Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: St. Ides High Gravity Malt Liquor

“Beware the Ides of March” is about as sound advice as I’ve ever heard, but it’s that bullshit kind of advice that no one in mythology or Shakespearean plays ever heeds.  Should one also “beware the St. Ides of High Gravity Malt Liquor?”  That’s the question I’m going to attempt to answer, but based on conversations I’ve had with people that read my previous beer reviews (e.g. Big Flats 1901) the advice will go unheeded.   In fact it seems like the more I rip on a beer, the more people “just have to try it” for themselves.  Look, these reviews aren’t gospel or anything, but I drink a lot of this stuff so you don’t have to.  Do yourself a favor.

Heavy metal and Catholicism together at last

Speaking of gospel, I’m a practicing Catholic and I don’t remember very much about St. Ides.  I did a little research and I was literally shocked to discover that St. Ides was a real Saint from around 570 AD and not just made up by some ad execs.  St. Ides is credited with several miracles including the gift of prophecy and her feast day is the 15^th of January.  The Ides of January!  Actually the Ides of January falls on the 13^th, but still I think the prophecy angle and “Ides of January” thing ties in pretty well with the themes I established before I even looked at wikipedia.  What I still can’t figure out is what St. Ides has to do with High Gravity Malt Liquor or the big angry Rottweiler on the can.

Notice the infinity

The dog looks pretty angry.  Mad even.  I wonder if Pabst Brewery was trying to cash in on the Mad Dog 20/20 craze.  I don’t know if it’s a craze exactly, but when I went to a gas station in East St. Louis they had every flavor of Mad Dog a man could want (except for BLT flavor goddamnit!)  The Rottweiler has a can of St. Ides in his mouth, which unfortunately features the old St. Ides’ artwork.  I think it would have been pretty cool if the can in the dog’s mouth had a picture of a dog with a can in his mouth that had a picture of a dog with a can in his mouth and so on and so on to infinity.  The can also says “Hold It Down!” in big red letters with an exclamation point, which has to be one of the stupider catchphrases ascribed to a malt liquor, and that’s saying something.

Ice Cube would never sell out!

If you go to the St. Ides official webpage you won’t find a damn thing.  Either massive internet traffic overloaded the servers, or Pabst didn’t feel like spending the $20 a year in hosting fees.  Although, they have spent money promoting St. Ides in the past.  Over the years St. Ides has been endorsed by a number of famous rappers, including Ice Cube, 2Pac, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, the Wu-Tang Clan, the Notorious B.I.G., Eric B & Rakim, Cypress Hill, Method Man, Redman, and many more.   If they could get Ice Cube to give up Olde English for St. Ides this stuff must be really good, or maybe they just paid him a lot of money. 

In the movie Troy Rose Byrne played Briseis, cousin of Paris and Hector.  The next reference ties in with the classic Greek epic and not that terrible movie.

Beware of rappers bearing strange gifts.  St. Ides has kind of gross fruity smell.  One whiff and I immediately regretted buying a whole 4-pack of tall boys.  It tasted similar to Coqui 900 with a stronger fruit flavor, and a slighltly weaker greasy fried chicken aftertaste.  It tasted kind of gross even cold, but as it warmed up it got to be gag inducing.  Overall I think it tasted slightly better than Coqui 900, it certainly sat better.  I didn’t feel like I was going to puke when I got done.  It might not be that much better than Coqui, but at 8.2% ABV you don’t have to drink as much to get drunk.  It’s certainly head and shoulders above Steel Reserve and if I was a homeless wino St. Ides would definitely be my “high gravity” malt liquor of choice; however as a landowner I will never touch this shit again and I’m not looking forward to finishing what I have.

Now you know what happens when you google "sexy hobo"

As Nostradamus said, “the great one will cause it to be dragged in iron cage, when the German child will observe nothing.”  This is clearly a warning that Obama is the anti-Christ* and that you should also avoid the St. Ides of High Gravity Malt Liquor.  You probably won’t get stabbed by a bunch of dudes in togas, but after drinking St. Ides you might wish that you did.  Heed the words of the soothsayer (me) or you might get a really bad headache.

This image might not give you a headache but it's certainly kind of unsettling

*I’d like to welcome all the members of the John Birch Society that stumbled on my blog googling “Obama anti-Christ.”  Rest assured I hate commies too, and witches.  

