39. Prima Pils - Victory Brewing Company

So I had this one a while ago, but that isn't going to affect the review at all, because the only thhing that was noteworthy about this beer was its boringness. Totally absolutely boring. An utter snoozefest. Well, ok it was slightly hoppy, maybe a little hoppier than your average pilsner, but still boring. No depth, no interest. I know that a lot of pilsners are boring, but there are quite a few good ones that just take the style to a good and interesting level. I like pilsners. I was kind of excited for this one, but no, it's just boring. And really when I'm paying $4 for a beer, I'd like it to be more interesting than a $2 Schlitz; even Ballantine is more interesting / has more taste than this. Also, it gave me a terrible case of the hiccups, which made everyone thing I was drunk. 1 out of 5 hiccups or zzzzz's your choice.

38. La Trappe Tripel - Brouwerji Koningshoeven

So the more we drink Belgian beers, the less I think I like them. There's just something in them that I can't identify that I do not like. Jordan feels the same way. Some Belgians have less of this taste and some have more and the amount of this taste usually is about equal to the amount I like it. The taste is sortof sweet and yeasty but without being sweet enough to say "wow that beer is really sweet" and without it tasting like bread in a bottle either. Anyways, I totally thought this beer had too much of the flavor and could only manage to drink half a glass. Jordan must have liked it because he drank the rest of the bottle. We drank this a while ago, so I can't really remember what it tasted like besides having that particular flavor in it.

37. Rye Bock Lager - Left Hand Brewing Company

So rye beers might be my favorite kind of beers. I love the spicy kick that the rye adds. The Red Hook summer rye beer that I can't remember what it's called is my favorite rye beer because you can taste the rye but it isn't overpowering. The Founders Red Rye is too overpoweringly rye tasting and is totally unpleasant to drink. With this beer I was hoping for something closer to the Red Hook than the Founders (obviously, because why would I want to drink a beer I don't like), but there was a demented looking goat on the bottle, so I wasn't that encouraged. I tend to write off beers that have dumb animals or things on the label or look like they're trying to be rebelious or something. It turns out that perhaps I should be less skeptical of beers that have "edgy" graphics on the label. I figured that it being a bock would help out with the taste and it did. The beer had a nice red color and a little bit of bite from the rye, but was nice and smooth and easy to drink, just like a bock should be. I can't remember what drank it with, but the beer definitely complemented whatever we were having for dinner. Four out of five demented looking goats I say.
Oh and I forgot, the head on this was interesting. It wa super foamy and then as it fizzled out instead of decreasing evenly like most beers, big craters appeared on the top of the foam and sortof sucked the rest of it down into the beer. It was sortof weird.

36 - Belhaven Scottish Ale

I loved this beer. I was all ready to hate it cause of its old timey, simple, old world imagery on the bottle, but this reddish ale is tasty and instantly became one of my favorite beers. Which is unfortunate because until I got it at Six and Save, I had never seen it before, so it is not easily available.

But screw it. This is beer has a great malty, hoppy balance. It has the perfect weight and I could drink it all day.

I may just be in a great mood cause I am going to renew my passport, but I am giving this my first 5 out of 5 welcomed surprises. Awesome.

35 - Samichlaus Bier Castle Brewery

Okay, so after bitching about how expensive beers were, I bought a ten dollar bottle of beer. And here it is. Brewed once a year...this one was in 2007, and I had to have been drunk to spring a Hamilton for 11oz of malt liquor.

It is 14% alcohol and is sickly syrupy sweet. Like a hybrid of fantastic heavy beers and cough syrup. Like the meth of the high end brewery beers. I am already half through with this beer and I am starting to feel like it's Christmas and I'm trying to get too drunk to have to go to midnight mass. Just kidding, I would never to go to midnight mass even if I were drunk.

But this Santa Claus themed winter malt liquor is red as father Christmas' rosy red cheeks. No head because of it's syrupy consistency. At least I assume syrup means you just can't get head. I am just feeling this beer enough that I debated making a "getting head" joke. But still sober enough to not bother.

It's great malt liquor, an okay beer. I give it 33 out of 40 hands.

We're drinking I swear

Ok, so we have been drinking. But ... we really haven't been drinking anything we can blog about. Really just the Bell's Porter, which by the by if you haven't had you totally should drop what you're doing right now and go get some. It's delicious. There was a minor scare at Prosperity the other day where we were told that they had to raise the price of a pint a dollar because it went up so much in price, but were heartened to learn that it was just the Two-Hearted IPA that went up. Hops crisis and all, y'know.

