Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Shoenling's Little Kings

Remember that song Two Princes by the Spin Doctors?  I ask you this, what are Princes, if not Little Kings?  Does Shoenling’s Little Kings beer have anything to do with the goddamned Spin Doctors?  Probably not, it was just the first ham fisted introduction that came to mind.  But what is this Shoenlings Little Kings I speak of?  More importantly is it any good, or does it suck (like a certain lame-as early 90’s alterna-pop band?) 

 

Nice hat bro

I first discovered Little Kings a couple years ago.  At the time, most information I found online erroneously reported that the beer had been discontinued and the beer’s official website redirected to their facebook page.  Not a good sign.  They now have a bonafide website, and optimistically promise that Little Kings is growing to a nationwide distribution level.  I don’t know how close they are to national distribution, but it warms my heart to see a Cincinnati beer from 1958 trying to expand, at a time when all time greats like Schlitz and Hamm’s are on life support.

As to why it took me so long to review it: I couldn’t keep it in my fridge.  Although national distribution may be coming soon, I discovered Little Kings at a liquor store about 30 miles from my house.  The first time I bought I grabbed it on a whim with the intention of reviewing it, but drank it all before I got the chance. Next time I was over there I bought like 42 7oz bottles, which it turns out isn’t enough to stay in my fridge for very long.  So I bought even more last time I was in Aurora, and I’m finally getting around to it now.

 

Sadly, Aurora IL does not have a Stan Mikita's Donuts.  It just kinda blows.

I love the tiny bottles.  I tend to drink until I fall asleep (healthy I know.)  Sometimes I think I want another beer, but start to get sleepy about half way through.  With a 7oz bottle half the beer is pretty much the whole thing.  Plus you can do that cool trick from the Warriors.  The bottles also make me feel gigantic in my admittedly tiny hands.  They would be a handy prop if your sexting girls pics of your dong, in the same way a quarter is a handy prop if selling a novelty Chia Pet on ebay, except of course the quarter would (secretly) be half size, giving the Chia Pet a cyclopean pussy-destroying appearance.

If it wasn’t clear in the last paragraph I really like this stuff.  It’s sweet, like Mickey’s sweet, with caramel notes, and it’s highly highly carbonated.  It’s kind of like beer flavored pop, with a healthy 5.5% ABV to get the job done.  The little 7oz bottles add to the “pop” aesthetic, and seem to improve the flavor psychologically. For whatever reason smaller portions seem to taste better. This is true with both the tiny corners on a Chicago cut thin crust pizza and with Shoenling’s Little Kings.  The smaller portions also ensure you never get bored with it.  I try so cop a similar philosophy with this blog: even if it’s not great at least it’s quick.  Whether you enjoy Little Kings, or this beer review they’re both over in about 5 minutes.

I can’t recommend Schoenling’s Little Kings enough.  It tastes good, especially in the groovy tiny bottles. If nothing else it’s a nice novelty “change of pace” beer for the seasoned drinker.  We live in a country that bought over five million copies of Pocket Full of Kryptonite, do your part and buy something better than that.      

Looks like Super Girl got kyrptonited.  Kind of conveniet that there were gym mats on hand.

        

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Miller Fortune

History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man..

Miller just introduced the newest member of the Miller Family:  Miller Fortune, a curious product to say the least.  When most people make a beer I assume they’re making a beer.  When one of the Big Two (MillerCoors & Anheuser-Busch/InBev) makes a beer is has to do with perceived trends, changing markets, and fads. What pray tell is the motive behind Miller Fortune?

Let’s breakdown the commercial:

A bunch of very chic and fashionable people are having the kind of swanky party you’ll never get invited to.  Everyone looks multiethnic and bored.  A low rent knock-off of Jason Statham approaches a hip looking 20-something male.

FakeJasonStatham:  You invited everyone over to watch Wrestlemania, but your telly [British slang] is on the fritz.  Fortune favors the bold.

No one else seems to hear or see Fake Jason Statham, like he’s an angel, or Al from Quantum Leap.  Around this point I notice that the apartment has leather curtains?  Also, Jason Statham imposter hands the dude a Fortune beer and the Wheel of Fortune Home Game.

