Make 7... UP Yours

I have to take a break from updating you all on my Paris vacation and clearing out my beer notebook to discuss the beer I have just tried. A good friend of mine and fellow Yellow Jacket knows that I am a beer connoisseur, and he raved about Bud Light Lime at the company BBQ. I picked up a six pack at the Wal-Mart while returning a drill, buying more baby diapers, and pricing a flatscreen TV (gotta love Wal-mart).

With an open mind, we cracked it open tonight. Mind you, as you will see in later posts, a couple days ago I tasted beer made from a recipe that could be 5000 years old (Midas Touch), a kickass Barley Wine, and the Drink of the Gods (Honey Mead). Bud Light better come with it.

Bud Light Lime

State: Finished eating spaghetti, chillin at night after watching Prince Caspian

First off, the movie was tight. The beer, not so much. Beer pours quickly with little head in that classic Bud Light straw color. There is a strong smell of lime in the beer. The head disappears quickly. The first taste is just plain EMPTY at first, which is actually pretty standard for a light beer. You don't want all those pesky "beer flavors" in your light beer. I never really noticed the emptiness until I started really tasting more complex beers. After letting it warm in my mouth, I taste the light breadiness and light lime. It's kind of like 7up or Sprite to be honest. My wife says: "Sprite with melted ice". The finish is clean and the carbonation is low to medium, yet fine like a light beer. Sorry, but this six pack will sit in the fridge until we "regift" it to someone else.

Lime Beer. Look, I love flavored beers, but it looks like the supermajors just can't get right when it comes to craft beer, save Blue Moon. In fact, I would highly recommend Blue Moon's Rising Moon, their Spring Seasonal for your Lime Beer Jones. I reviewed this beer in my Superbowl post. In the meantime, the wife poured me the last of the Honey Mead, I am feeling rather immortal tonight.

Paris Trip: Le Gueuze, in the Latin Quarter

If you are fan of places like The Heights in Houston, Little Five Points in Atlanta, or Sixth Street in Austin, you need to take your arse to the Latin Quarter in Paris.

The bar scene is great, and the shopping isn’t bad either if you’re into that type of thing. It balances great architecture with grime. My Marathon partner Sam was too beat to sh!t to keep walking the streets, so he tapped out and went back to the apartment with his wife while the rest of us kept sightseeing. We stumbled into La Gueuze, which was a beer bar on my beertinerary. The bar had a great atmosphere, and is probably the best of the beer bars in Paris with one heck of a menu. They even had a beer from the Motherland, hellz yeah.

Ch’Ti
State: Eating Popcorn with no butter (tastes very…um, healthy)
Finally, a Biere de Garde. This is what the handbook says you have to try in France. This is their beer. The head is white and slightly fleeting. Orange/straw color. It has a sour smell to it (no surprise). On tasting, I first notice the medium body and little hops. It’s kinda sour with high fine carbonation. As it warms up, it actually gets more sour. I wrote down the words “Good, Nice” in my notebook.

Mongozo
From the Motherland, Cradle of Civilization. Though it’s brewed in the Netherlands, its origins are in Angola. If you are not sure where Angola is, just know that is south of the area where Dubya Bush found the Yellow Cake Sadam Hussein purchased. The beer has a banana smell. Its straw colored yet very clear. It tastes of banana, and not dry, medium carbonation, medium body, and no noticeable hops to speak of. It has a very quick finish to boot. Very nice change of pace. I’ll have to consider getting a bit of this for the house. It’s a great beer to introduce other people to craft beer. I like to hit folks with something totally different than a "Great American Lager", like a beer that tastes like chocolate or fruit. But whatever you do, don’t drop that shit!


And later on back at the apartment…

La Goudale

Another Biere de Garde in a 750ml bottle that we picked up at this neat little corner store. We are eating this awesome stuff called “kefta” with fries. It’s like a three patty hamburger in hoagie bread, but spiced like Lebanese food. We drank la Goudale in our ghetto wine...er... beer goblets that came with the apartment. Straw colored beer, white head, with a banana/fruity smell. First thoughts turn to the aftertaste, which was lightly bitter. It reminded me of a Leffe (kinda Belgian mouthfeel and fruitiness). It taste light banana and malt. It’s a good balance with the salty kefta and fries.

Paris Trip: April 8th, 2008

Well here we are a couple days later, and I haven't beered yet. So we grab some 33 Extra Dry a Les Deux Palais. I found this bad ass picture of this place on the web.

I believe 33 Extra Dry is from Pelforth.

La 33 Extra Dry

Straw color, sustaining 1.5 finger of white head, lots of active fizz. It's pretty clear and tastes like it has bread, maybe rice, and some hops. I get hit with a surprising yet crappy bitter aftertaste. It's not too high on the carbo and it was served cold. It's not really that dry, and I timed that aftertaste showing up a good 15-20 seconds after you swallow it. This French beer isn't working out too well.

Paris Beer Log: April 6, 2009

Sorry for the delays inbetween posts, but I’ve been offshore trying to get that OIL. Hey, no one told you to buy that Hummer. I left my notebook at home, thus, I could not blog until my days off. So let’s go back, way back in to time. Let’s revisit my Paris trip. After we finish the Marathon, I am craving some serious beerage as I had been dry for a month. So we hit the closest beer bar later on that night, and it’s Hall 1900 on Rue Rambuteau. Loosely translated, the Bar says it’s a Beer Bar on the signage, so we shall see.


