think it detracts from most otherwise quality brews. This is an opinion of course but subjectively it's quite valid. So, what is this beer then? It's a cadre of semi-sweet malts and frothing amber chops that gives off a pillowy lacing that carries the taste. By that I mean it seems like you're drinking the creaminess more than the actual beer. Very sessionable.

-Wörtwurst

Charles Wells Banana Bread Beer

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Charles Wells Banana Bread Beer
Charles Wells Brewery
Bedford, England

If a man can wake up in the slipshod morning to this rough and tumble existence and still manage his chores then God bless him. If he can manage a beer first thing every two fortnights then he's made some bliss of his own and shrugs off the gods. Seeing as bananas are supposedly spread thin in the world and could be extinct in a decade maybe you should hop onto the fruit beer bandwagon and try this one. It's definitely a breakfast beer and as it warms it becomes more like a lite dessert than a malted beverage. Quite alright for its uniqueness but it's not really something very complex or difficult to decipher. Rather lightly hopped and "specifically malted to bring out the banana character" it's a light wafer that is easily drinkable without much effort or ill effect. I will say though that a little more malt, that balanced the flavor and enhanced the beer and took a smidge from the banana, would have been desirable. Nothing great but pleasant enough, though the 1 pint 3.25 fl. oz baby bomber at $4.49 is a bit prohibitive yet worth a once over.

-Wörtwurst

Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale

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(I botched the initial video and then proceeded to upset the bottle and thus the foamscud comes at the end which wasn't consistent with the initial pour. Just ignore that and imagine the head growing from contact to finish.)

Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
Chico, CA

A gastropub, a syllabub, a billet-doux from me to you know who. We eat the fare, we drink the beer and write reviews, you who who who who whooooo. If I had the funds I'd drink foreign and American craft beers all day and write reviews one after another. But luckily, I'm preoccupied with debt and malfeasance and thus you get this shabby production of one-off beer onanisms. I might have had a barleywine before but I'm not sure so let's say this is the virginal review. I kinda like it. The alcohol infusion offsets the hop influx and makes a warm and husky rib tickler. Toss in some malt and you have a rather well restrained wild horse that can stampede through your body but seems to slowly move across every part, claiming it slowly with a languid, warm intoxication. Hibernate now little Sasquatches, your work is done here.

-Wörtwurst

Anheuser-Busch Spring Heat Spiced Wheat Belgian-Style Wheat Ale

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Anheuser-Busch Spring Heat Spiced Wheat Belgian-Style Wheat Ale
Anheuser-Busch Inc.
St. Louis, MO

I don't read reviews but the few that I have read about this one hit it on the nose with one main aspect: it's more a wheat beer than a witbier. Wheat vit wit white wha'? Yeah, not a bad wheat beer with the white aspects of corriander, lemon-lime-orange and a nice malt texture. Not a great wheatie but better than what I remember from Blue Moon's wit which I nearly gagged on last time I tried it. If this is under $6 for a 6 pack it's a worthy buy, if not I'd pass it up if I were you. As for the bottle art: it's one of the cheesiet labels/names ever produced. If they wanted to go low tack they should have called this brew BUD WHITE and had a KKK member flogging a black and tan.

-Wörtwurst

Bavik Petrus Oud Bruin Brown Ale

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Bavik Petrus Oud Bruin Brown Ale
Brouwerij Bavik
Harelbeke-Bavikhove, Belgium


I'm a little biased against Bavik in that I think their brews are generally a step below craft even though they are a step above general macros. There's just something about them which tastes like my semi-metallicy homebrews (as if they hadn't sat long enough to let the yeast do its work) but that could all be in the transport, age and variety available across the seas here in the US. Either way this is a pretty good Belgian styled browner. It started off a little metallic and hard waterish but smoothed into a ribbon of creamy Belgian malt and sour barrel yeastiness. It reminds me of Grotten (even though I lost my notes on that one a long while ago) but a bit less potent and more sweet than many dark hued Belgian browns.

-Wörtwurst

Black Mountain Cave Creek Chili Beer

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Black Mountain Cave Creek Chili Beer
Black Mountain Brewing Co.
Cave Creek, AZ

This isn't funny. Seriously, even as a novelty beer this sucks ass. I took umbrage with such beers as Wild Blue and Leinie's Berry Weiss as being too winey and wimpy, well...this is what I imagine a cold post-Mexican food beer shit to taste like. It hurts going down and makes your heart literally burn in the cavity and jump around screaming, "¡No Más!"

