Shitty Beer Tuesday #5: Miller Lite

Brewed By: Miller Brewing Company (MillerCoors) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Purchased: Single, big-ass, bomber can (24oz) from Jewel-Osco in Illinois; 2011

Style/ABV: Pale Ale/Lite American Lager, 4.2%

If you put this up your ass, you might need to "man up."

Advertising works. If it did not work we would not be sitting here right now. I was planning on waiting one more week to review a Shitty Beer, but Miller Lite's "man up" commercials have invaded radio. "Man up" is Miller's new approach to advertising. Drink our lite beer, otherwise you are a homo. Nice Miller...nice.

It's no secret that beer advertising is sexist, misogynistic, and targeted towards men. In some countries beer is advertised with scantly clad women, topless girls, and boobs. But here in America, we advertise our beer by showing commercials with a bunch of guys camping; and then someone from the camping sausage-fest makes a comment about how gay we are for not drinking Miller Lite. How homoerotic is that!!! The real icing on the cake is that at the end of the commercial, we see three of the males pulling a prank on the "non-manly" male. To me, this final scene conjures up images of homoerotic male culture; tea-bagging, carrot-up-the-ass type stuff.

So let me just clarify:

A bunch of guys camping = gay.

Boobs = not gay.

It doesn't matter what beer you are drinking, a bunch of dudes camping is pretty gay. At least in the UK they advertise by showing tits in their beer commercials. If you want to look at the height of irony, look at Super Bowl XXXVIII. During the halftime show, Janet Jackson's tit popped out. People flipped shit. A boob on TV is a national crisis in America. But manning up and drinking Miller Lite...you fucking homo...is totally okay.

"piss beach"

As a football fan, I have to ask: how much longer do I have to put up with these lame commercials? It would be one thing if they were funny, but they are not. I love beer commercials. But it seems like we have not had a genuinely funny beer commercial in a long time. What happened to the Budweiser frogs, or the Budweiser hawk, or the Budweiser fridge tunnel? Wait a minute: I'm pretty sure the only company that actually makes funny beer commercials is Budweiser. Coors and Miller are too busy trying to one-up each other with stupid gimmicks. "Triple hopped for maximum straightness." Really Miller? You do realize that every beer uses "triple hopping." You bastards. I'd rather be on piss beach than drinking a Miller "triple hopped" product. 

Just give up, Miller. Coors already won. They have blue mountains.

So here is my review, all spiteful and whatnot: 

Yes, I bought the giant can. No, I didn't buy the giant can to feel more manly. I could not stand to buy a 6-pack of this crap. This beer pours like a lite beer. This beer is foamy and super carbonated. There is a giant white head comprised of thin white bubbles. The head hangs around for about 10 seconds and fizzles out leaving some foam and bubbles on the surface of the beer. The body is kind of yellow. Under low light it actually looks like water. This is a transparent, filtered, carbonated beer, with almost no color. The fact that there is some lacing and that there are surface bubbles means two things:

1) I am stunned.

2) This beer has better presentation than Budweiser. Budweiser is truly the king of shitty beers. 

Yellow water. 100 calories.

I smell light corn, light grain, and maybe a touch of green apple or caramel. I taste grain, water, and some sweet caramel. Because this is a lite beer, it is not going to put hair on your chest. It is not going to make you manly. Real men take shots of whiskey after they put their cigarette out in it. 

Seriously, lite beer is - hands down - the most retarded invention for beer. 12 ounces of Miller Lite will almost net you 100 calories. 12 ounces of Guinness Draft will net you approximately 130 calories. 30 calories is the difference between drinking something that tastes like water and corn, or something that actually tastes like barley, flavor, and beer. If you really need to diet, then don't drink beer. If you are just watching your calories, drink a better beer and put down the cheeseburger. Drinking lite beer is like ordering a Diet Coke with your Big Mac combo: you look like a tool and everyone is secretly judging you when you drive away.

The nicest thing I can say about this beer is that it is light, refreshing, and drinkable. The worst thing is that there is almost no flavor. I know...this style is inherently light...it's a Lite American Lager. But still. Coors Light is better than this. On the front of your palate is carbonation, sweet malt, and corn. Corn rides through the middle and the back, and the beer ends refreshing. There is no complexity and no depth. Duh.

Rating: Below-Average

Score: 37%

Let me tell you about my experience at the the University of Miller.

University of Miller

Things That Make You Gay 101: going to the bathroom with your male friend, drinking a non-Miller lite beer, screaming while you are fishing, skinny jeans.

Beer Gimmicks 100: taste protector lid, triple hop brewing, vortex bottles.

