Pacifico Clara (Mexico)

Pacifico Clara (Mexico) 4.6%

Light tasting except it is quite bitter for such a light tasting beer. A little bit malty but in general quite light tasting. In short, it's very light tasting!

Schooner -Oland (Canada)

Schooner - Oland (Canada) 5.0%


A little maltier than most lagers, but really similar to the rest. It has a fuller flavour but is still pretty ordinary but it is a good enough beer, fine for those that just want a lager but still want some depth of flavour. In Schooner's case the depth comes in its maltier body.

Brava - Labatt (Canada) 4.9%

Brava - Labatt (Canada) 4.9%

Pale gold in a glass with a frothy head and decent lacing. Creamy, malty, white bread, sweet aroma. Sugary sweet taste, very thin mouthfeel, lightly skunky; barely hopped and somewhat malty. A pretty standard international lager by a mega-brewery. Not worth a beer geek's time.

Molson Canadian Wheat (Canada) 4.5%

Molson Canadian Wheat (Canada) 4.5%

Pale, slightly cloudy gold colour in a glass but with a bit of a brownish hue and a big white head. The aroma is a little like a wheat but with a skunky, disappointingly weak malt aroma.

The taste is disappointing also: there is a bit of sweetness and a vague bit of wheat flavour but it tastes mostly like someone poured three drops of a Hoegaarden into a Molson Canadian.  I had high hopes for this beer because megabreweries have been making efforts to crack the craft beer market and Molson Canadian Wheat's back label even includes the proper wheat beer instructions on the back (pour most of it into a glass, swirl and then pour the rest). However I was disappointed. Save yourself $12.78 and don't pick up a 6-pack of Molson Wheat, it's not terrible but it's not much of a wheat beer.

Bud Light Platinum 6.0%

Bud Light Platinum 6.0%

Super pale in a glass with a foamy quick fading head. Now when I say Bud Light Platinum is pale in a glass I mean really pale, unnaturally pale. There are plenty of white wines darker than this beer. It's the colour of watered down draft. A lightly malty, white bread, barely hopped aroma with just a touch of alcohol.

What a weird flavour: it's pretty sweet but only barely, barely malty and in way that reminds me again of white bread. The alcohol comes through quite clearly and makes this taste even less like a beer. It honestly reminds me quite a bit of a vodka cooler, you know those wobbly pops that has 6 or 7% alcohol content and are a mixture of food colouring  fruit flavours and vodka? Bud Light Platinum drinks like a non-alcoholic beer that somebody spiked with liquor.

As bad as this beer is (and in case I wasn't clear enough above, I do think it is bad) it's is entirely what I expected. They're starting with Bud Light after all and as the saying goes: garbage in, garbage out. I'm just glad I was able to buy a 355 ml single instead of having to buy a six pack. While I am not a fan of it either, even Budweiser Shot is better than Bud Light Platinum because it has a least a little bit of flavour to carry the higher alcohol content a little better. If forced to choose between Bud Light and Bud Light Platinum I might choose Bud Light Platinum in the hopes that the higher alcohol would numb me to the lousy flavour. All that being said Bud Light Platinum is not undrinkable but there are SO many better beers out there why bother with this one?

On a positive note, I like the aluminum bottle for a number of reasons: it protects the beer completely from light, it is lighter than a glass bottle, it is more easily recycled than glass, I see no particular reason the bottle couldn't be reused for homebrew and no more crying over spilt beer if you drop a six pack on the way out of the store although with Bud Light Platinum not drinking it wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Tennent's Original Export Lager (Scotland) 5.0%

Tennent's Original Export Lager (Scotland) 5.0%

A pale gold colour in a glass with lacing actually. Creamy sweet malty aroma with a the barest touch of dry hops. Light malty and sweet taste but with a bitter finish not much of an aftertaste - a touch of durum semolina (the main ingredient in pasta).  Overall Tennent's is a pretty innocuous ale, so I can see why it is popular in pubs: it is not bad but not really much there.

Saigon Export - Sabeco (Vietnam) 4.9%

Saigon Export - Sabeco (Vietnam) 4.9%

A malty, slightly musty with a dry hop flavour a little like a Euro Lager but slightly thicker on the tongue. An unremarkable international lager but hey, it's from Vietnam!

