Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Old Style Light

"What do...you MEAN I can't buy Cheetos with...foooood STAMPS?!?"

I do most of my grocery shopping at Fairplay.  It’s closer than Jewel, cheaper than Jewel, and they have better meat and produce.  The only thing I don’t like is all the weirdos that shop there: Polish mental patients, toothless hillrods, and fat chicks in zebra print spandex.  It’s like a 2,000 Maniacs cast reunion crossed with cousin Balki crossed with a gas leak.  Anyway, a little over a week ago I was shopping at Fairplay and won the beer lottery (see previous post.)  I figured I’d take full advantage of the situation and knock out reviews of Old Style and Old Style Light for pennies on the dollar.  I grabbed my beer and made my way to the checkout.  I was pretty excited by my purchase and even more excited by the teenage boy bagging my groceries. 

The important thing to remember when seducing a teenage boy is to

     

                             

                                           and then make him promise not to tell anyone or you’ll murder his whole family.

Back to the subject at hand: Old Stlye Light.  Since my last post a couple weeks ago, a rumor has floated around that Old Style might be ending their long partnership with the Chicago Cubs to divert those advertising dollars towards promoting Old Style Light.  I read an article on the subject in the Associated Press and it was clearly written by a chick.  Observe:

“Some of the so-called bleacher bums stop drinking it [Old Style] only long enough to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch…”

Does she really need to wear cleats?

Really?  I thought they stopped serving beer in the seventh inning in every major league ballpark.  How the fuck do the “so-called bleacher bums” keep drinking after the seventh-inning stretch if they stop selling beer?  It gets better:

“…Fred Kist, a 59-year-old suburban Chicago resident who grew up an Ernie Banks home run away from the park…”

That sentence fragment makes even less in the context it was written in.  I had to read that sentence twice before I could suss out that Fred Kist lived in Wrigleyville.  The author was so desperate to cram her article full of bullshit baseball references that it didn’t make any fucking sense.  Is Fred Kist the subject or is Ernie Banks?  Are we talking about homeruns or where the gentleman lives?  No one talks like that.

Other than Old Style, the only thing I like about the Chicago Cubs

I saw this movie in the theater

The rest of the article is laced with baseball references as subtle as Dennis Rodman’s basketball jokes in Double Team, without any of the deep belly laughs that are so often associated with the witty dialog in a Jean-Claude Van Damme film.  As far as the rumor goes, it seems to be just that, a rumor.  And judging by the anger of the “so-called bleacher bums” in the article it would also probably be a stupid idea to sacrifice a partnership Cub fans hold as dear as Ron Santo’s wooden leg (see what I did there?) just to promote Old Style Light.

Personally, I was not looking forward to reviewing Old Style Light.  As a general rule I find that light beer tastes like a hot fart mixed with seltzer water, and typically, the best light beers don’t taste like anything.  Old Style Light is different, because Old Style Light actually tastes good.  It’s without a doubt the best light beer I’ve ever had.  I’m just as surprised as anyone else.  It’s 30 calories and five carbs lighter than your standard Old Style, and still tastes kind of like Old Style.  To be sure I’d still rather have the original, but if you’re on a diet I would definitely recommend Old Style Light, lest you end up as fat as Carlos Zambrano’s disgusting head.

I found a really bad photo of Zambrano, but I got too disgusted to post it.  Here's Karen Gillan.

 In the end, I’m shocked how much I ended up enjoying Old Style Light.  If you ever go to Fairplay looking for a high quality light beer, I’d say pick some up.  Just try not to make eye contact with anyone, or the other customers will think you’re putting a hex on them and murder you.   But while you’re there, if you happen to see a boy with bad skin and an overbite bagging your groceries tell him I said, “hi,” and “Dan wants his Metallica shirt back.”

Now that's what I call an old style light.  Get it!?  It's a light for the old fashioned Game Boys.  It wouldn't even fit on the 3DS.  I slay me.

Here's a picture I never found room for in my last two posts.

  

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Old Style

Halle Berry is 45.  It's not that old, but if you're 45 and you don't look like her I bet you feel like shit right now

I’ve always been kind of hesitant to review Old Style, mostly because it’s one of the few bottomshelf beers that I really enjoy drinking.  You see, most bottomshelf beers fall into two categories: bad and not that bad.  Old Style fits into the tiny third category: cheap beers that I really like. After this review there’s one less beer for me to look forward to.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a cold twelver of Buck Range Light as much as the next idiot, but it’s not exactly my favorite beer in the history of beer.

Swing and a miss!