Cut to: Everyone playing the Wheel of Fortune Home Game and drinking Miller Fortune out of rocks glasses(?).  They’re having a great time.  The dude will presumably get laid

I guess they wouldn’t be watching Wrestlemania or playing board games, but I really have no idea what hep people do for fun.  Clearly, I’m not in the demographic they’re shooting for.  I mean, other than the implication that the guy scores with a hot multi-ethnic chick I can honestly say there is nothing in the commercial that appeals to me, at all, which seems like a misstep on their part.  I drink a lot.

 

Horniness will always defeat reacism

And circle gets the square.  The answer to the question.  Miller’s not making a beer for people who already drink beer, even if they drink pretty much constantly.  Miller is making a beer for people who don’t drink beer yet.  Apparently, the market for liquor in this country growing, especially amongst young people.  Naturally, Miller wants in, so they’re trying to make a beer for hip young people whom would otherwise be drinking booze based drinks like vodka Redbulls or Malibu Rum.  To that end, they gave Miller Fortune a weird angular jetblack bottle, a Jason Stathame-esque narrator, and curiously suggest that it be served in a rocks glass. 

 

I was really relieved to see the whole bottle didn't fit in the rock glass.  If it held more than 12oz. it would mean I was drinking way more whiskey that I/d previously thought

As someone who is a decade past his early 20’s, it’s hard for me to judge how effective all this is going to be. Personally, I think if you wanted to be cool you’d rip a picture of John Wayne Gacy in half, show a beer-drinkin’ anthopomorphic crocodile doing tricks on a skateboard, or instead of kind-of, sort-of implying, that the dude drinking beer gets laid make it super obvious, like the girl is a MILF in a Cialis commercial.  Failing that, they should just do what I do: make fun of people who don’t drink beer.  Drinking beer doesn’t make me or anyone else cool, but not drinking beer makes you a dork.

 

Hitler was a teetotaler IRL 

While I might not know much about being cool, I like to think I know a thing or two about beer.  Miller Fortune tastes boozy, and at 7% alcohol it probably should.  This would seem to play into their previously discussed marketing strategy.  It’s a little bitter like a real beer, with a bit of caramel flavoring, but not a lot of either.  The strongest taste is the graininess you tend to expect from a Miller product.  It’s above average, but is it worth a hefty $12?  In a word: no.  In two words: no-no.  It’s definitely worth grabbing when the bar has a special on Miller Family buckets, but the price point pulls Miller Fortune off the bottomshelf and into direct competition with craft beers and imports.

 

THE ACE OF SPADES! THE ACE OF SPADES!

While Miller Fortune works decently well as a beer to get me drunk, it doesn’t make me feel any cooler or more likely to meet Jason Statham.  Which kind of cuts against their whole point, right?  While I am not cynical enough to suggest that Miller/Coors doesn’t care about the quality of their product; I would say that in this instance flavor definitely takes a backseat to marketing and demographic trends.  While Miller Fortuneis decidedly okay, it remains to be seen if Miller Fortune will be effective in convincing smarmy young people that they should shell out $12 a 12-pack to feel cool.  Only time will tell.

History has already made up its mind on hot ass multi-ethnic girls...

...but

DON'T FORGET THE JOKER!!!

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Stag Beer

St. Louis is famous for its giant arch, and not much else off the top of my head.  It’s a cool town though as long as you think industrial towns in the Midwest are cool.  I do.  I really don’t feel comfortable in places without shitty weather or the populace doesn't eat copious amounts of meat and drink a lot of beer.  To that end St. Louis has BBQ, Budweiser, and Stag Beer. 

 

The only beer endorsed by Mr. Magoo

Can't wait till "Lou" get naked

Stag is the second deer-themed beer it’s my privilege to review.  This time instead of concentrating on anthropomorphic deer on human felatio I thought I would move on to Stag films.  It may surprise those of you that grew up with full streaming bukkake videos on your phone, but time was, the only way for heterosexual men to watch porn was together at a “Stag Party.”  For my part I grew up in the VHS era, and free from the constraints of obtaining a film print, reel-to-reel projector, and movie screen a man could jack off by himself in the privacy of his own home; unless he were underage, which I certainly was.  When I was in Junior High the only way to watch porn movies was at someone’s house when his parents were out of town and his dad had some porno movies in the closet.  The movies were always a few years old, when the pubic aesthetics could best be described as “full monkey,” and were directed as though the single most erotic thing in the world was an extreme close-up of full penetration from like half-an-inch away.