Rolling Rock (USA - Missouri)

Rolling Rock (USA - Missouri) 4.5%

A lightly sweet, lightly malty creamy aroma. A gold in a glass that is just a shade pale. A light malty taste with just a bit of a creamy mouthfeel. The barest hint of hops but the beer is mostly quite sweet. I have found in the past that when I have had Rolling Rock in the United States it is slightly nutty but the version Canada (read: brewed by Labatt) there is no such nuttiness. An acceptable beer, but I really prefer the American version which (unless I've imagined the nuttiness) makes it more of a mild English Pale Ale.

Euro Lagers - Part 5: The Rest

Being the truly universal beer, lagers are produced in just about every country of the world. In this final part of my five part Euro Lager Saga (tm) I present six Euro Lagers from five countries in Europe not known for their beer production. Although their countries of origin may not be known for their beers and Euro Lagers are not the most titillating style, the last three are actually quite good (especially Kronenbourg 1664)!

Zubr (Poland) 5.6%

Dark yellow gold. Tastes of musty melon, it is sweet and not bitter. Somewhat unusual taste for a lager. Great copy-writing on the back label and a really cool bottle cap.

Viru (Estonia) 5.0%

Gold is a glass. Malty and fairly bitter for a lager - somewhat musty tasting. Thicker on flavour than a typical international lager but bland compared to any other style. The bottle is really cool though, and I quite like the bottle cap.

Peroni (Italy) 5.1%

Smells a little bit malty. Really carbonated and tastes of... barely anything. A little malty, barely hopped at all. If you want your beer to taste like nothing at all this beer is for you... or if you just want its cool bottle cap. Otherwise I would suggest you save yourself for a beer with a flavour.

Birra Moretti (Italy) 4.6%

A dry hoppy, slightly malty aroma. Gold in a glass. Quite a malty flavour with sweetness and toasted bread as well as a hint of caramel and all balanced out by lightly dry hops flavour - not very bitter but just bitter enough to make Birra Moretti work. A very nice Euro lager when it is all said and done.

Mythos (Greece) 4.7%

Quite skunky aroma - likely due to the light green bottle and UVB. A dry, light hops aroma typical of Euro lagers; a little musty perhaps due to age. The taste is mostly of that same dry hops flavour, though in Mythos it is bordering on wood tones with a hint of smoke. A bit of a tang and some spicy also from the hops. Lightly malty and probably more bitter than sweet. All in all, not a bad beer it's quite refreshing because it is dry rather than sweet and would probably pair well with spicy foods and lots of other kinds of fare. A fine Euro lager. Pale gold in a glass with a good head of foam.

Kronenbourg 1664 (France - Strasbourg) 5.0%

A sweet malty aroma with a touch of dry hops bitterness and a fairly strong banana and white grape juice smell too. More flavour to this beer than I expected from a Euro lager: it is still predominantly sweet malt but with a few lightly roasty hints and a bit of dry hops, but also plenty of that same white grape juice and some perfumy herbal characteristics make Kronenburg 1664 much more complicated than other Euro lagers. My refrigerator can be a little cool for ales and higher alcohol beers but the low temperature suits a lager like Kronenbourg 1664 just fine. I don't suggest giving it a few minutes to warm up. Gold in a glass with a good head and nice lacing. I was actually worried it might be flat when I opened it not much gas escaped when I cracked open the can. However, that was only because the can was very full (I might have an extra 5 ml) so there was very little room for gas to accumulate.

 In case you missed it, here are the earlier Parts to this Euro Lager Saga:

Euro Lagers - Part 1: The Czech Republic
Euro Lagers - Part 2: Scandinavia
Euro Lagers - Part 3: Germany
Euro Lagers - Part 4: Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria

Budweiser Shot 7.0%

Budweiser Shot 7.0%

It looks like Bud (gold in a glass), smells like bud (slightly skunky, vaguely malty) and tastes like Bud (sweet, a little skunky, malty; maybe a little more malty) but with an alcohol burn. It comes in a four-pack of mini-cans.