So we started this whole project to try a new beer a day to do mostly that: drink 365 new beers. But a corrolary goal was to try to limit "binge drinking" which I maintain isn't really binge drinking because we don't (usually) get totally drunk and start taking our shirts off and yelling "WOO" at the end of a drinking session. But anyways, drinking every day definitely smoothed out our drinking and we were drinking less at each sitting. But the thing is, I don't want a beer every day. Having to drink a beer every single day definitely felt like a chore to me and made me crabby. Add having to blog about the beer on top of it and I was pretty much done with the whole project. So, we've changed the way we're doing things and our goal is still to drink 365 new beers, just not a new beer every day. So eventually I'll go back and number the old posts and keep numbering the new posts and we'll go from there.

34 - East End Brewery Session #19 Black Sumthin'

So this was the growler we picked up from the highly secret East End Brewery brewery. Sort of the illegal back room abortion of beer pick-up locations. A nice little set up that does not deserve being likened to a botched abortion.

The Black Sumpthin' is our official beer of the Superbowl game. We brought it to Steve and Ivy's superbowl party. It is good. Similar to the East End Snowmelt, but with a little more flavor and a nice aftertaste...I'll take their word because it works "toasty".

I enjoyed the beer. Not as much as the one sports game I watch annually. But the beer was better than the overhyped commericals but not as good as the all-kitten halftime show on the Animal Planet "Puppy Bowl".

I give it 3 out of 5 cute toasty puppies in a basket playing with fleece blankets.

33 - Penn Brewery Oktoberfest 2008

Okay so this was a big bottle that I drank by myself while I mulled around the kitchen listening to CDs and doing the dishes. Those moments are pretty high on my list of favorite things, so I am going to give this a higher than it deserves rating.

I think Penn is a pretty blah blah unremarkable beer. But shit man, when you are listening to Pavement and playing with dirty dishes, a big bottle of Penn Oktoberfest is a joy, even months after Oktober is awesome. In fact the bigger bottle makes it taste even better.

I give it 3 out of 5 dirty dishes. After the first glass you will think it tastes fine.

36. Old Speckled Hen, Morland Brewing

This is a beer that I have been aware of for some time, but have neglected to drink. Lately though we've been seeing it in bars and mix-a-sixers and in beverage stores. So when we saw it in the Rozi's mix-a-six we got it. It's alright. It smells to me a little like Jameson, Haley got that too but it didn't make her gag. It was a little sweet (Haley didn't get that), but it had a dry bitter aftertaste. It's a pretty good beer and I'm glad I've had it and maybe I will drink it again. Pass.

In related news, the chicken and bees law passed in Cleveland yesterday, so now we can have chickens and bees out here on the homestead.

35. Original Stieglbock

"Brewed since 1492 by the Stiegl brewery. Brewed from malt, hops, yeast, mountain spring water according to the purity law of 1516." I liked this beer, Haley did not. She thought it tasted like armpit, I did not. She was ready to stop drinking though, so that might have been it. I don't really remember what it tasted like, but I do know that I drank all of mine and half of Haley's. If we were to use Mr. Day's criteria I would say I could drink the one and a half I had and then probably a couple others.

Now a word on Der Braumeister. Der Braumeister is a very charming German restaurant and food import store. The bar is good, decorated very neatly and it has a ridiculous beer selection. One of the best in the city. It should have a higher profile than it does. It's a good place (the food is pretty good too). It closes early though (9 during the week, 10 on weekends) and that makes it hard to fit into the evening sometimes, but, Clevelanders, you should really consider making Der Braumeister the first stop of the night. Also, beer club! Drink 50 of their beers and get a t-shirt and a stein! Hooray!

34. Podkovan Dark

This Podkovan also smelled like powdered sugar. One smelled more like it than the other but I can't remember how that worked. Again, you didn't really get any powdered sugar taste, but it was still good. This one we actually liked better. It had a very nice color, like a cola. It was malty, and pretty delicious. 37.5 out of 50 beers on the beer list

33. Podkovan Lager

There's not too much to say about this beer. It was good, but not great, but certainly not bad. It was a lager. It did smell like powdered sugar, but there was none of that in the taste. This takes us one beer closer to a t-shirt and beer stein. Hooray! 35 out of 50 beers on the beer list.