It was like watching surgery

As to why Stag chose a name that may or may not call to mind the uncomfortable experience of getting all horned up in a room full of other dudes, the can offer some explanation, promising “golden quality since 1851,” which would mean that Stag Beer predates rudimentary motion pictures by about four decades, let alone movies where some chick and her horny roommate fuck the cable guy.  Further investigation reveals that that 1851 marks the foundation of Western Brewery, whom launched “Kaiser Beer” in the early 1890’s.  Kaiser Beer would go on to be Western’s flagship brand; however Americans began to grow weary of buying a beer named for a foreign despot so in 1907 they changed the name to “Stag Beer.”  Good thing too, because we fought two wars with the Savage Hun in the succeeding decades.  By the 1950’s Stag was available in 22 States and Western Brewery was the 11^th largest in the country, but it was not to last.  Nowadays Stag is pretty much only available in Missouri, Arkansas, and the parts of Illinois that aren’t anywhere near Chicago.  The purple Monopoly if you will.

 

Those motherfuckers...

As to the quality of the beer, Stag is pretty good.  It’s kind of grainy with some citrusiness to it, pretty typical of American beer.  It’s not very sugary, which is good.  Sweetness in cheap beer is usually a sign that they cut the beer with something that isn’t supposed to go in beer to save money.  On first sip I described Stag as watery, and it is, but not any waterier than your typical American beer.  Actually it seems worse than it is because it has a very mild aftertaste, mild to the point that I didn’t even notice it.  As a bottomshelf beer connoisseur I wasn’t prepared for my sip of beer to be the sum of my beer drinking experience.  Most cheap beers linger with an after-flavor akin to drinking Tang while chewing Altoids or vurping (vomit-burping), but Stag went down smooth and immediately disappeared like that Nigerian Prince I gave all my money to.  It’s like drinking beer as a goldfish.

 

That Nigerian Prince asshole spent all my money on snakes (like a fucking jerk)

What was I talking about again?  Oh right.  Stag beer.  It’s pretty good.  If you’re ever in the greater St. Louis area I recommend checking it out.  I guess you could just as easily try it out if you’re ever in Arkansas, but if you’re in Arkansas your first goal and top priority should probably be leaving Arkansas.  Nothing good has ever happened there. 

Actually some landmark events in the Civil Rights movement happened there, but that's kind of like crediting Chile for the death of Augusto Pinochet because I guess he died there.

Would you like to know more? Check out the Stag Beer official website. It's actually pretty good.  Kinda endearing to see so many people impassioned by their local beer. Speaking of... 

Would you like to know more? Check out this website for this giant can of Stag.

I like that it lists the volume in gallons

Bottomshelf Beer Review: Pruno AKA Prison Hooch

Jean-Claude Van Damme displaying the full range of his acting talents.

Homebrewing is all the rage right now amongst white people, so I thought I’d get involved bottomshelf style and make a little pruno; AKA prison hooch; AKA toilet wine.  Seeing as how pruno is typically made in prison it’s not that popular amongst white people, because we don’t go to jail, unless we’re poor.    Pruno might not be beer per se, but I’m trying to find the bottom of the bottomshelf and I’ve heard pruno described as a “vomit flavored wine cooler” so it probably comes pretty fucking close.

 

It was this or the doughnut scene from The Fly

In prison you can’t go down to the liquor store and get a can of fermented hops and barley courtesy of the G. Heileman Brewingcompany, so you have to make your booze yourself.  Only you probably can’t get hops and wheat so you have to ferment whatever is at hand.  Personally I used 6 oranges, a can of fruit cocktail, ketchup, half a lid of Tang, some moldy bread, and a plastic bag.  I didn’t ferment the bag but I thought I’d mention it because you’ll need one of those too.

First thing I did was peel off the stickers from the oranges.  My brother says the stickers are edible, and I do realize we’re making a drink in which one of the key ingredients is moldy bread.  Still, the thought of drinking something with a bunch of stickers floating in it disgusts me.  Then you put the oranges in your plastic bag, bucket, or whatever and mash the shit out of them.  If oranges aren’t available you can use apples, tomatoes, or just about any produce.  I’ve heard of people using potatoes or milk, but both of those greatly increase your odds of getting the shits.  Plus they sound disgusting.

 

ORANGE you glad you don't have to eat this sticker?! LOLOLOLOL!!!