-Wörtwurst

Rogue Kells Irish Style Lager

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Rogue Kells Irish Style Lager
Rogue Ales
Newport, OR

It's close enough to St. Patrick's Day and this was on sale for $2.69 a bomber so there was no need to pass up a bargain. Just from the look of the bottle it made me think "hearty Irish stout" but after perusing the language I felt a little letdown that it was only a lager. Ah- well. It's quite a fine and mellow lager at that. A clean honey and malt taste with a touch of apple on the tail-end. I guess all of these subtle qualities come from the laid-back nature of the old dude on the bottle smoking some ganja. Or is that a flute? Even better...come all ye rats and bob for apples.

-Wörtwurst

Coming attractions

See what the 10c bottle deposit does for a Michiganian. It would have been basically free if not for the Wells (WHICH BETTER BE GOOD BEER RETARD! [I always feel like a horrible person typing that out even though it's his self-inked moniker]). So, this is basically half-novelty/curiosity vs. acknowledged quality week coming up. Wish me and my Jesus books luck and I wish you luck as well.

Petrus Old Brown
From: Brouwerij Bavik in Belgium
Style: Flanders Oud Bruin
85 BA rating (Worth A Try)
$3.49

Black Mountain Cave Creek Chili Beer(name has changed)
Black Mountain Brewing Co. in Arizona, United States
Style: Chile Beer
62 BA rating (Not Recommended)
$1.59

Poperings Hommel Bier
From: Brouwerij Van Eecke N.V. in Belgium
Style: Belgian IPA
89 BA rating (Recommended)
$1.99

Copperhook Spring Ale
From: Redhook Ale Brewery in Washington, United States
Style: American Pale Ale (APA)
81 BA rating (Good Call)
$1.59

Charles Wells Banana Bread Beer
From: Charles Wells Brewery in United Kingdom (England)
Style: Fruit / Vegetable Beer
81 BA rating (Good Call)
$4.49

Spring Heat Spiced Wheat
From: Anheuser-Busch, Inc. in Missouri, United States
Style: Witbier
76 BA rating (Worth A Try)
$1.39

Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale
From: Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in California, United States
Style: American Barley Wine
90 BA rating (Ouitstanding)
$1.99

Breckenridge Avalanche Amber Ale

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Breckenridge Avalanche Amber Ale
Breckenridge BBQ & Brew Pub
Denver, CO

Imagine an IPA or APA without elevated BTUs in the B.E.E.R. That's what this is. A citrusy, full bodied malteriffic summer plaything minus the hopping mad crush of bitterness. Glide down the Slip-N-Slide holding one hand up in a victory salute and the other clutching your sunshine in a wet paper bag. Girls will love you and the he-men will envy you for your stylish but bold taste in bitches and beer. Get singing bluebird because there's a lot more joy in your heart valves when it's filled with quality beer.

-Wörtwurst

King Bavarian Weissbier

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King Bavarian Weissbier
King Brewing Company
Pontiac, MI

The thing that I think plagues King's beer selection the most is the length of time that they sit on the shelf in the stores. Thusly, they are often closer to flat than the expectant robust and vigorously gushing heads common in quality craft brews and especially noteworthy in a bavarian wheat. Getting past that meaty detail, I'm going to deal in the reality of the thing before me. It procures the standard nice and dense flavor of a hefe without any noticeably protruding and stinky-ass hops that put massive mustaches on the Rhinelanders of lore. Just don't be expecting the late-life, mad in the eyes Nietzsche, because this is the subservient, Wagner's underpant-washing, wet nurse who was in love with Cosima because she was the only real man amongst the bunch of them, beer.

-Wörtwurst

Saint-Sylvestre Gavroche French Red Ale

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Saint-Sylvestre Gavroche French Red Ale
Brasserie De Saint-Sylvestre
Saint Sylvestre Cappel, France

Saison de raison d’être! Oui oui François. Outisde of La Roja (Which isn't even a red ale, but I feel like it should be!)I've tasted no better red ale this side of Mars. American reds tend to be overtly malty with slight variations of roasty, toasty, nuttiness and plain over bearing malt to the calcium center of the bone. This grand brew, however, is more akin to a Belgian. With equal parts sticky sweetness and dry raisiny hops, there is also a sour element that makes it stand above even its own delicate, but hulking, shadow. This pithy review does this brew no justice.

-Wörtwurst

Great Lakes Blackout Stout

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Great Lakes Blackout Stout
Great Lakes Brewing Company
Cleveland, OH

During the great power outage a few years back that crippled the northeast and upper Great Lakes, there were people walking the darkened streets of Metro Detroit aimlessly like the zombies from The Dawn of the Dead film. After a few of these I could see myself going on a dark sojourn, tattered of brains and hungering for human flesh. This is basically an imperial stout with a sudsy, milky, sweettart fruit taste that takes it over the precipice and up up up into the orbital plane. Think Old Rasputin with an erection. A top five ranking stout in my book.

