[Revised]

My love and I were at a Thai restaurant when we discovered this beer. A joke beer, obviously. But after we had our giggle, I had to admit my curiosity was piqued.

Phuket, I thought. I’ll try it.

As it says on the label, it’s "The original island beer." What island? I had no idea. All I knew is that it was from Thailand.

Phuket, I thought. I’ll look it up on the Internet later.

We got it home, took a picture of it, and I popped it open. It’s going to be horrible, I thought. Like Coors flavored with rusty nails, or Budweiser with frog juice in it.

My ceremonial sniffing of the bottle was more out of fear than pretentiousness. The scent turned out to be a tad yeasty and was brimming with hops. Not bad, really. Pleasant even. Totally the opposite of what I was expecting.

Phuket, I thought. Here goes nothing. I put the bottle to my lips and tipped it back.

I have never been to Thailand. I didn’t know there is a coastal island called Phuket, nor did I know it’s a tropical paradise. Thanks to this beer, I know a lot about it now, and in fact it just may end up being where my love and I eventually spend our honeymoon.

This beer is really tasty. It’s flavorful without being aggressive, giving you a laid back island version of a good German lager, with energetic hops riding over a warm golden sweet maltiness. The aftertaste settles like a tropical sunset. As with many beers, it left me mourning the fact that I’d only picked up one.

Next time I see it, you can bet I’m going to say, "Phuket! I’m getting a whole six pack!"

Here it is over a year later, and I’ve put this back on the top of the website.  Why?  Well, because they sent us this cool shirt…

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Odd, but I could swear I’ve already reviewed this.  But no, I haven’t, or at least if I have, I’ve lost it somehow.

Darn, and here I thought I could just drink it for the pure mindless pleasure of drinking.

Funny how that works.  Drinking beer has become a task.  At least, if I am to review it, I have to pay much closer attention to the beer itself, and take notes.

There’s a good side and a bad side.  The good side is, I appreciate the beer more if I’m entirely focused on it.  The bad side is, well, obvious.

Oh well, I need to just suck it up.  No one is forcing me to do this.  And if I start whining, someone needs to jam their boot into my behind.  I’m drinking beer.  Wow, such a hard job.  Poor me.

Anyway, about the actual brew in question:  Smells sweet, yeasty, and of dark malts.

Tastes rich, smooth, sweetly dark, with a kind of Malt-O-Meal grainy chocolate yumminess.  Very tasty! 

I also find it has a delicate edge to it.  This is a surprisingly refined dark ale.  I hereby proclaim it to be groovy, and award it with a 6.7 on the Holy Grail Scale.

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“A hop lover’s delight!” says the label. “In the India Pale Ale tradition, this brew is very hoppy in both aroma and flavor from the generous amounts of Cascade hops used in brewing. Look for a medium to full body and golden straw color. Enjoy!”

Well… I hope I do! And I also hope it helps knock me out of this lonely Sunday afternoon funk in which I’ve found myself.

Pop goes the top. I take that first sniff. It most definitely features a hoppy aroma. Hops and yeast is all I smell.

First sip — an explosion of hops. Sparkling, bold, not too green, bitter but not overpoweringly so. They weren’t lying. It’s as hoppy as you can get without being a frog. It’s as smooth as you can get while being this hoppy.

This is a fine India pale ale, and I hereby officially deem it Groovy. I also bestow upon it 5.7 on the Holy Grail Scale, and am happy to report it has helped lift me out of this funk.

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I’ve found the Holy Beer.

Well, kind of.  In the novel I’m writing, I’ve determined the secret ingredient of the Holy Beer:  juice from the fruit of the tree of life.  Which, in the novel, turns out to be pomegranates.

This beer (obviously) has pomegranate juice in it.  That’s why I picked it up, thinking…  Hmm, I can use this in the novel.

Popping the top, this brew smells … mealy.  Not in a bad way, just in a raw grain way.  There’s the faint aroma of wheat and a trace of, I think, greenish hops.

I take a taste and am somewhat surprised.  It’s different than any other beer I’ve tried, and that’s saying something.  It’s sharp, delicately bitter, and tangy but not in a citrus way.  Must be the pomegranate, but I don’t taste pomegranate.  In fact had the label not clearly given it away, I never would have guessed it was in there.

It tastes somehow … primitive.  Must be the unfiltered wheat?  But it’s refreshing, and I like it.  A lot.  I could drink one after another.

Methinks they’ve found a perfect recipe for keeping a wheat beer from being boring.

I have to share this bit of the label text:  "Deep in the heart of the Adirondacks, a top secret grove of pomegranates grow wild and free.  They are protected by ‘ferocious’ bears!  We traded them ten tons of honey to make this unique brew."

So, it’s made by bears?

Looks like I’m not the only fantasy writer in the brewing business.

Anyway, I hereby proclaim this to be a groovy brew, and award it 7.77 on the Holy Grail Scale.

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This is a English Amber Ale from Montana.

What is it about breweries and dogs, anyway?  I see more dogs on labels than anything else.  Dogs and devils.  Some devilish dogs as well.

This one is a nice looking black lab named "Chug" featuring the inscription "No whiners."

Enough about the label … let’s see how it tastes:  Aggressive and tangy, this brew features a vivid hoppiness that rides herd over the flavors, keeping the malts in line and preventing them from straying.  It energetically tingles the tongue right before the hops bloom, the bitterness swells, the beer fairies sing and dance, and it all fades to a clean malt finish. 