The other problem with reviewing Old Style is all the Cubbie shit.  Look, I try not to be a hater, but I’m a diehard White Sox fan and it’s embarrassing to be drinking “the official beer of the Chicago Cubs” when I’m watching the Sox game at a bar.  To make matters worse, during baseball season the bottles have a plastic label that covers the entire bottle and makes it look like a Chicago Cub’s baseball bat (interestingly enough it still has a normal bottle cap and not a cork.  Fuck you Sammy Sosa!)  To compound this problem the label is really hard to get off, even if you try to slice it with your keys.  When you finally do get it off you feel kind of cool, like bootlegger drinking out of an unlabeled bottle.  That feeling quickly fades when you realize that no one gives a shit that you peeled the label off and now you have a handful of shredded plastic in front of you on the bar.

I don't agree with your shirt, but will defend to the death your right to wear it exactly the way you're wearing it right now.

So why am I reviewing Old Style now?  Well for starters, most Cub fans I know are more annoyed with the team than I’ve ever been in my entire life, and with their season all but over I don’t feel like I’m betraying my team in any way.  More importantly, there was a coupon at my local grocery store for a five dollar rebate for every case of Old Style I bought.  After rebate that’s $8 a case which translates to 33 cents a can.  It’s like I won the beer lottery.  And what will I do with my newfound fortune?  Spoiler alert: Get drunk.  

"I've got a golden ticket."

Sweet home Chicago

Back when I was a kid Old Style was the biggest beer in Chicago, and at its height the G. Heileman Brewing Company was the third biggest brewer in America right behind Anheuser-Busch and Miller.  In 1991 the company was sold to Stroh’s and then Pabst .  When PBR took off with the hipster crowd, Pabst decided to relaunch Old Style.  As part of this process they changed the artwork on the can to some bullshit brick wall, which kind of sucks.  Old Style used to have a sweet wrap around graphic of Old-Timey folks making beer that had a frog hidden in the artwork.  They also changed the formula and “authentically kraeusened” the beer, which near as I can tell from the commercials has something to do with bad Improv:

Dipshit:  If I was going to kreausen the parking meters in Chicago I would make them talk like Ron Santo when you parked your car.

Retard:  If I was going to kreausen the parking meters in Chicago I would have them dispense deep dish pizza every time you put money in.

Waka! Waka! Waka!

Hilarious.  Typically the commercials are three or four “jokes” longer.  If that wasn’t bad enough they only have like two of those commercials on the air at a time, which means that during a single baseball game you’ll hear the same hackney bullshit 7 or 8 times.  Improv is at its best live and even then it’s usually more impressive than funny.  And since radio waves are transmitted into the infinity of space, you can’t help but worry that some alien race might hear that cromedy and blow up our fucking planet.

Hideki Matsui meet Matt Suhey

Bad Improv is to comedy what juvenile AIDS is to the human race, so if I can get past that Old Style must be pretty good.  It goes down smooth with just a hint of bitterness that lets you know it’s a real beer.  It’s got a lot of flavor for a bottomshelf beer, and for once that’s a good thing.  It completely lacks the cheap-beer-poo aftertaste, and while it doesn’t taste good warm it doesn’t become non-potable at 5 degrees above freezing.  It used to be sold in 30 packs, but those have gone the way of the white running back and barefoot kicker.  It’s now most commonly sold in 24 packs, but for some reason I can’t quite explain, I think it tastes better out of a tall boy.

I guess that’s one more good beer down, and very few left to go.  I’m kind of sad to be done reviewing Old Style already, but hey, it’s not every day you win the beer lottery.  Right now I’m like the Scrooge McDuck of cheap beer and I’m going to celebrate by swimming in beers.  Do yourself a favor and get some Old Style for yourself.   

Duck Tales! Waahoo-ooo!

They have a pretty good website.  They even let you “kreausen” your own personal webpage with annoying flash animations.

Lacrosse Lager uses the old Old Style recipe and is brewed in the old Old Style brewery.  If you didn’t win the beer lottery it’s usually cheaper than Old Style so you might want to check it out.

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Big Flats 1901 Light

If there's something more American than a woman shooting fireworks out of her tits I don't want to hear about it

I first became aware of Big Flats 1901 Light at a 4^th of July party I threw at my house.  Two of my buddies showed up with 2 six packs of Big Flats 1901.  Typically if someone brings Big Flats 1901 to your house it can only mean one thing: they think you slept with their wife.  Fortunately, my friends aren’t married, so I parsed together that they meant to drink the “beer” themselves.  I lost the urge to vomit and breathed a sigh of relief.  And then it happened: Brian laughingly explained that they almost accidentally bought Big Flats Light and my heart sank.