-Wörtwurst

Steel Reserve 211 High Gravity Lager

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Steel Reserve 211 High Gravity Lager
Steel Brewing Company
Fort Worth, TX

Let's not overly applaud ourselves because of the supreme craftbeeriness we possess. Some of the main arguments for craft beer over "macro swill" are taste, alcohol content, lack of adjuncts and the ass-smooching gaggle of beer Einsteins, who huddle together like cold cows in winter for the heat and warmth of each other's mass of flesh, patting themselves on the back. Let's diffuse a few of these with simple facts based on a so-so beer called Steel reserve. This silver phallis full of EXTRA MALTED BARLEY AND SELECT HOPS clocks in at 8.1% alcohol at only 99c per can. A 1L .9 oz bottle of Madrugada Obscura from Jolly Pumpkin clocks in at the same alcohol content for about $8.49. Relatively speaking, the Steel Reserve is 8.5 times as cost worthy. By those terms alone this is a brilliant craft beer and would take a JP masterpiece of 70% alcools to equal the value. The taste though is of a comparable macro lager while the JP offering tastes like the nether region sweat of a goddess. There may or may not be adjuncts in this beer so we'll draw a no contest on that level. All said though, in terms of beer craftiness, this would be the better beer if I was going by the idiot standards set up by the micro-hypers. Obviously, even the barrel refuse from the aged oak barrels at Jolly Pumpkin is better than this beer, but it's a beer nonetheless, it tastes like beer and is a viable alternative even if you don't like the white trash can it comes in. I won't buy it again but there's no reason why you shouldn't at least try it.

-Wörtwurst

Cap-time

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Arbor Brewing Phat Abbot Belgian Tripel Ale

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Arbor Brewing Phat Abbot Belgian Tripel Ale
Arbor Brewing Co.
Ann Arbor, MI

This ain't Willie Wilson sprinting to third base and sliding into a pile of dust for his 15th third bagger of the year, no sir. This is Belgiana sticking out her third chin and calling all us fat Americans to her realm for a beer with more calories than the cheese on a Whopper. Hold the grapes of sweet tang above your lover's fipple and drip the juice on her chin. I taste pomegranite (even though I've never tasted that thing-fruit in my whole miserable existence) and malty raisins, candied apple sugar with a bruise from a hop tap of a loving brewmaster named Luigi. Open the trap door and drop your pudeurs and stick it into something phat and sweet already would ya?

-Wörtwurst

Hello, Carling

New (old) glasses.

Van Steenberge Augustijn Ale

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Van Steenberge Augustijn Ale
Brouwerij Van Steenberge N.V.
Ertvelde, Belgium

O most delicate mandible quivering with joy, tell thyself to shut thy mouth and drink from the lizard loins of the God-planet. What color is this beer? Orange, pink, ruby red? I'm serious. Whichever it is there is a smear from the blood-letting yeast lake on the top of the hairy tendrils of the foamscud. I say this in reverence and not cajolery me muppets of ye drink. Quite the creamiscle of unabashed Euro-fruitism here. That's not to say that it's a sweetkins because there is a little patch of hoppish gravel that strafes the tender point of the tongue tip and swings on down off the uvula and into the pit of your throat like a tobaggon ride through Paradisio.

-Wörtwurst

Celis Grand Cru

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Celis Grand Cru
Michigan Brewing Co.
Webberville, MI

Cats have whiskers to feel what's ahead of them and to stop them from falling on what's below. Beer needs whiskers too. Not to keep someone from trying a different beer, because trying something new beer-wise is 90% of the fun, but to keep expectations in check. Especially other's opinions of what a beer is and does. A wholly subjective science is this beer tasting thing. Yet, I find myself often reading reviews before I try a beer or when I'm stuck on what to say. I need to stop this and thusly, I will go with my gut instinct and first reactions. This started off like a HEFE! But just as qucikly as that pinned my tongue down it evaporated into the background of the citrus, coriander and other peppery spice potpourri. It reminds me mostly of Jolly Pumpkin's Bam Biere but much sweeter with hints of other spices prevalent in most of the other offerings by JP (which I'm told are the yeast and not spices at all.). But this is about Celis and I can't help but recommend this as the best grand cru at cost.

-Wörtwurst

Leffe Blonde

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Leffe Blonde
Abbaye de Leffe S.A.
Dinant, Belgium

Clean your palate and do-si-do. Keep hydrated and quaff your cloying mouthfeel. Truly, a repugnant drinking etiquette has been born and I'm sucker punching from the middle of the fray. Other than that non sequitur you sun lovers have a blonde favorite here: the Belgian version of a hefe. You know the hefe drill. Or maybe you don't. Go to beeradvocate.com and you can find reviews suggesting that it smells like grass, tastes like carp and breeds like your Polish kinmama done-did. If you want a hefe or a Belgian don't try this, but if you want both in one trough then find your local overpriced beer store and your dainty elephant adorned glass and get your beer mojo working. Pardon me while I set up my trappist ale beer bong.