Then you add a can of fruit cocktail, and moldy bread.  Brewers’ yeast is sure as shit contraband in prison so the moldy bread acts as source of yeast to consume the oranges, fruit cocktail, and/or what-have-you and turn it into alcohol.  Most recipes recommend stuffing the moldy bread in a sock so you don’t have to drink moldy bread, which is an admittedly sound idea considering the person who thought of it wasn’t smart enough to stay out of jail.  I shouldn't talk though, I gave the sock a squeeze to get the last bit pruno and a bunch of brown liquid squirted out and infected the rest of the batch with gross brownness.     

The 58th Heinz variety

Once you have everything in the bag you accelerate the fermentation process by mashing it all up real good and running your bag of garbage under a hot tap or putting it on the radiator.  When you get done heating it wrap the whole thing in a bedsheet or towel to trap the heat and incubate your concoction.  A couple of day later I added the half lid of Tang and couple of squirts of ketchup.  Why ketchup?  I have no idea.  Every pruno recipe I found contains ketchup so ketchup it is then.  I ran it under a hot tap and started playing the waiting game.

 

The waiting game is Super Breakout. It may also teach you how to break out of prison with only a ping-pong paddle

Most recipes say the process takes a little over a week.  For me it took at least a whole week longer.  During that time be sure to periodically reheat the bag and let out the gasses that build up during the fermentation process.   When the gas build-up started to slow down I filtered that shit through an old T-shirt and gave it a taste test.  I have to say…not bad.  I don’t really taste the alcohol, but at this point in my life I only notice the taste of alcohol in an abstract way.  I’m 90% sure there’s alcohol in straight whiskey but I’d be hard pressed to explain how I came to that conclusion.  It mostly tastes like a primitive mimosa, something a caveman would drink at brunch with his sabertoothed bacon and dinosaur eggs.  This is nowhere near as bad as a lot of the stuff I’ve ended up drinking during my research.

I did not see that coming at all.  I expected to find the bottom of the bottomshelf, and the pruno I made wasn’t that bad.  If I’m being honest though I have to say that fresh produce and other ingredients, when acquired legally, cost more way than it should to get drunk especially when you factor in time.  Time is one of the few things that isn’t scarce in prison, hence the phrase “doin’ time.”  In the real world it’s not really worth the effort.  All that being said, prison sounds a lot less bad than it did before, plus it would give me a chance to show off my full torso swastika tattoo.

When I was about 10 and I heard about "prison rape" I thought it sounded cool because I pictured situations similar to the one above. This was mostly based on my imprecise understanding of the word "rape," and my  utter failure to grasp the fact that prison is full of other dudes. 

Bottomshelf Beer: Bud Ice

Everything about this picture is great.  Worthy of it's own blogpost.

I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of time travel; Dr. Who, Back to the Future, and my desire to go back to the 1970’s and motorboat Pam Grier’s big black boobies.  Scientists have speculated that time travel would require the force of an exploding sun, but I managed to accomplish said feat with a twelve pack of the 1994 classic Bud Ice.  I might not have actually gone “back in time” per se, or I would have brought an iPad with me and made millions of dollars, but it doesn’t get more 1994 than Bud Ice. I was drinking history.  

I think this also sums things up pretty well

Other cultural milestones of 1994 included that whole John Bobbitt thing, that Tonya Harding thing, and that O.J. Simpson double homicide thing.  In music it was the high-watermark year for alternative, which was as popular and culturally relevant as it was ever going to get.  To drive the point home Kurt Cobain blew his fucking brains out.  In hip-hop Biggie, 2Pac, Nas, and Outkast all released groundbreaking albums.  At least that’s the way we tend to remember 1994.  The top ten singles for the year paint a different picture:

Hello Lisa Loeb's butt.

1. The Sign, Ace Of Base
2. I Swear, All-4-One
3. I'll Make Love to You, Boyz II Men
4. The Power of the Dream, Céline Dion
5. Hero, Mariah Carey
6. Stay (I Missed You), Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories
7. Breathe Again, Toni Braxton
8. All for Love, Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting
9. All That She Wants, Ace Of Base
10. Don't Turn Around, Ace Of Base

Barftastic.  The only thing I remember about any of these songs is how much I hated them, the rest I don’t even remember at all.  Gun to the head I would have guessed that Ace of Base had one top ten single.  Even the alternative radio of the day was polluted with plenty of multiplatinum selling, utterly forgettable, suicide-inducingly-awful bands like, Candlebox, Live, Collective Soul, Counting Crows, and  The fucking 4 Non-Blondes.  Keep in mind that 1994 was still sort of a banner year for alternative.  The Goo Goo Dolls lurked just around the corne,r and alternative rock’s musical equivalent to the Anti-Christ, Limp Bizkit, had already been born.  It was all downhill from there.