Click the pic for boob bounce-age

Well…fuck.  So it’s come to this.  If Big Flats 1901 Light exists I’m going to have to drink it.  Shit, I hate light beer and I really hated Big Flats 1901.  Big Flats 1901 Light sounds like you’re multiplying zeroes.  Goddamnit.  Ugh… No good can come of this.  Well, that’s not completely true; after all, my initial review of Big Flats 1901 was pretty successful.  It was the first post that got over 100 hits in a single day, and it had an awesome picture of Katy Perry and her massive melon-heavy breasts bouncing all over the place.  That wasn’t so bad, and more importantly, if this review can prevent even one person from drinking Big Flats 1901 Light it will all be worth it.

…Or maybe not.  My friends are well familiar with my blog, and they no doubt thought it would be funny to bring 12 cans of Big Flats 1901 to my house.  Sure enough, after the party my more expensive beers were nearly gone, but I still had 12 cans of Big Flats 1901.  Fucking jerks.  And now I have an additional six cans of Big Flats Light.  The cans look a bit updated, with a trademark symbol next to the year 1901, as though the Brewmaster’s Choice Company now owned the rights to the year 1901 and anything that happened therein (e.g. the Royal Navy launching its first submarine, Bully!)  The can now includes a website: bigflats1901.com.  If you go to the website you might think Big Flats 1901 Light actually reads Big Flats 1998 Light because the website looks like a fucking geocities page.  Perhaps they did marketing research and found that most BFL drinkers still use a 56K modem.  The only thing missing was some stolen gifs from other websites and a screed about how anarchy would totally work if people just like ya’ know loved each other.

Big Flats 1901 Light smells like nothing.  It’s as odorless as iocane powder.  However, unlike iocane powder Big Flats Light is neither Australian or tasteless.  Oh and it looks like pee.  In fact I’ve set up a little test:

I had asparagus with dinner it fucking reeked

Now one jar is filled with urine and the other is full of Big Flats Light.  Which will you choose?

Hint: All you have to do is divine from what you know of me: am I the sort of man who would put the urine into my own jar or my enemy’s?

(Scroll down for answer)

If you chose A or B I hope you spent the last few years building up an immunity to the taste of urine because you just got a mouth full of the stuff.  INCONCEIVABLE!  If you chose to instead drink the can of BFL next to the jars of pee you have chosen wisely, I guess.  When compared to urine Big Flats Light is certainly marginally better.  It tastes like regular Big Flats mixed with seltzer water, which means that overall there’s less of that horrible disgusting Big Flats flavor, but it’s still there.  According to the Big Flats official website BFL has .3.9% ABV.  As you may have already noticed, the company’s official website has plenty of numbers with two decimal points.  I’m not a math major or anything but that doesn’t make goddamned sense.  You could chalk it up to a series of typos; except for the fact that the site also claims that Big Flats Light contains only 0.96 calories.  To put that number in perspective, Miller Lite has 96 calories and Keystone Light weighs in at 103.  I think their website is full of shit.  Nothing with so few calories could taste so shitty.

Katy Perry's finger on the other hand, apparently tastes great (click for the animation)

I’d be wary of any beer with such a crappy website, more to the point I’d be wary of any beer in the Big Flats family.  If you have to choose one I’d probably go with BFL, but that’s not saying much.  My taste buds hope this will be the last of that shit I ever have to drink, but knowing my friends that’s asking way too much.  

One more thing, speaking of big and flat is there anything in the world sadder than a fat girl with small tits?

To answer my own question: No.  So let's put that out of our minds with a picture of a skinny girl with big tits

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.  

Top 10 Video Game Movies: Part II

The long awaited sequel to my Top 10 Video Game Movies Part I.  Sorry about that, I've been working like crazy lately.

5. Streetfighter

Kylie Minogue, star of Streetfighter the Movie and many impure thoughts

I can still remember going to the movies to see Streetfighter and melting Starbursts on the theater’s floodlights while I waited for my mom to pick me up.  Streetfighter came out in 1994 which made me 11 years old, their target demographic: old enough to love violent action movies but too young to see rated R movies.  The fact that I saw this movie twice in the theater is all the move impressive considering I made like $5 a week at the time.  Years later I saw this movie for $5 on DVD and bought it for my future wife as part of her birthday present, she was less than thrilled.  Streetfighter is about Raul Julia trying to take over the world, leading a mercenary army of stupid henchmen.  The only man that thwart these dark designs is, you guessed it: Jean-Claude Van Damme.  Jean-Claude plays Guile: an American soldier with an American flag tattoo, and Jean-Claude speaks English like old people fuck.  It’s kind of a stretch.  The rest of the characters are taken from the 30 or so iterations of Street Fighter II, even Cammy (played by Kyle Minogue in some awesome short shorts) has a fairly sizable role.  My only real beef with the movie, once you get past all the stupid implausible parts was Blanka.  Blanka was always my favorite character; with his green skin, electricity, and ability to bite someone’s fucking face.  Blanka spends the entirety of Streetfighter watching a different movie on some VR goggles, which were all the rage at the time.  He doesn’t bite nary a face or even bust a bunch of barrels.  Lame.