The first beer I try is from Brasserie Pietra. Apparently this is a beer from Corsica.

Pietra
State: Eating French Fries (hee hee) and stiff from ‘thoning earlier that day.
Slightly reddish color with a white head. Not much of a smell. Medium-High Carbo and some bitterness on the aftertaste. It’s served very COLD and has a metallic taste (not cool). I’m getting a slight lime in there as well. My thoughts are that it’s alright, but not impressive. As it warms up, I can taste bread or toast that goes along with its light body.

Picon Biere (a few sips)
I know it’s a wikipedia entry, but I don’t have the patience to look beyond two pages of Google for their website. I got a few sips of this one, as no one in our crew had done beer tasting like I had. I love converting people, so I showed them how I do it with one of their beers. Picon has an orange smell and lacy head. It’s a deep bronze color and to be honest it tastes like Orange soda: word is brothas are supposed to like Orange Soda. It’s a light carbonation and kind of wheaty.

Brugs
Getting away from Biere, and try some Beerjte. Brugs is a Belgian beer, which they have plenty of in France (and for obvious reasons). This one is cloudy, light straw color. Dud put a lemon on top (sucks), but I could still get the medium body and carbonation. It’s wheaty and bready, but nice.

Later on that Night we hit Café Oz to see what all the hubbub was about. This Aussie bar was PACKED a couple nights ago, but it was pretty empty when we got there. Luckily there was a beer or two there that I hadn’t tried, so I picks up Speight’s Gold Medal Ale. That’s us at the bar. My wife’s facebook caption says it all: <>



Speight’s Gold Medal Ale
Apparently this one is very popular in New Zealand as it’s the beer of a couple Football Clubs out there. Nice. Well it was Bronze in color (not gold, hee hee), with a white head. Slight sour smell to it with a medium to full body. Uberlow bitterness on the aftertaste. It’s just plain with some hint of bready and medium carbo. Just not much to it, nothing to write home about unless you have a blog.

Sadly, we could not find any French stouts or any other stouts/porters we had not tried, as it was so cold that night, it actually SNOWED. That’s me and the wife.

Back From Paris!

The brotha is back from Paris, and it is good to be home in the US of A. Paris was a gorgeous city, and I throughly enjoyed it's beautiful architecture, and excellent wine scene. The place is truly a Wine area, as pretty much all the beers I tried there were not very good. Some were clones of Budweiser or Heineken, and one did a nobble attempt of mimicking the finish of a Leffe, but otherwise it was not a good experience. I didn't even beer bar it like I could had, it got so frustrating. There were plenty of belgians available, and I tried to stay with the French, but couldn't resist. In the meantime, I'm back in the States and will give periodic posts on my Paris beering adventures. In the meantime, we have some stuff at the house I haven't tried yet, including some of my homebrewed lager. Here we go...

Beer Log: April 13, 2008
State: Tongue Slightly burnt, but otherwise okay

Shiner Helles Lager
Good to be home, and I managed to pick up the Shiner 99 (or Helles Lager). I tried it one time before reviewing, and I didn't want to review it as it was a bit too warm. It being a lager and all. Now after a day or so of fridge time, I feel good to go for it in a pilsner glass. Smells of regular lager beer smell with a bit more maltiness. Strawish orange color, and rather clear. White head that does not sustain with a vigorous pour. Subtle maltiness on the tongue. Medium to high carbonation with a low hopness. Actually kind of reminds me of the stuff in Paris. But not as bad. Medium body with a very quick finish. A good session beer. More of the maltiness comes out as it warms up, and I think it was actually better warmer. I was hoping Spoetzl would bring more with it for the beer leading up to their 100th year anniversary. Maybe they are setting us up for something grand next year. We shall see.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
After the Parisian boycott of hoppy beers, I had to pick up some Pale Ale from the Kroger. I keep seeing Sierra Nevada all around, so I figured to try it just to see what all the hubbub was about. Fantastic pale ale bitterness. Yes yes yes. A good amount of maltiness in there to balance it out. Flowery hops aroma as well. I think I like this one better than Broken Halo IPA. Very well done. Deep straw color with a light light tan head. I'm glad I bought 6 of these. I may put this one in my list of 8 Tailgating beers for 2008. Oh it's real. Good to be home.

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.

Guys, I need more Cowbell

Beer Log: March 6, 2008
State: Hungry

I've taken a couple days off from tasting, as I'm getting ready for a Marathon, which I probably will be too beat up to run, but the wife did have a bottle of some Vanilla Porter in there. She really really hated it, claiming waaaaay too much vanilla. What's up with these guys and the damn vanilla. First the Winter's Cask and Ale, and now this. Well, with a bias from the wife, I'm going in there.

Breckenridge Brewer's Vanilla Porter
A gorgeous deep dark brown color, with a tan strong head. I'm getting excited about this 'un. Coffee and light chocolate on the smell. I gave it a vigorous pour, so I'm smelling a little malt in there. First thing I'm getting is that it's kind of grainy on my tongue, not cool. Coffee and choco on the flavor with the rudimentary roasted malt. It' actually kinda hoppy with full-medium body. I don't know what the hell my wife was thinking, but the vanilla is not too bad. Oh yeah, I'm drinking it very cold. And now it has warmed up, and there's the vanilla and plenty of it. Here's the problem, the whole time I drank it my face was a bit cringed, and didn't relax until I finished it. It's that graininess. Not the best porter out there.