Jason Rodriguez is the drunken wine critic, and this is #2 in the series. I hope to post all of them, but we will start with my current favorite. In this episode, Jason reviews a Chianti from Castello del Trebbio and a Shiraz from Greg Norman Winery. This is a bit closer to the truth than most wine critics would like to admit. He’s going to have a 90 point hangover tomorrow morning.
Nine out of ten beers drunk in this country are limp little fizz farts that have as much character as a dead salamander. This has been the case since Prohibition killed off the first generation of local beer brewers.
Made with corn and rice, they are cheap to make and easy to drink. These brews have a name: adjunct American lagers, and they do not have a good reputation. Everyone has a story of a fratboy swilling Bud, a hipster drinking PBR, or a redneck guzzling Coors. The stories are never complimentary, often funny, and occasionally scary.
Even this lowly caste of beer has its stand out. In all ways, Schlitz Gusto is that beer.
Gusto is the old school formula of Schlitz, before the move to less hops and barley malt in the 1970′s. It offers a marriage of light fresh corn flavors with just a whiff of hop aromatics. Clean flavors and its excellent carbonation are perfectly balanced for a session beer. There is also a nice sour tinge of yeast blended with a crystal malt freshness. Highly recommended, especially for reformed hipsters.
As a rule of thumb, it’s not a good idea to transport liquor without a license. It’s even a worse idea to attempt crossing a national border with nearly 700 gallons of black market booze. One Swedish gentleman tried to do just that. Not surprisingly, he got busted. Border guards noted he was hauling 600 gallons of beer, 42 gallons of cocktails, 3 gallons of wine, and 4 gallons of spirits. Needless to say, he was immediately arrested for smuggling.
This is where it gets interesting. Instead of sending him to the pokey, a Swedish court just sent him home with his freedom, and all his booze. His winning defense? He claimed he was an epic drunkard, and that the booze — the equivalent of 22 barrels — was for his personal consumption. The court ruled that it was plausible that the booze was intended for him and his family, and therefore not illegal. That’s about 12 pints a day –every day– for a year.
We wish the unnamed gentleman the best of luck to him, his family, and their livers.
A still from Family Guy.
Via TheLocal
Loving the world of cheap beer is like being strapped to a lump of trash circling a comet orbiting a distant moon: your passion isn’t going to matter much to anyone. Only when you break free of gravity will anyone notice.
Crazy as that is, Shane Welch of Sixpoint Brewery did that very thing: he just managed to make cream ale interesting. Cream ale is the kissing cousin to the American adjunct lager (think Budweisser), just with a different type of yeast. It’s cheap, it’s carbonated, it’ll get you drunk… eventually.
That makes this brew all the more fantastic. Sixpoint’s Sweet Action is a subtle brew. A balance between tight carbonation and rich malty creaminess. White pepper and peaches on the palate with a toasty edge and a pretty floral element. Finish with grapefruit and a yeasty note.
This beer shows a level of skill and passion that amazing to behold. Highly recommended, with a single caveat: there has been a certain amount of variation between cans. This is due to their contract brewery, and we are told this will be rectified in the near future.
Who would have thunk it? Yuengling is now both the largest and oldest American brewery. Does this make the Mid Atlantic region the suds capitol of the USA? Do we get fancy capes and crowns? Tiaras? Not yet, probably (hopefully) no.
What it does mean is that Yuengling beat out the Boston Beer Company for the top spot. I think we are all surprised to hear that the top spot was between our beloved lager and Sam Adams. What the hell happened to Budweiser and Coors? Did all the rednecks suddenly disappear, ala Alcatraz? Sadly, no. It’s just because all the big boys (MillerCoors and Anheuser Busch) are now multinational corporations with headquarters in Canada and Europe.
In fact, only about 7% of all beer drunk in the USA is made by an American brewery. If anything, Yuengling is the tallest of the dwarfs, owning 1.2% of the beer drinking market. Boston Beer Company has about 1.1% . In any case, let’s put it in the win column. After all, we’ve been the unheralded birthplace of American beer for a long time now: in 1840, the Wagner Brewery in Philly brewed the very first lager in America; not to mention Pittsburgh Brewing developed the first pull-top can.
Epikur is a magazine about food and drink, with a focus on our hometown of Philadelphia.
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