Something Evil is Brewing

Hot days. Bright sun. Cold drinks. Bad taste.

Make that, BUD taste. Same difference, as we used to drool. Friends don’t let friends drink Bud, but we them drive drunk. At least that shows respect. And taste.

Exhibit One:

In April, Anheuser-Busch (BUD) launched Bud Light Lime Lime-A-Rita, a margarita-flavored beer-based cocktail with 8 percent alcohol by volume. —Business Week

Stop right there. What a bad idea. What’s the point of beer that tastes like anything other than beer? That’s just wrong, even if fruit-chewing craft brewers are springing up like toadstools — and can toadstool beer be far behind?

“Lima-a-Rita.” Despite the name and flavor, I suspect Belgians are behind this. You know, brewers of Stella Artwat, the perfect complementary beverage for truffles and breakfast crepes. Serve in a chilled stemmed glass on a doily. Ooh.

Okay. Exhibit Two:

There’s this peculiar Mexican/South American drink called a Michelada  that combines beer and tomato juice, served over ice and spiced with lime, salt, cilantro, WD40, seaweed, Old Spice, etc., and whatever else is available in the garage or medicine closet. So Budweiser brings out canned “Chelada,” a blend of Clamato (yes) and Bud (or Bud Lite for the dieting tasteless class).

I have never tried it, and I never will. So let me quote the review from beeradvocate:

“…nose (i.e. stench) offers budweiser, vegetable juice, salty low tide, decay, and unrealized dreams. truly unappetizing. judging from the aroma this might be appropriately served by the couple drowned in the ocean by leslie nielsen’s character in the creepshow – turning them into zombies covered in seaweed. maybe the taste will be an improvement.

sweet Jesus. oh momma. the taste! it’s hard to describe, this flavor. it’s like… if one were to drink V8, have a bud, chug down some sea water, eat clams, eat day-old roadkill, then vomit everything up and serve it in a pint glass. truly the most vile, nasty beverage – not merely beer, but BEVERAGE – i’ve ever had the misfortune to consume. can’t speak to the finish as my gag reflex kicked in; had to shove past my wife en route to the sink and violently expel the atrocity from my marred palate.

Aah. Poetry.

Budweiser is bad enough all by itself: you don’t need to mix anything in to make it thoroughly unpalatable. In fact, the best way to enjoy Bud is to pour it directly into the toilet, and crack yourself on the head with the bottle. The beer ends up where it’s heading anyway, and you save your body a lot of aches, farts, and cramps. Plus you get the headache for free.

Look, one more time. Beer is beer is beer. Beer should taste like beer. Stop fucking with it. You can’t improve it by changing what makes it what it is.

No, no, don’t thank me. Just buy me a beer.