Defender of world peace or as Guile would say, "whirl-ed piss."

4. Doom  

Second best actor from the WWF after Rowdy Roddy Piper

Why don’t they port Doom to the PSN and X-Box Live?  I don’t think it would be hard to do and I would totally buy it.  This has nothing to do with the movie, but goddamn I love that game.  I guess that’s part of the reason Doom the movie is so high on the list.  They do make some drastic and unnecessary changes to the plot of the game.  In the game, humans discover warp pads on one of the moons of Mars.  As humans experiment on these pads they accidentally open a gateway to hell.  A lone Space Marine must fight Cacodemons and save Earth.  The movie added a bunch of scientific gobblity gook in an attempt to make a sophisticated horror/action/sci-fi movie like Aliens.  They should have just stuck to the original plot (dudes killing hell monsters) and made a sweet straightforward action movie like Predator.  It was still a pretty sweet movie.

My favorite part of the movie

3.  Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

Different movie same idea

I decided when I started this list that I would include only one movie per franchise, lest the list fill up with Resident Evil movies.  Cradle of Life is better that the original Tomb Raider for a myriad of reasons.  The first of which being that Angelina Jolie doesn’t stuff her bra in this one.  I have no problem with actresses getting fake tits, but a padded bra?  How old are we? (Personally I haven’t stuffed my bra in years.) The first Tomb Raider movie included Lara Croft building and fighting robots in her own house for no goddamned reason while listening to one of U2’s worst songs.  Taking that into consideration the second movie still manages to be ten times sillier and therefore better.  Consider the part when Lara Croft gets trapped fathoms deep under the sea with no oxygen tank.  She does the only logical thing: cuts her hand to attract a CGI shark, punch said shark in the face and grab on to its dorsal fin as it races to the surface for some reason.  She doesn’t get the bends or anything.  Plot wise it’s pretty similar to the first movie; Jon Voight’s daughter must jet set around the globe with her huge boobies to find a magical treasure.  Shit writes itself.  Watch out for snakes.

If you don't want to see the movie after looking at this promo pic I guess I should mention that Gerrard Butler is also in the movie, because you probably aren't into the ladies.

2. Resident Evil

"Exactly what it looks like."

I describe this movie as “exactly what it looks like.”  Most people say to this, “well I think it looks stupid.”  You know what?  You’re stupid.  To me Resident Evil looks like a movie about a supermodel killing zombies, and I was not disappointed.  I never played any of the games, so I have no idea how close the movie follows the source material.  The plot was kind of convoluted and goofy, and Resident Evil is a Japanese game to it might be very similar.  On the other hand, there are no schoolgirls getting tortured to death by perverted old men so it might have nothing to do with its Japanese roots.  I had a tough time deciding which Resident Evil movie to put on this list.  In the end I decided to pick the one where Milla Jovovich shows her lady parts.  I’ve had a huge thing for her since I saw the Fifth Element in the theater at the age of 14, so I was able to get past her hospital gown and shaved head and concentrate on her nakedness.  That kind of mentality is what separates men and women, and separates Resident Evil from the other movies in the series.

This was the closest I ever came to buying a copy of Maxim

1. The Last Starfighter

The game that never was

I realize this movie wasn’t actually based on a video game, but it should have been.  The movie was practically a commercial for “The Last Starfighter Videogame.”  The credits even promised a forthcoming game produced by Atari.  Sadly, it never came to pass.  If you’ve never seen the film it’s about a guy in a trailer park that gets the all time high score on a spaceship arcade game, but it turns out that aliens made the game to find someone that could be a really kickass starfighter pilot.  Every nerd’s gamer’s fantasy, right?  The characters were great, especially Robert Preston as the Centuari; the guy who invented the videogame as a get rich quick scheme.  Lance Guest was also good as both the protagonist Alex, and the protagonist’s robot decoy.  The dialog was pretty awesome too:

When I saw this as a kid I was like, “holy shit that was awesome.”  Rewatching this movie in my late 20’s I concur with my earlier sentiment.  The movie also features some early CGI, alien bounty hunters (Sweet!) and flying cars.  A really enjoyed this movie. 

I guess that’s a pretty good way to wrap this list up, with a movie that isn’t actually based on a videogame.  But what does it all mean?  I guess if this list proves anything it proves that there’s a serious lack of good movies based on videogames.  If this list proves anything else I guess it proves that I’m a sucker for hot babes.  I mean, House of the Dead?  That movie sucked.  Oh well, back to the shitty beer.

Goddamn you House of the Dead, and your sexy ladies!