The weekend of June 26th and 27th, 2009

Friday:

On Friday night I started the night with a bottle of Sapporo I had purchased at Sprouts. I think what I learned from this was that I do not like lagers. At least not at this point. It's just plain malty/grainy tasting, meh. Also, very little head, especially out of the bottle.

Brewed by:
Sapporo Breweries Ltd.
Japan

Style | ABV
Euro Pale Lager | 5.20% ABV

Notes:
Year-round. Serving types had: can (76), bottle (38), nitro-can (1), cask (1).

Next I headed out to The Fox and Hound again for a beer and some pool with a few friends. I ordered a beer they had listed as Paulaner Seasonal since I had so enjoyed that Paulaner Hefe-Weizen last weekend. It wasn't quite as tasty to me, but it was definitely different and still pretty good. Unfortunately, I can't figure out which Paulaner beer it was.

Some Miller promotional people were handing out little sample cups of Miller 64. Ugh. Even a 2 oz. cup of it was brutal. It turns out that this is Miller's 64 calorie answer to Michelob Ultra's 96 calories light beer, which previously held the record of lowest calorie domestic piece of shit beer. I'll brake this down for anyone who might care about this sort of contest: Since, taste-wise, they are both swill, that factor pretty much evens out. However, while Michelob has 4.2% ABV, Miller 64 is only 2.8%. This actually evens out to exactly the same amount of alcohol per calorie, so the only difference between these two beers is that with Miller 64, you can/have to drink more servings.

Moving along, I wound up at a house party of a bunch of college students and recent graduates, so of course all that was there was the usual supply of domestic lite lager crap. I had some Coors Light, which now tastes abysmal to me of course. Same story with Keystone lite. Had some Bud lite lime, which at least tastes like fruit loops and piss rather than just piss.


Saturday:

I went to hang out with a few friends and have a few beers Saturday night. I stopped at a beer store to pick up a couple fun, new beers.

The first beer I drank was Aventinus' Original Wheat-Doppelbock. I didn't have any pint glasses at my disposal here, so I worked with what was available.

Brewed by:
Private Weissbierbrauerei G. Schneider & Sohn GmbH
Germany

Style | ABV
Weizenbock | 8.20% ABV

Notes:
Year-round. Serving types had: bottle (1214), on-tap (78).

This beer was pretty good and very drinkable. I could clearly taste the clove and banana the back of the bottle mentions, but the chocolate and vanilla pretty much eluded me. Oh well, everyone had a good time passing this around and trying a sip. I don't know why they all insist on sticking to their Bud Lite.











Next up was Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse Dunkel.

Brewed by:
Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu
Germany

Style | ABV
Dunkelweizen | 5.00% ABV

Notes:
Year-round. Serving types had: bottle (496), on-tap (45).

Not bad, I think it actually kind of tasted like a muted version of the Aventinus.

I honestly don't remember too well what it tasted like. What I mainly remember is that it wasn't terribly spectacular or interesting tasting.

A Slight Change in Direction

I think I'll just describe my experiences instead of just listing beers and a minimal amount of information.

Last Friday night I decided it was a drinking night. I started out by sharing a bottle of Smithwick's from a 6 pack I had on hand with my friend Caleb.

Then another friend Cortney, he and I headed off to the DMA for a bit of an event there. I enjoy the DMA of course, but having already been there, my favorite parts of the evening were the rides to and from the museum on the DART. On the ride to the DMA, there was a schizophrenic woman talking to no one in particular about Juneteenth and how today felt like the kind of day when someone told you that you only had 7 days to live. On the way back there was a dude with a glove and a switchblade with which he was playing who, out of the blue, turned to Cortney and asked "Do you like me?" which prompted us to move to another part of the DART, ostensibly to find seats. Where we wound up there was, among other interesting characters, a guy who actually took out a bag of coke and bumped some right then and there.

Anyway, back to the beer. So Caleb and I were going to join two other friends Eric and Nedd to go out to The Fox and Hound for a few beers. In order to save money we were going to pre-drink, of course. I had another Smithwick's, a beer I enjoy fairly well but find is better on tap than from the bottle. After that, I broke out my new beer, a Paulaner Hefe Weizen.

It. Was. Delicious. This was a totally new experience for me, starting out as I am in this new world of beer consciousness. I could taste the spices, the clove. It was so different from any beer I've ever had. It was sort of fruity, and so smooth. It's an unfiltered beer, so that was different too. I think I like this unfiltered business - I'll have to try some more and see!

Brewed by:
Paulaner Salvator Thomasbraeu AG
Germany

Style | ABV
Hefeweizen | 5.50% ABV

Notes:
Year-round. Serving types had: bottle (176), on-tap (10), can (2).

Moving on...we went to The Fox, and Caleb owed me a beer for half a roll of sushi, so I just got a beer on tap that wouldn't be too expensive. I got a Fat Tire since I've never had it, or at least not since my new consciousness:

Brewed by:
New Belgium Brewing Inc.
Colorado, United States

Style | ABV
American Amber / Red Ale | 5.20% ABV

Notes:
Year-round. Serving types had: bottle (825), on-tap (193), can (23), growler (1).

To me it tasted hardly any differently from a regular old domestic lager, so that was lost on me.

Next, I wanted to have something interesting, and they had all these Guinness mix options such as a black and tan, a snake bite, etc. I tried to get the Snake Bite since that sounded the most interesting, but they were out of whatever the other beer was, so I got the Black XX. That's just Guinness and Dox Equis, but I figured I probably wouldn't happen to have them both around at the same time to mix. It was tasty stuff. A couple of years ago when I tried a Guinness I remember I didn't like it, so this was a good sign that my tastes are truly developing.

Possibly the most definite change in my tastes came next, though. Now, I started out my beer drinking days at the age of 19 on Coors Light and pretty much stuck to Coors Light, Bud Light, and Keystone Light. I hated Miller Light from the get-go. I would have rather had Natural Light or Milwaukee's Best than Miller, it tasted so bad to me. Well, Eric offered the rest of his Miller Light to Caleb and me, and when I drank it, it tasted LIKE WATER. It was crazy. I was pretty tipsy getting on towards drunk at this point, but still, neither Bud Light nor Coors has never tasted like water to me no matter how drunk I've been.

Anyway, we ended up back at my apartment to chill for a bit, and I had another Smithwick's or two. Good times.

...

And I may as well mention that the Sunday before that I tried a new beer: Steam Engine Lager:
It was pretty good. I drank the whole 6 pack at the pool, which led to me blacking out for about 20 minutes afterward, around 4 or 5 pm. I've really got to start doing the math every time I drink. A six pack of these puppies is about 7.86 Coors Lights, and I drank them in only 2-3 hours. I don't have the tolerance of my youth, so that was a bit too much for me. Oh plus I might have had a bit of my girlfriend's Bud Lights...

Brewed by:
Steamworks Brewing Co.
Colorado, United States

Style | ABV
California Common / Steam Beer | 5.50% ABV

Notes:
Year-round. Serving types had: bottle (41), can (16), on-tap (6).