Since Miller lost the gimmick war to Coors, they have decided to roll out their offensive, homophobic, homoerotic, and racist "man up" commercials. So now when I am watching football, or listening to the radio, I have to endure these horribly unfunny commercials. It's an embarrassing state of affairs, and Miller should be ashamed. These commercials support the douche bag, fratboy culture that binge-drinks, date-rapes, and has no taste in beer. 

Oh, Yeaahh!

Taste: that is the real downfall here. This isn't a manly beer. A manly beer has hops. A manly beer has flavor. A manly beer packs a mean ABV and some IBUs. When I picture a manly beer, I imagine Stone Brewing's Gargoyle smashing through the bar like the Kool-Aid guy, and punching some Miller-drinking bro-douche in the face. That is manly. This is just a weak beer.

But I'm done. I have nothing else to say. Miller High Life is a respectable light beer, and that is what I would recommend you drink if you need to get your Miller fix. But I cannot support Miller Lite and I cannot stand the "man up" advertisements. I will rip my penis off in a fit of rage before I convert to Miller Lite.

Avoid this swill and boycott the lame, unfunny, and offensive advertisements. 

New Belgium Kick

Brewed By: New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins, Colorado

Purchased: Single big-ass bomber (22oz) from West Lakeview Liquors in Chicago, IL; 2011

Style/ABV: Spice/Herb/Vegetable - Sour, 8.5%

The artwork screams trick 'r' treat

Thank you, New Belgium Brewing.

Signed, adhdJon. Thank you for making an October/Halloween/pumpkin beer that doesn't taste like nutmeg. New Belgium's Kick is part of their Lips of Faith Series. You can find all the information about Kick on New Belgium's website, but here is the important info.

Kick is a collaboration between New Belgium and Elysian. This beer is a combination of two beers; 75% ale that is brewed using pumpkin and cranberry juice, and 25% ale aged in wooden barrels. This is a big beer clocking in at 8.5% ABV, it packs a mild 14 IBUs, and uses cranberry and pumpkin. The use of cranberry and pumpkin has relegated this beer to the "Spice/Herb/Vegetable" category, but this beer tastes quite a bit like a Belgian Sour.

Before we dive in I want to mention that the bottle work on this beer is out of this world. This is the coolest bottle artwork I have seen on a beer in a long time. This is far and away the best Halloween/October/Fall artwork I have seen. The bottle features Jack-O-Lanterns on the bottle, and looks like a brew totally appropriate for the Halloween season. Let's dive in.

This beer is lightly carbonated and not super aggressive. I was able to pour a one-finger head with thin white bubbles. The bubbles aren't soapy, they are small and tightly packed, but the head does not hang around for very long. However, the head on this beer has a great "cauldron effect." There is a thin layer of bubbles and stuff on the surface of the beer that hangs around the

New Belgium Kick: this is Halloween in beer form

duration of the session. Thus, I would call this beer lightly carbonated but with some good bubbly funk: like a Belgian sour or a Belgian Strong Ale. This beer is transparent and filtered, and it has a nice pale golden-orange-yellow color. When I poured this beer, I was reminded of a Belgian Strong Ale with slightly less effervescence.

The aroma of this beer instantly reminds me of Jolly Pumpkin's Oro De Calabaza. I am also reminded of some Brettanamyces notes, or some Lactobacillus. I'm curious how this beer was made, and what yeasts or bacteria are used.
 

I am smelling big woody notes on the nose, cranberry, juice, leather and barnyard, sour or rotting pumpkin, band-aids, and other funky sour fruit manifestations (maybe pulls towards orange peel or berries, but nothing definitive).

This beer is quite complex in taste, as it should be. The 8.5% ABV virtually disappears, and is only present in the very back end of the palate as a warming sensation. There is a ton of wood, funk, and cranberry in the flavor profile. You taste lots of overripe or rotting pumpkin, especially on the back end. There is a slightly sour or tart quality riding through the whole beer, but it isn't making me pucker and it is not an extreme sour or tartness. There are some pulls towards orange and pepper in here as well, which is really surprising. The peppery note compliments the pumpkin flavors. There is pumpkin in here, but it definitely takes a back seat to the woody notes and the cranberry. There are also hints of barnyard, leather, band-aids, and other funky Bret-notes in the body. I'm also getting some berries: blackberry, raspberry, and other tart berries. Very complex, very deep, still crisp and refreshing: the alcohol disappears and this is very drinkable.