I like it.

I hereby honor "Chug" the black dog as an officially groovy brew, and award it 6.7 on the Holy Grail Scale.

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It’s an early afternoon right after a Sunday lunch, and I’ve got the house to myself.  The air is full of early fall cricket and grasshopper song, and the gentle breeze is nice and warm.  I’m waiting for my laundry to finish drying, and am craving some jazz on the radio.

I pop the top of this "Deep Cover" Brown Ale from Left Hand Brewing.  It’s a good name.  Cool label.  Hats off to their marketing staff.

It smells a bit yeasty.  My nose picks up some sweet roast barley.  Not just a little sweet, either — it smells candy sweet.

The first sip is unimpressive, but still good.  It doesn’t blow my socks off but it does manage to send a signal directly to the pleasure center of my brain.

Still, this strikes me as a run of the mill brown ale.  It’s like they didn’t try very hard.  The barley malts are on the rough edge, tingling the tongue without any smoothness.  Also, it strikes me that the balance of the hops is off.  So while it’s good, it doesn’t inspire me to crave more.  Instead, it inspires me to crave something better.

To sum up:  Good but not quite groovy.

And with that, the drier is buzzing.  Time to go pull out the laundry!

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"From the glass lined tanks of Old Latrobe," reads the can’s inscription, "we tender this premium beer for your enjoyment, as a tribute to your good taste."

Call me jaded, but this sounds like a marketing department trying to buffalo small minds into thinking that, not only is this beer something special, but they’d be stupid not to agree.  Kind of like peer pressure in written form.  On a can.

Makes sense.  Peer pressure is what made most of us into beer drinkers at one time or another.  But to me this raises a red flag and makes me think of that idiotic spiel you find on Budweiser cans.

I pop it open and take a sniff.  Yeasty with faint hoppy highlights.

First sip:  Light, hoppy, and very watery.

The overall taste is not that bad.  While the flavor is weak, what there is of it is good.  It’s watery malt with subtle hoppy overtones, delivered in an airy dilution of bubbles.

Conclusion:  it doesn’t completely suck, but its far removed from groovy.  Groovy isn’t even on the horizon.

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This promising looking beer hails from New Ulm, Minnesota. I like the look of the bottle, and the brew inside is a gorgeous light mahogany. I pop the top with a happy sense of anticipation.

Raising it up, I take a sniff. There’s a weak scent of barley, and the ghost of hops. Not much else. I take it as a bad omen, but shrug it off — I’ve been pleasantly fooled before.

Raising it to my lips, I take that first sip. I am rewarded with a very weak taste. Watery. Slightly bitter.

No body.

Let’s not waste any more time on this one. It’s not repulsive but there is really nothing there. The expression that comes firmly to mind is, “Bleh.”

This beer is not groovy. Not in the least.

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I have before me a bottle of Barons “Black Wattle Seed Superior” Wattle Seed Ale imported from — where else? — Australia.

I know nothing about wattle seeds save this little bit from a Monty Python sketch:

This is a wattle
The emblem of our land
You can stick it in a bottle
You can hold it in your hand

Apparently Aussie’s think it belongs in beer. We’ll see…

I pop the top and immediately note a distinctive bouquet.  It makes my nose itch, and smells less like beer and more like bread baked with weeds in it.

The first sip is delicious.  It’s a very complex flavor riding atop a solid foundation of toasted malt.  Maple notes mingle with molasses and biscuit.  The hops remain subdued until halfway through the bottle, where they suddenly emerge tasting a bit green.  Still, the hops never overpower the toasted malt, and I find this a pleasurable drinking experience even down to the very last drop in the bottle.

Would I drink it again?  Yes.

Would I want to drink one after another?  No.

It’s very good but it doesn’t leave me craving more.  And while I have no problem proclaiming it to be a groovy brew, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a contender for the Holy Beer.

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Stop the press!

A friend of mine, thinking he was buying one of my favorite beers, brought over a 24 ounce can of Hurricane High Gravity Lager. Well, no, I’d never had this before. What he thought he was buying was 211 High Gravity Steel Reserve — but this is something else, and I looked at it with suspicion. Where, I wondered, did this come? Who brewed it?

My heart fell. On the side of the can I found these heinous words: “Brewed and canned by Anheuser-Busch, Inc.” Oh great, I thought. High gravity Budweiser.

Yuck.

So I popped the top, scrunched up my nose, and took a sip. It was a gift, after all. Didn’t want to be rude.

Again, here is where I say: “Stop the press!”

This is quite an occasion. It’s a date to circle on the calendar. I have finally found something brewed by Anheuser-Busch that I actually like.

There is no tang of industrial machinery. There is no sickening aftertaste. There is actual, decent – I can even say appealing – flavor. My friends I am in shock.

This beer is not bad at all.

Now I’m not going to go so far as say that it’s wonderful, but I can’t condemn it, and I will say that I would gladly drink it again.

Anheuser-Busch, don’t get used to this, but I hereby proclaim your Hurricane High Gravity Lager as a groovy brew.

Now I wince as I publish this, as I’m sure it’s going to shred my credibility to pieces. But I have to be honest. I give credit where credit is due. I enjoyed this beer. And it went very well with a rack of smoked ribs.

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