This year was unlike anything we could have imagined and yet, amidst the chaos and lockdowns, people fell in love, got married, had babies, broke up…hopefully not all the same people…but as Jeff Goldblum opines “Life finds a way.” As with all things, the beer we drank continued to flow and for a good chunk of the year you could even have a pint or two at your local, either on the patio or perhaps even luckier, the taproom itself. There was no shortage of outstanding beer this year and while that conversation is coming up in this years “The Ten”, today we will spend a little time with things that didn’t quite reach the level of even merely adequate, perhaps not bad beer, but disappointing beer.
To be honest, I don’t spend a lot of time with beer that doesn’t work for me, I pour it out and move on, not wanting to waste the ABV or my time and effort to write about it because let's face it, most folks just scroll on by the picture with little care for the content. Did I have some stinkers? Oh hell yeah, but I gave them so little thought that it escapes me why I should be keeping track of them. So here we are in late December 2020 and I start my final posts with the disappointing beers of the year and one trip to a brewery that resulted in the most bizarre response I’ve ever had to a private conversation overheard…
The beers that found the bottom of my Instagram or Youtube reviewed list are all macro, often done as a little poke of fun at the whole crushable pint crowd, tongue in cheek all the way but nonetheless egregious beer altogether.
With little flourish, here we go…
5th - Bohemian Pils from Caledon Hills (2.25/5) - Bland, almost no noble hop presence with little apple sweetness happening. It was early in the year and let’s face it, the Donna Pils of the world have set the bar high, this was a miss for me.
4th - Peppermint IPA from Moosehead Breweries (2/5) - It was as a west leaning body with some citrus pith that was just overpowered by the toothpaste like peppermint that enveloped every part of your palate after a few sips. It was like drinking a macro lager with a piece of bread after you had just brushed your teeth, hard no.
3rd - Miller High Life Light (1.5/5) - I might be a drunk, but this was just an exercise in boring and little else. Not even very bubbly, lacking almost everything with an aftertaste of shame and frustration.
2nd - Budweiser Bud Light Strawberry Lemonade (0.5/5) - Offensively artificially flavoured to the point of warranting an investigation into assault on your senses, this was sickly sweet and the “strawberry” flavour lingered for more than a half hour after I poured out this abomination.
And the “winner” is…
1st - Molson Ultra (0.5/5) - I mean...why bother?
Drink tap water. Warm tap water. And you might get more out of it than shame and sadness.
I drink em so you don't have to...Molson Ultra is a 3.0% Light Lager and well, it is light on everything a beer should be. I've had light lagers, a lot of them in fact recently and this is not that. Not even that bubbly, leaves a dry, salt like chemical finish after hinting of hops and barley. Blah, but I had to know, didn't I.
Sometimes even I worry about me.
I probably should keep more track of “craft” beer that disappoints me, and to that extent I’m making some adjustments to my entire system next year which you can read all about over on my earlier post entitled “Polk 2021 - The Truth”, link at the bottom of this post.
As for the worst experience of my year, it came very early on and the story behind it was the most unusual one I’ve ever had in my 5 years writing about beer. I’m going to leave the name of the brewery out because we have not been able to get back there and see if things got better, the quality of the things we had was less than stellar all the way through.
When we arrived, we grabbed a flight and proceeded to do what we always do, share them back and forth and discuss what we are tasting, Kathryn’s palate being far superior to mine, I appreciate her take on what we have in our glasses. It was a difficult flight of beers to get through, some were passable, but the majority were riddled with off flavours and plain poor delivery from start to finish. We quietly were discussing these things and after we left, the messages came in that someone had overheard us and immediately contacted the owners to let them know we weren’t happy. We had said nothing ourselves to anyone and yet were quickly sent missives on all social media platforms inquiring about our experience. As I always do, I responded with honesty and frankness, open to hearing them out because it isn’t out of the realm of possibility to return and see what they’ve grown into. The pandemic hit hard and to be honest, I forgot about them until I started getting ready for all this end of the year stuff, a forgotten moment of mediocre in a year of tremendous loss and stress.
So until we can go back and purchase some beers to bring back and see if things have indeed changed, I’ll keep them in my back pocket with the promise that if I find nothing has changed, I’ll bring forth a final rendition of the most deserving kind.
What beer was so off that it led me to feel the way I did? Well, here are two of the reviews in my folder, just the bottom two in a line of empty promises…
A 5.2% Japanese Rice Lager that was off flavoured and delivered almost nothing to the palate save diacetyl and malt. Extreme disappointment given my love of lagers. 0.75/5
A 7.0%, 15 IBU Brut IPA that is supposed to be a fruity, dry, highly carbonated and effervescent beer that was fermented with Pinot Grigio grape juice. What it is is a mess. Not highly carbonated, the wine notes feels Artificial and the fruit is muted beneath off flavours and a vegetal effect on the dry finish. I've had many Brut IPAs and ones done with grapes....a big miss here. 0.50/5
So with some luck, we will revisit this place if they survive till spring, the market will not tolerate bad beer as the lockdown makes where you spend your money even more important.
Better beer to come this week as my List of Favourite beer by style and of course My Ten Most Memorable Pints of 2020.
Cheers!
Polk
Polk 2021 - The Truth
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