Its friday. In anticipation of having a good fun weekend, some of the guys and I were tyalking about beer…and comparing worst beer stories.
Its different from place to place. Some guys mentioned beers I’d never heard of. But I know the ones I’ve had that tasted like it came from the ass of a dead mule. Thats saying something, for me at least. I frequently settle for budweiser, which while prominent in the US isn’t spectacular. (though I do prefer guiness after my trip to ireland last year)
The worst, suckiest beer I can recall tasting was Red White and Blue. I have not seen it since college in Baltimore in the 80’s. But man, it was vile. Tasted like it was brewed in the radiator of a rusted out Gremlin in a junkyard. My roommate recoiled in horror when he saw it, as he had experiences drinking it in the past. We got a 12 pack of it for free and ended up dumping 10 of them into the sewer. Where presumably it was made.
A runner up has to be Black Label. Again, I haven’t seen it for sale since the late 80s but it was horrible. Tasted like gasoline. I’m sure I could get 30 mpg if I used it for fuel. At a BYOB party in 1988 a friend of mine traded our 6 pack of Heineken for a 12 pack of this noxious liquid to some girls. Sucker. We almost beat him up for that. However we were all too sick from it to do it.
**
Schaefer** also deserves my hatred. My late uncle loved the stuff though. He’d always serve it when I was on leave visiting. He’d get upset if I got my own beer so my cousin and I would chike it down to make him happy. I didn’t know the still sold that stuff.
Nasty Coors reject level beer with a chili pepper in the bottle.
No balance to the flavor, crummy beer with an overwhelming blast of heat.
I can eat habaneros straight so the heat didn’t bother me, just a lousy execution of a good idea.
Can cider-drinkers join in? Some years ago, there was a fad for high-alcohol (8%+) beers and ciders. At this pub, the only cider they served was one such, either White Lightning or Diamond White or something similar. It tasted dreadful. It tasted like dilute apple juice with alcohol poured in. Blech.
Northwoods, not the Leinie’s classic but this stuff that I found at the grocery store once. $9 for a 24 case of something that tasted like beer made by people who had only ever had the flavor of beer described to them over a bad phone connection.
They used to have this swill back home in Tejas called Buckhorn that was just godawful. I haven’t seen it in years, though.
The next runner up is the unofficial state beer of Texas, LoneStar, which is about what you’d get if you force fed (‘cause you know they wouldn’t drink it willingly) Schafers to some cows, collected their urine, and then left it out in the hot Texas sun for a few days before re-bottling it and slappin’ the LoneStar label on it. If I absolutely had to have a drink and the choices were LoneStar and Sterno, I’d be hard-pressed to not grab for the Sterno.
I am a man who likes cheap beer. Schlitz? No problem. Old Mil’? I’ll take a dozen. Lone Star, Hamms, Strohs? Keep 'em coming. A few years ago at the grocery store, I saw a twelvepack of a variety I’d never tried on sale for $4.99. It came in a black box with vaguely metally lettering on it and claimed to be a lager. How could this be bad?
I gulped one down and nearly gagged. It tasted like a cider that was left to go slightly rancid and then mixed with maybe Milwaukee’s Best in a sort of devil’s cocktail. I tried one more, just couldn’t do it, and traded the other 10 to a punk for two quarts of Ol’ E. I ran into that kid again a month or so later and 4 of the beers were still rolling around on the floor of his van - he said he’d been trying to get rid of them the whole time, but no one would drink more than one.
Corona: when it isn’t skunked it tastes like piss. Any beer where it’s customary to stick a slice of fruit in the top of the bottle is obviously not a suitable drink for a man, anyway.
Skol: I don’t even know whether they make this any more, it was that bad. And, Good God does it make you fart.
Like Filling Pages, I’m a sucker for cheap beer: PBR, Miller High Life, Schlitz, Old Style. I drink them all.
But the one makes me gag is Natty Light. I drank plenty of this shit in college and always paid dearly for it in the dorm bathrooms after a long night of partying. But, again, when you’re 20-years-old you’d drink gasoline if you thought it’d give you a buzz. Haven’t touched the stuff in years.
Iron City tastes like it was brewed in well water. Strohs gives me a headache when I think about it. I just got one now. Carlings Black Label tasted like chalk was in it. Stout is an acquired taste. I never acquired it. Lite beers are beers with the flavor removed. Milwaukees Best is not.
On my previous job, I used to deliver Buckhorn. Probably 10 years or more since it vanished. As I recall, the one store that ordered it priced it at 1.99/12pk!
I’m going to defend RW&B! My college roommates and I had a “Jen” Party. Invited all the Jennys we knew on campus, and served “Jen” & Tonics, and "Jen"eric beer. RW&B fit the bill perfectly, because the can itself was as plain as can be.
We had two refrigerators filled with the stuff the next day. We came to actually enjoy the swill - I’d compare it to current day Keystone Light.
For really bad beer, I’m going to agree with gonzomax and say Iron City. Stroh’s is pretty bad as well.
I’ve been told (so take it with a slice of citrus) that the slice of lemon or lime prevalent in the necks of Mexican beers is a “throwback” to the days when Mexicans were lax about cleaning/sterilizing bottles that they reuse for beer, and that the acid in the citrus would kill any residual bacteria missed in the cleaning process.
:shrug:
It wasn’t uncommon to see Germans dropping sliced lemon into Heffe Weissen, a beer that almost meets the criteria of “too thin to plow, too thick to drink.” But I doubt it was for health/sanitation reasons.
I personally heartily agree with your sentiment that good beer doesn’t need any help from a slice of citrus. Whenever I order a Dos XX Amber or Negro Modelo, I tell them to hold the fruit.
“Best” Beer - this is the cheap beer from one of the cheapest supermarkets around here. Terrible. I can’t even remember how it tasted, only that I only ever bought two cans.
Schultenbrau - also cheap and nasty (sold by Aldi). Taste like stale dishwater and makes you fart.
My drugstore sold it for 99 cents/6pk in 1972. It was our top seller, so the boss raised the price to $1.25. Sales stopped, so he put it back. The price had found its own level.
Somebody visited from Michigan bearing gifts of Fox Deluxe. So nasty that somebody put out a cigarette in my can and it IMPROVED the flavor.
I second the Cave Creek Chili Beer. I tried to like it, I really did, but it’s the only beer I’ve had so far where I couldn’t finish the bottle. Like runner pat, it wasn’t that I couldn’t stand the heat, it was that it just didn’t mesh well and was absolutely nasty.
