Gosser (Austria) 5.2%

Gosser (Austria) 5.2%

A creamy malty aroma that is a bit musty and has occasional hints of misplaced banana. Gold in a glass with a resilient head. The taste is fairly bitter, a little sour and just a little bit... cheesy. Gosser's taste reminds me more of a gluten free beer than a conventional beer. Hey, with food you may not even notice the weird taste and mouthfeel which is slightly drying. This beer does not taste good.

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.

Old Milwaukee - Silver Creek Brewery (USA - Pennsylvania - Latrobe)

Old Milwaukee - Silver Creek Brewery (USA - Pennsylvania - Latrobe) 5.0%

In the case of this inexpensive beer you get what you pay for: Old Milwaukee manages to combine blandness with sickening sweetness and some misplaced bitterness that hits on all the wrong notes. Gold in a glass. Not a good beer, avoid.

A Trio of Beers from China

This review of Chinese beers has something for everyone (sort of): a bad lager, an average lager and a really good lager.


Pearl River - Guangzhou Zhujiang Brewery (China) 5.3%

This beer pours crystal clear and bright gold in a glass. It has a strong hops and skunky aroma probably as a result of off-flavours caused by exposure to UV-B. Only lightly carbonated, quite sweet, lightly malty. A slightly different twist on an international lager: not as carbonated, not as malty, a little sweeter, and maybe more hoppy (or just more skunky). It is not bad but it is unremarkable, the only reason it is worth a try only is because it is from far away: pass.

Tsingtao (China) 5.0%

Skunky and sweet with an unpleasant scummy mouth feel. An uninteresting international lager.






Lucky Buddha - Cheerday Brewing (China) 4.8%

A sweet and dry hop aroma like that a Euro lager. Fully carbonated and leaves a good head that clings to the glass. A surprisingly fresh sweet malty taste, lightly hoppy and with some very light fruit tones of melon, banana and maybe citrus. Not very bitter; a pleasant malty aftertaste that doesn't fade too quickly. A slightly pale gold in a glass with a slightly brown hue.

I did not expect great things from this beer except that I'd get to keep the awesome bottle (it's really cool) but it is a very nice lager: refreshing and interesting.

Bavaria Beers (no not Bavarian Beers)

There is a brewery by the name of Bavaria and it makes three kinds of beer, puts their beer into 500 ml cans, and ships these cans to New Brunswick. You can buy them for less than $3.50. Two are of the three are pretty good and one is terrible. Read on to find out which!

Bavaria 8.6 Original (Netherlands) 7.9%

A deep gold colour in a glass. This beer has a sweet, apple aroma, somewhat like a white wine or a cider. Tastes like a pleasantly malty lager though sweet and with more than a touch of apple. The flavour can be a touch cloying and has a bitter touch with an alcohol bite in the aftertaste; considering it is nearly 8% ABV, the flavour isn't too strong by any means. Bavaria 8.6 Original manages to strike an interesting balance by having a beer with a high alcohol content but doesn't taste like something you'd only ever drink when you were sixteen (I'm looking at you Colt .45). If you are after a beer that can pass as a lager and get you drunk in a hurry this one is for you.

Bavaria Light (Netherlands) 4.0%

A yellow gold colour in a glass. Malty, slightly roasty and somewhat sweet: almost with a touch of honey. A little watery; maybe a touch hoppy. Pretty good for a light lager. Overall not a bad choice if light beer is your thing but you might as well go domestic or, even better, for a beer other than a light lager!

Bavaria 8.6 Red (Netherlands) 7.5%

An apple juice aroma. Tastes very sweet and a lot like apple: an unbelievably sweet taste. Reddish orange in a glass almost like fruit punch. Tastes a lot like sherry actually, and not the expensive stuff; the stuff teenagers get drunk on and the rest of us cook with. A little roasty, not much of an alcohol taste at all. Actually, there is an alcohol taste to this beer but you have to be willing to drink this syrupy swill fast enough to taste it. To be frank, saying it tastes like anything other than sugar is misleading. Unless sugary and gross is a beer type I am not familiar with this is a terrible beer. So if you aren't as obsessed as I am with trying & reviewing every beer you can get your hands on - skip this beer! It's just awful.

A Selection of Beers From the Aass Brewery in Drammen, Norway

Aass Bayer 3.4%

A delicious dark tasting beer with hints of coffee, chocolate and maybe even wood (oak?). Predictably dark in a glass.

18.50 NKR for a 330ml bottle.


Aass Bayer Uten 0.6%

This a dark alcohol free beer, it's chocolaty and ever so slightly bitter - like dark chocolate - but it tastes as though something is missing from its pallet. This isn't a trait of good alcohol free beers of which there are a surprising number in Norway.

7.90 NKR for a 330ml bottle.

Aass Lettol 2.1%

A delightfully fruity and light beer, a hint of bitter in the tast but a refreshing and clean aftertaste. Full carbonation.

8.90 NKR for a 330ml bottle
Aass Original Pilsner 3.4%

This is another good beer from a really good brewery. A sparks filled burst of flowery flavour (almost like a spontaneous fermentation beer) with a bitter aftertaste. Very clear yellow colour - surprising for a beer with so much unfiltered flavour.

15.50 NKR for a 330ml bottle.
Aass Sommerol (summer beer) 4.7%

Tasty but tastes like a watered down version of the delicious Aass original pilsner: a little fruity sort of like a spontaneous fermentation beer. Maybe that's what they mean by a 'Summer Beer'? Has a flowery flavour as well, but overall quite mellow.

Last and least ...

Aass Vorterol 0.0%

There is a cute brown bear on the label ... and it tastes like bear fur may have been used in the production of this gross beer. I'm going to have to try this again because I love everything else this brewery makes that I've tasted. It tastes musty and TOO sweet as if it has been sweetened with artificial sweeteners. The taste is sort of like a restaurant with poor ventalation and a lot of examples of taxidermy. It is dark and has a thick foam ... it's really gross.

(Blech!)