Interestingly, to me anyway, there is actually less total alcohol in a 236 ml can of Budweiser Shot (16.52 ml pure alcohol) than there is in regular 355 ml 5% Budweiser (17.75 ml pure alcohol). Though you can still drink this stuff much more quickly and therefore get drunker. Also they seem designed to sneak into places being pocket-sized and sporting a sharp looking black colour scheme. All in all, if you are a Bud fan and want to get wasted... well, this Bud's for you.

International Lagers From Around the World

International lagers are a constant in the world: travel nearly anywhere in world and someone (seemingly often owned by InBev) will be brewing a bland, yellow, fizzy beer. In this post I review four of them all of which except for Polar Bear are available in beer stores pretty much everywhere.
Cheers!


Sol (Mexico) 4.5%

Gold in a glass. Smells quite malty, a little skunky probably because the clear bottle doesn't protect the beer from sunlight like a brown bottle would. Taste is very mild, quite sweet, fairly malty. Essentially no aftertaste.  A nice bottle cap and label. If you are just looking for something yellow, fizzy, refreshing with very little flavor Sol beer does the trick. On the other hand if you are looking for a beer with an interesting flavour look elsewhere.


Red Stripe (Jamaica) 4.7%

Sweet, not very bitter. Not as carbonated as most international lagers, smoothly malty and with a slight metallic and umami finish. Not much to it but a distinctive bottle. Because of this bottle and especially the country of origin I'm always disappointed when I remember Red Stripe isn't a ginger beer, oh well.



 Sapporo (Japan) 5.0%

A very light gold colour in a glass, this Japanese beer (brewed in Guelph, Ontario) is very, very light tasting. Slightly malty, slightly hoppy aroma. Slightly malty flavour but it somehow manages to not come across as watery, which is nice. Eminently drinkable: you could pound back a ton of these with ease and I'm sure it would go with just about any type of food because it's so bland. Sapporo must be popular with Japanese salary-men as it makes such a nice after work beer because it's so refreshing. However, there just isn't much to Sapporo other than being yellow and fizzy: a typical international lager but a good one if that's all you are looking for. The can is also really cool with a raised logo and Japanese characters stamped into the side of it.


  Polar Bear (Iceland) 4.7%

A really normal international lager: not overly malty, sweet or bitter. Distinctly indistinct.

Land Shark Lager - Margaritaville Brewing (Jacksonville, Florida)

Land Shark Lager - Margaritaville Brewing (Jacksonville, Florida) 4.7%

Light, malty, sweet. Not much too it but very drinkable. Quite refreshing and more than a little reminiscent of MGD. Perfect for patio drinking on a summer day or wishing for summer in the middle of winter.

Even better when watching Major League Baseball's Opening Night in Miami!

Kingfisher (India) 4.8%

Very pale gold. Malty, bitter and little bit skunky: very lightly flavoured. This bottle might have been a little stale. Regardless, the beer is really quite bland so it is easy to drink but not palate cleansing-ly refreshing per se.

But on the plus side Kingfisher is from India and has a beautiful bottlecap.

Grans Brewery from Norway

Grans BARE (Norway) 4.7%

Initially the taste was overwhelmingly sour and the beer smelled a little like toasted bread. Many of Grans's beers tend to be sour, in fact the only one that seems to be well balanced is the Lettøl and their stronger Yule Beer . It is amber yet very clear in a glass. It is mildly malty and, this may be all psychological due to the clear glass bottle (rare in Norwegian beers), the minimalist label, and the crystal clear beer itself, but it tastes clear somehow: only a few flavours are pronounced and the rest stays in the background. It's an interesting beer to try if only because the brewer seemed to have accomplished what they were aiming for: a mild beer with only a few clearly distinguishable flavours.

Grans Fri (Norway) 0.0%

Skunky and slightly bitter, a lot like the Grans Lettol but sweeter and slightly wooden, all in all not a bad alcohol free beer.

Grans Premium (Norway) 4.7%

Almost no taste at all to this beer. Lightly carbonated, if you really work at it you can suss up a mild lager flavour. Quite bland for a 4.7% ABV beer but at least it is poundable - you can drink lots of them but this is an otherwise unremarkable beer.