I've Gone Dry... For Now

Beer Log: March 18 and 20, 2008

State: First time, hungry and pissed off about delayed flights, second time chillin and kinda hungry

You may wonder why I have not blogged in a while. Well I'm training for the Paris Marathon, and for these long runs, I always go dry exactly one month before the race. I say race, knowing full well I don't stand a chance of coming in much better than 5 hours. So I have some beer that I'm brewing in the house, and I'm allowing myself a 2 ounce taster after it's been bottled for two, but otherwise I've not tasted a beer in a few weeks. Shame b/c the Sauce would give me a free pint for my birthday. But lo and behold, I totally forgot about Non-alcoholic beer. All the beer, without the guilt. So I ask the man in the airport to hit me with the St. Pauli Girl NA.This stuff is sold all over the place in Houston, so I think I'm good to go at the airport...

St. Pauli Girl NA

It shows up in a green bottle, never a good sign in my book, too much light. The smell seems kind of off, like a funky sweetness, a la rotting garbage. But whatever, the man served it to me ice cold... and it didn't help. Color and whatnot was regular lager. It has some sweetness and whatnot, but a terrible residuelike bitter thing going on at the back of the tongue, that remains there forever. My face cringed and stayed that way. I tried some bbq swine, still no good.

For the first time in forever, I could not finish this beer off. I even reviewed this on Beer advocate to see if it was just me. I figured I may have a skunked beer, so I figure I'll give it another go later on in life.

I get the beer in Orlando at a Houlihan's a couple days later, and it's the exact same experience. (Houlihan's know they need to do better, as they have craft beer posters all over the place and basically no selection.) I know St. Pauli's is pretty popular, but this beer is bad. Think of a Miller Lite, dry hopped with ass. Enough said. April 6th cannot come fast enough. I'm sorry, goodbye.