-Wörtwurst

House of Glass

(read more...)

Lammin Kataja Olut Ale

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Lammin Kataja Olut Ale
from Lammin Sahti Oy
Lammi, Finland

You nature lovers will probably thumb your already upturned noses at the thought of using JUNIPER BRANCHES in the making of beer but it is the only thing saving this Vinland liquid vittle. So please don't protest too loudly you damn hippies. Otherwise it is a general Euro-maltburger supreme with unbrewed wort qualities, though a hint of some sexual fruit comes through the cider wash. There is a transportation of suspended flecks in the syrup from glass bottom to mouth which may or may not be accumulated dust from this sat low and handsome bottle with a tin heart.

-Wörtwurst

Camo Silver Ice

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Camo Silver Ice
Camo Brewing Co.
Lacrosse, WI

Who am I? What did I say? I'm going to tell you something wine drinkers and beer enthusiasts alike: this is no macro swill! This is a goddamn sonofabitch MACRO MACRO SWILL! The taste is passable grade but the alcohol content (9.0%) is such that you will only need a buck to smash out the windows of your brain, soul and body with one tall boy of this stuff. I can hardly contain myself from laughing from the pure simplicity of the beer but the havoc wreaking effects of one glass after a decent sized meal. Anybody who can take Budweiser as their constant party companion can save both money and storage space by picking this up. Sleep well at your frat party while "your friends" shave your ass you hairy babboon.

-Wörtwurst

Strange Bedfellows: The Upcoming Week of Reviews

It might be odd to see two tall boys amongst a crop of Belgians (foreign and domestic) and other high sniffers, but the thing that made me buy the high gravity lagers was the alcohol content of 9.0% and 8.1% respectively. They may turn out to be swill but you can't dismiss them as macroswill water by any means.

Steel Reserve 211 High Gravity Lager
from Steel Brewing Company in Fort Worth, TX, USA
70 BA rating (Worth A Try)
$.99

Lammin Kataja OlutAle
from Lammin Sahti Oy in Lammi, Finland
80 BA rating (Good Call)
$1.99

Celis Grand Cru
from Michigan Brewing Company in Webberville, MI, USA
84 BA rating (Good Call)
$1.59

Leffe Blonde
from Abbaye de Leffe S.A. in Dinant, Belgium
83 BA rating (Good Call)
$1.99

Arbor Brewing Phat Abbot Belgian Triple
from Arbor Brewing Co. in Ann Arbor, MI, USA
No rating below 3.2 on BA
$1.49

Augustijn Ale
from Brouwerij Van Steenberge N.V. in Ertvelde, Belgium
86 BA rating (Recommended)
$1.99

Camo Silver Ice
from Camo Brewing Co. in Lacrosse, WI, USA
70 BA rating (Worth A Try)
$.99

Schell Caramel Bock

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Schell Caramel Bock
August Schell Brewing Co.
New Ulm, Minnesota

Strangely enough this brew gives off a semi-Guinness vibe at first sip but minus the roasty malt and distilled water cocoa. It then devolves into a gassy penumbra of sweet malt and sour milk hops with a match head worth of toastiness. Not a bad bock whatsoever. Especially considering that most are so over wroughtly wortesque as to be minimally satisfying.

-Wörtwurst

Schell Pale Ale

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Schell Pale Ale
August Schell Brewing Co.
New Ulm, Minnesota

The cure for ambition is to simply not try or to do what you want when you want and how you want. Of course this assumes a period of trial and error to figure out just what it is you like. Unless you're me and have always known what to do! Brewers obviously love beer or a company like Schell wouldn't have been in business long enough to be the second oldest brewery in the United States. Sadly in America such a record of achievement generally is frowned upon where beer is concerned. Older means watered down and filled with adjuncts. I had this same opinion of this brewery from my one previous selection over the summer with their Zommerfest. Their pale ale, however, is a different story. Although I'm not a lover of pale ales this one lives up to the typical craft beer example of the style: lightly citrus-hopped with a pinpoint of sweetness. Bravo.

-Wörtwurst

Schell Octoberfest

click bottle for larger view

Schell Octoberfest
August Schell Brewing Co.
New Ulm, Minnesota

You take the K out of Oktoberfest and replace it with a C and everything runs amuck. No, not really but...there is something odd about this one. I've cleansed my palete with pumpernickel, ham and water and this banger still has a peculiar murky water tang to it. It's not really nutty or caramelish after the initial swallow but more an acerbic cinnamon hop tack with a malt plug as off-kilter as Donald Trump's wig. I can't endorse this Oct whatsoever.

-Wörtwurst