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Olde English 800

If you don't feel like reading all this, you can check out the video version here.

I don’t know if you were aware, but it’s black history month.  In grammar school this was generally the time of year when I got to hear about George Washington Carver (he invented peanuts.)  I don’t know much about black history.  My knowledge of black culture pretty much begins and ends with old school rap, and back in the 90’s they rapped about malt liquor about as much as they rapped about getting hassled by The Man.  So I thought I’d celebrate black history month with a couple 40’s of Olde English 800.   

I see the liberal warning lights going off in your head.  “Isn’t saying black people like malt liquor a stereotype?”  I guess it would be if I said, “ALL black people liked malt liquor,” but I didn’t, so I guess that makes you the bigot.  You racist piece of shit.  Eazy-E liked Olde English 800 or “8-Ball” enough to write a song about it.   I think it’s safe to say that I’m not an expert on being black.  I’m a square white dude from the suburbs, and I wouldn’t even consider myself an expert on that.  Eazy-E might not be an expert either, but he was definitely black and he definitely liked Olde English (and pussy.)

“Police on my drawers and I have to pause.  40 ounce in my lap and it’s freezing my balls”

Eazy-E and the rest of N.W.A. might not speak for all black people, but I would argue that rap music from the early 90’s has done more to improve race relations in the last 20 year or so than anything else. The fact that a square like me includes “Straight Outta Compton” on his desert island top five list speaks for itself.  I grew up in the 90’s in what was, at the time, a lily-white suburb, and gangsta rap changed the way people dressed, talked and acted.  Rap probably made being black look cooler than anything since Dolemite.

"That rat-soup-eatin', insecure honky motherfucker!"

Now that I’ve spent three paragraphs explaining why it’s not racist to review Olde English as part of black history month I should probably get down to the meat and potatoes of the article, right?  I bought two 40’s for 2.59 each in Chicago.  For those of you that live somewhere else in the country you should know that in Chicago everything, from cigarettes to parking spaces, costs A LOT more than it does in the suburbs.  2.59 a pop is a pretty good price, especially when you take Chi-flation into account.  It’s marginally cheaper than your average six-pack, with higher alcohol content (5.9%.)  A good deal if I ever saw one.

It tastes pretty good.  Without a doubt it’s better than Gameday and Big Flats.  Not necessarily a big accomplishment, but certainly worth mentioning for comparison’s sake.  It goes down smooth with a sweet aftertaste.  You do get a slight hint of that cheap malt liquor aftertaste that lets you know they cut corners somewhere, but it’s mostly covered up by the sweetness.  Those snobby assholes on beeradvocate hate this stuff, and I’m going to just go ahead and call them racist.  To be fair, the title is a little misleading.  Olde and English are two of the top criteria for beer snobs.  They love beers with names like, “King Arthur’s Penis” and “Dumbledore’s Hat.”  Olde English 800 sounds like something right out of Canterbury Tales or The Silmarillion; two books that are know favorites amongst racist beer reviewers, along with the Turner Diaries. 

Typical beeradvocate user

Back to the beer: Eazy-E might not drink brass monkey, but I thought I should give it a whirl.  Afterall, the Beastie Boys wrote a song about it, how bad could it be?  Brass monkey, for those of you that aren’t street, is a cocktail made from Olde English and Sunny Delight.  Traditionally, you drink your 40 down to the top of the red label and fill it back to the top with Sunny D.  Then you roll it on the ground to get it good and mixed.  I tried it out and honestly, it tastes pretty damn good.  The sweet aftertaste is amplified, and the cheap taste is almost completely gone.  I don’t really go for fruit beer, but I liked brass monkey more than most (Cherry Wheat is fucking disgusting.)  It tastes sweet and citrusy, but it still tastes kind of like beer.  If that sounds like your think check it out, or if you’re trying to get your younger sister’s friends drunk, brass monkey could be a cheap alternative to a case of Mike’s Hard.

"Hey...ugh, you chicks wanna play spin the bottle?"

Olde English isn’t for everybody, but if you’re trying to get shitfaced on the cheap you could do a lot whole lot worse.  It tastes pretty good, and everyone from the Beastie Boys to Ice Cube likes it, so why don’t you?  Just remember to pour a little out for Easy-E.

Mel B is: olde (35,) English, and black.  This makes her perfect for this article

*UPDATE 2-27-13 VIDEO ADDED*