Even  this album cover makes me so fucking mad.

In 1994 Bud Ice was also everywhere, promoted heavily by Budweiser as they attempted to seize the high ground in the Ice Beer Wars. (See Milwaukee’s Best Ice for more info on the conflict.)  The multimillion dollar ad-campaign featured a singing penguin who murdered people for their Bud Ice.  At least I think that’s what they were going for.  Birds are scary, but a penguin can’t even fly in your mouth.  I guess most birds don’t actually fly in people’s mouths, nevertheless the thought terrifies me.  Anyway, even if the penguin was merely larcenous and not psychotic it was still kind of an odd choice for a marketing campaign.  

flightless bird; water-fowl; serial killer; spokesman

I was all but positive Bud Ice had been discontinued sometime in the last 20 years when I saw it at the liquor store.  Not wanting to pass up a relic from a bygone era I purchased some immediately.  An internet search revealed that it was Bud Ice Light, not Bud Ice which had been discontinued in 2010. One sip and I could tell why a beer once featured in the lesbian seduction scene in Bound (1996) had fallen so far out of the mainstream that I was all but sure of its extinction.  It tastes pretty much like Budweiser but boozier.  That’s not a good thing.  The shit’s bad.  I have no idea how or why Bud Ice was ever popular.

If I had a time machine I don’t think I’d stop myself from drinking Bud Ice, but I’d sure as shit buy some ranch sauce to go with the pizza rolls I had for dinner the other night.  I guess I’d probably kill Hitler to.  Bud Ice is about as low on my “time travel priorities” list as it is in real life.  I can only recommend Bud Ice to hardcore  bottomshelf completionists and 1994 enthusiasts.

Time travel often leads to The Nazis winning WWII, but I'd risk going back to 1994 for some P.B. Crisps.

Speaking of 1994 did you check out Tonya Harding's website out earlier?  I've seen "ate my balls" pages that were more up to date.

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Freedom Salute

What a country!

Freedom isn’t free.  The heaviest price for our freedom is paid by soldiers on the battlefield, but the most common price is probably abject stupidity, more accurately dealing with stupidity.  If Obama can run for President so can David Duke, and the dumbest people in the world will fill up the comments section of a New York Times article about the subject.  Alcohol isn’t any freer than freedom itself; fortunately Freedom Salute only costs a little over $4 at the local Walgreens.

 

Ben Franklin: patriot; philosopher; drunken pussy-hound

Our founding fathers understood the importance of ”the pursuit of happiness,” and if you’re not drinking you’re doing it wrong.  There are few freedoms I enjoy more than the freedom to get drunk on the cheap.  I guess I enjoy the freedom to vote too, but I only do that every couple of years and if I’m really being honest with myself it’s kind of a chore.  I know voting is more important than drinking, but if you look at the blood drenched years of prohibition or the whiskey rebellion the freedom to drink is a freedom we as a nation also take pretty fucking seriously.

FUN FACTS: in the U. S. women couldn't vote until 1920 and minorities were legally bared from voting in some states as late as 1965.  Actually come to think of it, those facts aren't very fun at all.

As I alluded to in the introduction, freedom has a price.  I am eternally thankful for those who pay it.  I’ve always been a big supporter of our Nation’s armed forces, and for their part Freedom Salute boasts that they donate a minimum of $25,000 dollars annually to Operation Homefront.  It sounds impressive until you consider the 8,000+ Walgreens stores selling four tallboys for $4 and some change.  By my math Walgreens would be coming out ahead even if they only sold one 4-pack per store per year.  Personally, I always throw in a few bucks when they ask me to make a donation at Petsmart, but I don’t make a big deal out of it.  Honesty, I always feel kind of embarrassed when the lesbian behind the counter thanks me for my meager $2 donation.  Still, there’s worse ways for Freedom Salute to spend the money, after all $25,000 can buy a lot of cocaine, er…some cocaine.  I don’t do drugs, but it sounds like a lot.

