Monday Rant: A Simple Equation

The general public keeps finding new ways to make life even more mind-numbing than it already is. I've always been for choosing to drink whatever beer you think tastes good. Still, there are those certain few out there that cause me to have that Lewis Black "remind myself to breathe moment.

My Beer is Skunked

I was at a bar just a few weeks ago with a cousin of mine and a friend. This guy next to me at the bar and kept ordering Coronas and also kept sending each of them back. He claimed that the third on was the third in a row that tasted skunked. Maybe I'm just a nosey prick, but this irked me. So, I leaned over to him and asked if I could give some advice on his current plight.

See, I've always been taught that when taking care of or storing beer you need to keep it out of the light as much as possible. This is why brewers have beer in dark brown or green bottles. This is in order to keep as much light as possible from getting in and possibly skunking your beer.

So, with that understood how can you possible be surprised that a beer brand whose entire marketing strategy is based on its clear glass bottle tasted skunked. Thus, I explained to this guy that the reason it tastes skunked is because of the bottle they put it in. His response was something dumbfounded. I remember it being something close to "Oh, I drink this all of the time man." It just didn't register with him. Suffice to say, I wanted the last 20 or so seconds of my life back.

My Beer is Too Warm

This past weekend I met some people out in Robinson at a place in which the beer selection was ultra disappointing for someone that's involved in the craft beer movement. I asked the waitress if anything fun was on draft. All I got back was Bud, Bud Light, Miller and Dos Equis. So exciting. I was forced to go with Dos Equis Amber. It was the least potent poison given what I had to choose from.

Someone in our group ordered the skunked special. You guessed it. The iconic Corona in the clear bottle. When it arrived the person claimed it was too warm. Now, getting a beer that's a little too warm isn't something that would bother me. Some beer's need to be at a higher temperature to accentuate the flavors in the beer. If a beer is too cold, you're covering up some of the flavors. You can't taste cold. You can only feel it! Now, think about this. If a beer can't even taste good when it's a bit warmer (when in theory a warmer beer should enable you to taste more of its flavors) then how can one claim it's good in any form? To me it's just a simple equation.

Monday Rant: Corona - No Big Deal

News of this swarmed the craft beer world late last week. So, it's not like I'm trying to break the next big news story here. By now, you most likely know that Anheuser-Busch purchased the remaining 50 percent (the half that it didn't already own) of Grupo Modelo.

Grupo Modelo was the Mexican brewer of a few familiar beers to some of us such as Corona and Negra Modelo. I'm sure this news led many to assume that the quality of both or either beer will now be severely reduced due to the recent purchase and supported it with stories like that of Rolling Rock in Latrobe.

In my opinion, there isn't any reason to fret because even if a beer like Corona changes it's not like we are missing out on what we call a "classic" beer. Have you ever had Corona without the lime? To me, it's almost the same as having a Blue Moon without the orange slice. Putrid.

Corona might be an alright beer, but not much more than that. Corona advertisements are mostly about the line rather than the beer that it gets put in.

Just because it's all over your television sets during vacation season doesn't mean it's actually tasty. Corona makes my stomach somewhat upset, especially when there's no lime in it.

When we lose a good local brewery like a Fat Head's or an East End, then we can fret when the big American Brewer tampers with amazing concoctions like Head Hunter IPA and Monkey Boy Hefe. Until then, Corona will be much the same as it always has. Maybe with just more beach ads.

 

Could Candy in Beer Be the New Thing?

Image via Wikipedia

Want to chew your beer?

Word of this news has quickly circulated around the craft beer world. Apparently Alaskan-based brewer, Kenai River Brewing Co. is concocting a Belgian Tripel that features gummy bears introduced to the batch at some point in the brewing process.

The beer calls for 20 lbs of candy sugar and approximately 15 lbs of the childhood snack.

First of all, I want to meet the person that came up with that idea. I love gummy bears. I grew up eating them. Sometimes I still do. Hell, a few times I even came across some rum-infused gummy bears. This idea is one of those that can hit on one of two opposite ends of the spectrum. It can either go very wrong, or become a new fad. The next thing I know, I'll be walking into my local watering hole to find some eccentric drunk with gummy candy floating around in his craft beer.

It brings up an entertaining question that beer enthusiasts have been debating for years: What is acceptable to put in your beer?

Mainly, this debate has been around whether or not to have fruit in your beer. Now, there are many people that enjoy doing it as there are that consider it a sacrilege. Personally, I've grown out of putting fruits in most of the beers that I drink. I've made it well known that some of my favorite beer styles are made with plenty of fruit.

Corona has gone as far as to incorporate the lime in Corona Extra as a marketing ploy. It's also very common to see someone with an orange slice on the rim of a glass of Blue Moon Belgian White. If you've progressed from that stage of beer drinking and have moved on to bigger and better brews, you might see a few instances where someone uses a lemon or an orange with a certain type of witbier.

The debate might not ever end. I simply prefer a well-crafted fruit beer and sometimes a lemon with a Hoegaarden. Now we face the possibility of putting candy in our beers, something I've never heard nor thought of until yesterday. Jesus. With this style that Kenai is playing with, it might help. The few Tripels that I've had have tasted terrible, in my opinion. The fact that gummy bears are going to be brewed into beer is somewhat ironic. The gummy bear originated in Germany.