Friday, July 26, 2013

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.