The front end is tart, woody, full of cranberry and other berries, and full of some funk: leather, band-aids, horse stable. The middle continues with the tartness, and you get some spices (cinnamon) and pumpkin, the middle remains pretty woody. The back end is slightly drying with more wood, rotting pumpkin, and some alcohol warming on the back end. This is incredibly complex. This is a medium-light beer, with a slightly juicy body.

The only thing that will deter you from drinking this beer is if you do not like sour things, tart things, or the Bret-Lacto notes. 

Rating: Above-Average

Score: 89%

I am absolutely floored by this beer. On the deep deep back of my palate, I am getting huge pumpkin notes. I am tasting the aftertaste of pumpkin, pumpkin seeds, and overripe pumpkin. This is a wildly complex beer that has great depth and good drinkability. The presentation of this beer is fantastic. The artwork is the coolest I have found on a fall beer. This is my new favorite October beer, and I think this may be the best beer I have had from New Belgium. This is a really decent cranberry-pumpkin beer, and a really solid sour as well.

I love everything about this beer: especially the big pumpkin in the deep palate. The back end of this beer is the most "normal pumpkin" note I have found in a beer so far. I hope that New Belgium brews this beer again next year, but in case they don't, I may need to seek out additional bottles of this stuff.

This comes highly recommended, and I would be honored to mull over it again.

Not A Review: Southern Tier Pumking

Sometimes it is nice to enjoy a beer without the production of a review. When I review a beer I like to find out about the brewery, learn about the style of the beer being reviewed, find out what ingredients are being used in the beer, and dig up as much information as I can find.

Beer reviewing is time consuming - it doesn't have to be time consuming - but I want to do it right. I want to give an honest review based on my opinions, but also based on good research.

Tonight I had the opportunity to share a bottle of Southern Tier's Pumking with my girlfriend. It was her idea to seek out some beer after she showed me an article in the paper about Lagunitas Doppel Weizen. I mentioned to her that she might be interested in trying a pumpkin beer. After trying several stores to no avail, we finally were able to hunt down a bottle of the Pumking.

We fixed some dinner, turned on the TV, and relaxed; Pumking was the after-dinner finale, so I guess we can call it dessert. The Internet and the craft beer community has hyped Pumpking to high heaven. Pumking is, by faaaaaarrrrrrr, the most hyped pumpkin beer on the market. I had high expectations coming in, and I was excited to try the beer.

The beer poured a nice orange color. It had a nice light orange body, and looked to be filtered. There wasn't a ton of head or carbonation. At 8.6% ABV I didn't expect a big head. The beer smelled like pumpkin pie crust - straight legit. It also smelled like spices: huge nutmeg and cinnamon. There was pumpkin in the nose. It smelled more like pumpkin than New Holland's Ichabod, but not by much.

The taste is where Pumking really differentiates itself. This beer tastes like pumpkin pie with some booze and nutmeg thrown in for good measure. The beer has potent pumpkin pie notes; it also has big sweetness. There is a lot of warming booze, and tons of spice.

The mouthfeel was clean, but the pumpkin pie flavors were slightly cloying. The Pumking is a sipper, and I'm not sure I would even want to drink a bomber of the stuff by myself. I am actually really surprised at how highly rated Pumking is. I see TONS of reviews for fruit and spice beers where reviewers say the beer is too fruity or too sweet. But Pumking is full throttle pumpkin pie and it is full throttle sweet.

I really enjoyed the Pumking. It is a really special beer in that it tastes like liquid pumpkin pie. I think it would pair wonderfully with the right dessert. It would also work as a nice sipping beer.

On the other hand, the Pumking is big. It is huge. The pumpkin pie notes do approach cloying. They are super assertive and a lot to handle. The beer is huge in both ABV and in pumpkin flavor. This beer has the meatiness of a stout, and it weighs on you like a big beer should.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the Pumking, I think I would drink this sparingly, and I probably would only want one or two bottles of this stuff annually. This is a great October beer, and definitely something to mull over. This is not a review so much as me thinking out loud. If I had to rate this beer tonight I would say it is above average; probably towards the top of above average. But right now, I would have a hard time awarding this divine brew status.

I probably won't do an official review of Pumking this year. My experience tonight is likely enough for the season. But I just want to say that I have great respect for the beer. Give a hand to Southern Tier brewing, folks: they engineered a pumpkin pie in beer form. That is incredible. Forget all the gimmicky shit that bogs the beer industry down: this is a legitimate craft brewing achievement. Pumpkin pie in beer form.

I recommend this beer, and I look forward to doing a full-on review in the future.

Until then...happy Halloween. Happy pumpkin beer drinking. I love fall beer, and I love pumpkin beer. But like pumpkin pie, Pumking is great in small amounts.