 

Some cocaine

Freedom Salute has that cheap rotten apple flavor, which I find hard to describe to people without beers like Camo Black Exxxtra or Gameday Ice in their taste lexicon.  I mean, I think I do a pretty good job describing it, but it’s like describing an orgasm to someone that’s never had one, only the opposite of that.  Gross sour apple is kind of its own branch on bottomshelf beer tree, and if you’ve never had any of its gut wrenching fruit you should consider yourself lucky.  Freedom Salute is probably one of the better examples of the genre, but that’s kind of like calling the principle from Ferris Bueller my second favorite child pornographer (after Gary Glitter.)  If you think it’s just a matter of personal preference and I’m being an asshole, just try some for yourself.  I fucking double dare you.

 

The Physical Challenge

In high school I had to write an essay on what freedom meant to me.  I got a C, mostly because I just kind of described the plot of First Blood Part II.  As for what Freedom Salute means to me, I’d say D to D minus.  They may take our lives but they’ll never take our Freedom Salute, unless they ask for it in which case I’ll give it away for free..er…for freedom!

They drew first bloood...not me.

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Boxer Lager

Now that's what I call marketing

In the Patrick Swayze classic Roadhouse, his character Dalton says, “no one ever wins a fight.”  A bit later in the film he wins a fight by ripping a dude’s fucking throat out, which kind of shits his point I guess; not just because he totally won the fight, but because he looked awesome doing it.  Preach all the pacifism you want, violence is entertaining.  Even In our “enlightened” modern society two dudes punching each other in the face AKA boxing is considered a sport that rakes in millions of dollars a year.  Not that they’ll need the money with Boxer Lager selling itself at “the lowest legal Price.”

 

"LET'S DRINK SOME FUCKING BEER!!!"

You read that right.  I guess in Canada they have laws about how cheap you can sell beers.  Not to get too political, but if laws like that are the price of free healthcare I’d rather fucking die of a treatable illness.  Cheaper beer and free healthcare impact the poorest people of our society the most.  America might have more bums than Canada, but at least they’re all sleeping drunk on the sidewalk most of the day.  Personally, I can’t think of anything scarier than a bunch of homeless dudes in peek physical condition, battle-hardened by the harsh Canadian winter; except maybe Freddy Krueger because he lives in your dreams.

 

I'd hit it, even if I was pretty sure it was Freddy disguised a a hot babe, which says nothing good about me.

I love the whole “lowest legal price” thing.  It’s like they’d give the shit away for free if it wasn’t for the fucking Mounties, and that “fuck you” attitude goes a long way with me.  The owners of Boxer Lager don’t “stick it to the man” by making esoteric beers for neck-bearded Sonic Youth fans, they just make the cheapest beer they can legally sell and put it in a 36-pack.  A fucking 36-pack.  It’s a case of beer and a 12-pack at the same time, kind of like when you see an arcade machine that’s both Ms. Pacman and Galaga.  The only thing better than beer is more beer; and tits I guess.  Boxer Lager is Union made too, so somehow they manage to pay people a living wage, make a profit, and charge the lowest price in the British Commonwealth of Nations.  Also, Boxer Lager has what may be the best beer commercial ever.  It's "Simpsons parody of a beer commercial" good:

Fuck you Tim Burton.

On paper Boxer Lager should be one of my favorite bottomshelf beers, and if it would be if it wasn’t for the flavor.  It’s bad, like almost undrinkable bad even ice-cold.  It goes down sour with a sweet aftertaste.  Boxer Lager’s taste is like all of Tim Burton’s movies for the last 15 years: disappointing in every single way.  I wanted to like it, but it’s the flavor equivalent to Ape-raham Lincoln.  That being said, as disappointing as Boxer Lager may be, nothing about it feels like they pointed a camera at Johnny Depp and said, “act really fucking weird for the next two hours,” which is to say you can tell they’re not phoning it in.  Minhas brewery might not be making the best beer on the bottomshelf, but they really care about what they’re doing.  In that regard Boxer Lager is more like a David Lynch film:  I appreciate everything it’s going for, but Blue Velvet sucked.

 

Seeing Isabella Rossellini naked is almost as good as seeing Ingrid Bergman naked.

 You know what didn’t suck? Roadhouse.  The film did try to inject a nonviolent message into a movie about a philosophy major that beats people up for a living, but I think it worked.  Boxer Lager tries to be a high quality beer at the lowest price imaginable with mixed results.  At least they got the second half right, and it’s not like they go around killing people, at least as far as I know. 

A polar bear fell on me.