An Ode to Stella Artois
Recently Shintern, Pyzocha, and I took a little trip to the great boot; Italy. Though there has been a recent revival of craft brewing in Italy, we saw very little of it. We spent most of our drinking time (and thus much of our time) with some of the cheapest beers you can find in Italy. I now understand why Europeans love Stella, Beck’s, Heiniken, etc.
Brew Review: Long Trail Belgian Wheat
I decided to go off the beaten track a bit on Friday, and try Long Trail’s Belgian White. I should stay to the beaten track more often.
Drank straight from the bottle, so I can’t really comment on colour. The nose was very strongly of wheat, with some mild citrus and coriander notes up front.
Plenty of carbonation in the taste, which starts with some mild orange/citrus flavours before the wheat body of the beer comes in completely and utterly dominates the beer. It has a very dry, flat wheat taste through most of the beer. It’s not very pleasant, not very flavourful, and really lingers on the tongue. There’s no nice crisp and refreshing finish, just a long wheaty finish with each sip. I did not enjoy finishing this bottle.
-X
If I can just stop one person from trying this beer, my time, money and sacrificed taste-buds will be worth it.
Brew Review-2010 Anchor Our Special Ale
Unfortunately, not all my forays into Christmas beers this week went well. Do NOT order this beer. Buying a six pack of it would be even worse.
I was looking for something more to try, so I asked the bartender what he thought about the Anchor, being new to the Bar’s menu. He wisely warned me that most people have been disappointed by it. Thankfully, I got a sample before trying a full glass.
Disappointed doesn’t cover it; I think disgusted would be a better word to describe my feelings. Granted, my exposure was all of 3 mouthfuls, but that was all I needed to try to realize this was a bad beer.
It pours pretty dark brown and opaque, with a huge creamy looking head. It gave off VERY strong notes of vanilla and cream.
As for the taste, it’s sort of like someone tried to make an alcoholic butter beer. It’s that sickly sweet and disgusting. I can’t imagine someone soldiering through 16 ounces of this.
It’s a shame, because Anchor usually has a number of solid, if uninspiring, beers. This is not one of those. Hopefully 2011 will be a better year.
-X
drboozenstein
jtonzi
Jesse
X
pyzocha
samdinning
shintern1909
The J Street Beer Review 