Sum'r Ale (By Jason)

A couple weeks ago while out drinking with the wifey and a couple of friends, I, in my drunken state, agreed to do a blog swap with my buddy Jay. What got us to the point where we agreed to do this now alludes me. His blog is about kayaking and camping and is usually 5 longer then mine and my writing ability isn't all that great as I'm sure y'all have noticed. So here in the next couple days I will attempt my hand at writing a blog that is actually gonna take some time and whatever minute bit of writing talent I can conjure up. Well enough of my rambling here is Jay's review of the first organic beer I've ever actually seen...

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Hello to Howie's readers. All 3 of you.

I'd like to start by clarifying a few issues with Howie's introduction:

1)This "blog swap" was posed as a challenge. It wasn't simply a friendly offer, as if we were women trading brownie recipes. This was a request for a duel. A duel that I proudly accepted and am executing as we speak. (well, you're not speaking. Neither am I, I suppose. I'm typing. So my end of the dual is being executed as you do whatever it is you're doing at this moment and I type). The finished blogs will be judged and criticized by a jury of our Facebook friends and acquaintances, at which time a champion will be crowned. I plan to be that champion. And I expect a fucking crown. 

2)He's right. Mine is 5 longer "then" his. But this is no time to bring up the size of our junk. It has no place on a beer blog. 

3)In Howie's most recent beer blog, he labeled me a "grammar nazi". I would like to assure everyone reading this that I am not, nor have I ever been, affiliated with the Third Reich, grammatically or otherwise. I am part German, yes, but I have never had genocidal desires. 

With that out of the way, let's move on to the beer stuff...

I'll attempt to write the blog in the same format that Howie writes his own. Seeing as how his blogs take him 5 drunken minutes to write, I believe I'm up for the task. This should be like giving a calculus professor a basic kindergarten math quiz.  

I'll be reviewing an organic summer ale called Sum'r.   

I don't understand the trend of seasonal beers and I probably never will. Why would I want a beer in the summer and not desire that same beer in the winter? We're not talking about wardrobe here. It's beer. If it's good, it will always be good. I can't imagine someone sipping on a cold, delicious beer in February and saying "well, it's okay, but this would be much better if it were July".

Price: Who gives a shit? I didn't pay for it.
ABV: 4 FUCKING PERCENT. You have got to be fucking shitting me. There is literally more alcohol in my urine.
ABU: I don't know what ABU means. I googled it and found nothing related to beer. I did, however, find numerous other suggestions, such as Airman Battle Uniform, Atlantic Baptist University and Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union. I'll assume it means Allgemein bildender Unterricht. On that, I give it a solid 5 out of 100. Sieg Heil!

They seem to have misspelled "summer", which leads me to believe that Howie brewed this beer in his bathtub and printed out the labels himself. The clipart lounge chair logo, strange color choices and general lack of creativity lend credence to my theory. However, the fact that it's billed as "organic" makes me doubt myself. I'm not a damn dirty hippie and Howie knows this. I'm as drawn to organic products as bees are to mayonnaise... which is to say not at all. It could all just be a ploy to throw me off his scent, though. He's very, very sneaky. I once caught him kicking his golf ball out of the woods and claiming that it was on the fairway all along (true story). You have to watch out for this guy. Always be on your toes. 

Now comes the part where I pour the beer and, for some reason, tell you about the color, along with the properties of the foam the beer creates. How these traits are beneficial to beer drinking, I do not know. I've been drinking beer for a long time and I've never once turned away a beer because the head was too small or the color wasn't to my liking. Don't get me wrong, I've disliked many, many beers in my day. But the distaste didn't lie in the color or head of the beer. It lied, well, in the taste of the beer. As my 4-year-old says, here goes for nothin'...

The color is yellow, just like beer.   The head is white and foamy, just like beer. 

Alright, I was seriously expecting this beer to blow. Seeing as how Howie didn't even want to review this one, passing it off to me like a half-smoked cigarette, I didn't expect much.

I'm in no way a beer connoisseur, but the generic labeling on this bottle, along with the "organic" classification, certainly made me expect something much different. I'm not really sure what I expected, but it wasn't this. To be fair, though, I don't know the difference between "ales", "IPAs", "lagers", etc. I just know that I like watery, cheap, American beer, like Busch Light. Although this is not watery, nor cheap, I do still dig it. 

This is an extremely citrus-y beer. It's like a grapefruit just had sexual relations with my mouth and blew its acidic load all down my throat. As unpleasant as that may sound to you, I meant it in a good way. I'm a fan of grapefruit, and citrus in general. The beer is very light. It's not too filling or thick, like some of these citrus beers seem to be. I'm already on beer #2 and I feel like I could drink 10 of these. The problem I've found with these types of beverages, like Shock Top, is that I get through one beer and find my mouth getting kind of blegch (Look it up. That's a scientific term). This one doesn't seem to.... wait.... nevermind. I'm about halfway through beer #2 and the blegch is beginning. It's not that the beer doesn't taste good. That's not the issue. My problem with these damn fancy beers has never been the quality of the initial taste. It's always been the taste after I've had several. I equate it to rich food. You can take a bite of the most delicious cheesecake you've ever had and call it the champion of all cheesecakes, but give it a few more bites and you may change your mind. I have just changed my mind.     

The blegch has has fully enveloped my mouth and badly makes me want to brush my teeth. This is precisely the same feeling I get from all beers like this. Each sip makes it feel thicker and sweeter than it did the last time. These beers are meant to be consumed just one or two at a time. Any more than that, and the blegch sets in. 

Beer snobs love to look down upon our standard, cheap, American beers but I'll tell you this... there's a reason they're the best selling beers in the country. You can drink a dozen of them without your mouth feeling like you've been chewing on dirty underwear. That's the way my mouth feels now. Don't let your friends' mouths taste like underwear. Buy American!

I wanted to throw out some comments on the buzz factor but I was drinking many, many beers before I started this blog, so any influence these beers had on me was negligible. After all, it's only 4%. 

I'm sleepy. I think I'm gonna sleep now. Good ni...