32. Binchoise Reserve

This wonderful beer is a Valentine's Day special at Der Braumeister. For only $8.50 you get a 750ml bottle of deliciousness. It was great and the owner or manager or at the least barkeep even let us substitute this beer for Stella Artois as we work our way through their beer club list. This was a good beer too. Much better than Stella. Our notes say that it had rich hints of butterscotch, but was not too sweet or overpowering. It was good beer. 40 out of 50 beers on the beer list.

31. Metropolitan Flywheel

This is a pretty good beer. I guess it's like brand new from a local brewery in Chicago. We all liked it a lot. It smelled like apricots but didn't really taste like apricots. It was pleasant and just generally good. This beer gets 4 out of 5 silly nicknames communist kids give each other in case of a snitch. Personally I think they should just all get "Snitches get Stitches" tattoos so everyone knows they don't fuck around.

30. New Belgian Brewing, Fat tire

This is another beer we had in Chicago at a lovely little place "Handlebar." There was a show poster above the wall that had a drawing of three well endowed naked ladies, I enjoyed it. This beer- I did not enjoy. In our notes it says that it smelled gross, like stinky cheese/armpit. Someone was generous and said it tasted like musty apple juice. Someone else said the aftertaste was like morning breath. That was probably Mike or I, Haley's morning breath probably tastes like skittles and honey. She brushes her teeth TWICE a day, she's so special. Anyways, the concensus is that we're glad we can't get it in Ohio. The best description of this beer and the thought I will leave you with is the opinion of the bartender: "It tastes like hippie taint."

29. Hellerman's Old Style

Alas my friends, we are back. Fear not, we too have been drinking. In fact, this is about to be a blogging bonanza. I've got lots of notes on lots of beers. First off though, is Old Style. We moved our buddy Mike to Chicago last weekend and found the time to drink this gem. I liked Old Style. I just tastes like cheap beer. It actually tastes just like PBR, although Haley likes it less than PBR. Mike says that this is a "lawnmower beer" meaning that it is ideal to drink while you are mowing your lawn. He is considering making this his beer of choice in Chicago, but fears it might also be the hipster beer of choice and doesn't want to lump himself in with that crowd. This beer gets 2 out of 5 something or others.

32 - Bells Best Brown Ale

Have faith beer bloggers. It has been cold outside, but we have been drinking. Unfortunately we handwrite our blogs before we add it to the internet...and our pens froze. Kelly has three or four beers that she has to travel back into the tastebuds of time to share.

And after my last blog where I bitched about the price of beer, I went out drinking with a friend. Four hours later I got talked into buying the most expensive beer of my life. It was a ten dollar single bottle that even drunk, I knew made me a sucker. But that beer is for another day. A special expensive sucker beer day.

Today is the Bell's Best Brown Ale, which should be good for me cause I am not a brown ale drinker and need encouragement to actually drink one.

Well this might be the best brown ale I have ever had. It has a great taste that is a little sweet and has a great consistency and the after taste is basically more of the same great taste. Not sure if that still counts as an aftertaste. More of an extended taste. It looks nice with the nice dark reddish brown color that I can't get over and a smoothness that only comes in the best beers.

My latest scale has been how many of these I think I could drink in a row before feeling sick of it...which is probably 4 and maybe five. Yep I am all about quantity of quality. I am feeling the depth of winter sinking in and this is my favorite drinking season. Drinking a beer everyday had been throwing off my normal drinking patterns, but lately it has been back with a vengeance. Probably cause the groundhog saw his shadow.

Bells!

More Beers - Coming Soon

Dear Beer Blog,
I'm sorry for neglecting you lately, but I am kindof burned by the constant need to write to you. Also, I would prefer not to get fired for blogging. Perhaps Jordan will update you later today. Either way, you're in our thoughts and drinks.
xxoo
Haley

31 - Victory Hop Wallop

Okay so I decided to complete my recent Victory trilogy. I recently had the Storm King and another one that I forget, but enjoyed both, even if I can't remember the name.

So, despite me burying the lead, just like the other Victory beers, I liked the Hop Wallop. Not as much as I anticipated, but I am not sure whether I had hyped myself up or whether it is just an above average IPA. I recently became a hop lover so my standards for hop are a bit more stringent than they used to be.

But I like it and I will get another three Victory beers for the next round and review them as prequels that I will consider not as good as the first three because I gave it enough time to become nostalgic and jaded from digital effects.

Victory: A New Hop

I give it 5 out of 8 lame cryptic references.