Lubelskie Brewery's Perla Pilsner

Allow me to precede this review with this disclaimer. I know it's only Thursday but I've had a hell of a week at work; IE i worked 19 hours yesterday, 16 before that and only 15 today, so when I cracked this cool baby open; immediately the beautiful aroma of choice hops and malts rushed to my nose and I almost cried. So this review might be a little higher due to my week, but I'll try to remain neutral.

So this stuff smells great; it brought a tear to my eye like when Malikili cried when his Rancor died at the hands of Luke Skywalker, but that dude was a puss-in-boots. It has a nice refreshing, mildly hoppy aroma that will tickle the nostrils. The taste is that of any pale lager, or pilsner. A little bitter on the taste, mostly due to it's 6.0% ABV. But it certainly doesn't smell or taste like a beer with an ABV that high. The taste of alcohol doesn't fester in your mouth like a rat in a corpse, but it does leave a nice, hoppy aftertaste that isn't too bitter or strong; Just right.

The brewery itself seemed pretty legit. They are the first brewery in Poland to receive the HACCP award which stands for "who the heck cares". It's some dingus award for not having glass and rat crap in the bottles. I mean, I'm glad its clean but I take that stuff for granted these days. It's from Lublin in Poland, which doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot to me but you gotta check out the label. It's got a goat boxing a hop plant. Vegas has odds on the goat 10:3.

The beer is pretty good. At 6.0% ABV it's stronger than most other Polish beers. You don't hardly notice the extra alcohol in the taste but will notice it when you dance. The bottle was $3 (500mL) so it wasn't too expensive. For a strong imported pilsner with no rat shit and can make ugly girls cute in 2 Liters when your on a budget? I think we have a winner!

Drinkability: 5/10

Taste: 5/10

Value: 7/10
Curb Appeal: 6/10

Overall: 5.8/10

Stone Pale Ale

Hailing from Escondido, North San Diego County, CA, Stone Brewing Co.'s flagship beer, their Pale Ale, is a mighty good beer. The original east coast deserter would probably be better at reviewing this one, but I lived in NorCal for three years so I have some experience with the left coast and feel somewhat qualified. I cracked this one open after a long day at work when I actually did work that day, and let me tell you, it was one hell of a treat. I wouldn't drink this out of a snifter, but the lovely odor coming out of the bottle was striking and I made sure to enjoy it before taking a sip. This is a Pale Ale, so its kind of bitter. Not bitter beer face bitter (F U Keystone), but deliciously hoppy bitter. Not nearly as hoppy as an IPA, but hoppy enough for an IPA fan like myself to enjoy. It ranks in at 41 IBUs. I read on wikipedia that the technical max for IBUs is 100, but that some brewers will try to brew beers that surpass 100. To do this, brewers sometimes use the tears from uber-bitter Penguins fans after the Pens lose a game 7 AT HOME to the Lightning in the playoffs. Or a single drop of saliva from Indians fans after the Tribe blew a 3-1 series lead to the Red Sox in the 2007 ALCS will do the trick. I STILL HATE YOU JOEL SKINNER!! WTF DIDN'T YOU SEND KENNY LOFTON HOME!?! MANNY WAS WALKING TO PICK UP THAT BALL!!!!!

Ahem.

Stone Pale Ale has the typical pale ale - hoppy beer taste, which leaves a nice flavor in your mouth. I wouldn't recommend having one with enchiladas though, which I did - la comida mexicana no va bien con esta cerveza. This is a beer meant for relaxing, sipping slow, and enjoying life. I would definitely drink one while watching someone's kid play T-ball. And at 5.4% ABV, it gives a nice buzz, if you are prone to buzzes after half a beer (guilty as charged). Plus, there is a gargoyle on the bottle, and who doesn't like gargoyles? At $10 a six pack, its a bit pricey, but I was able to pick up a single 12oz bottle at Whole Foods for $1.79, so I ain't complainin'. Overall though, great taste, great flavor, and one that I will be returning to on a regular basis.

Drinkability: 8/10
Taste : 9/10
Value: 6/10
Curb Appeal: 9/10

Overall: 8.0/10

Fischer Brewery's Amber Lager

This beer obviously appealed to me for the swing top cap and it's ABV (6.0%) however upon first smell, I was thinking "Why's this dingus beer smell like wine?" I took a sip and thought, "Why's this dingus beer taste like wine?" You know the old saying, "If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck; it's a duck." But this is still beer, just beer that tastes and smells like wine. Well, I mean it doesn't TASTE like wine, it tastes like beer, with wine in it. White wine! Also known as "the bad kind of wine". The "brewery" was founded in 1821 moved around to areas with better water and in 1986 it was bought by, you guessed it, Heineken. Heineken later said they were going to close the brewery and make this swill in some other brewery in the same shitty, i mean city. I have no qualms with France, I love their fries, but this is a tough pill to swallow. This is most definitely not a beer drinker's beer.

Like I said, it has the acrid taste and smell of a white wine. The taste seems slightly watered down and does not have a lasting taste in your mouth; which is actually the best thing about this beer. If the taste was lasting I might have to spill it out. I'm not saying this beer is horrible, it just does not, at all, appeal to my taste buds. It sort of reminded me of when my buddy made an Habanero IPA and it literally tasted like donkey dick soaked in pickle juice. I mean it isn't THAT bad obviously but I would NEVER buy this again.

If you like a winey taste to your beers this might be up your aisle. It still is very carbonated and a decent bargain, as I paid 4 bucks for a doubledeuce (22 oz'er) and, like I said, it's 6.0% ABV so it isn't like you should drink to of there and drive to your AA meeting.

Drinkability: 3/10
Taste : 3/10
Value: 5/10
Curb Appeal: 4/10

Overall: 3.8/10

Zywiec Group's Lezajsk Pale Lager

This is Lezajsk (pronounced: LAZER-jack) and is one of the breweries in the Zywiec Group, now owned by Heineken. This pale lager was named for the district in Poland, Lezajsk (which itself was named from its most popular resident, Pat Sajak, or Lezajsk in Polish). The 1525 date signifies that back in 1525 the king of Poland at the time,Pat Sajak's brother, Sigismund I the old (not made up) said it'd be rad if the district of Lezajsk has the exclusive brewer to the crown. The brewery today was established in 1978 when Led Zeppelin began recording "In Through the Out Door", though completely unrelated. This beer is pretty cool because the label on the neck says "Browar" which I can only assume is a bunch of guys with graphic t-shirt smothering each other into oblivion with hair gel.

The smell is light and not overbearing at all, like most European Pale Lagers. It has a nice crisp taste with a mild, delicate aftertaste; not bitter. It's pretty drinkable, but I couldn't see knocking back more than three of these in one sitting. I mean I definitely "could" but I mean, I'd probably get a little bored with it. I picked this 500mL bottle up for three bucks so it's not the cheapest beer in the world but has a crisp, refreshing taste and a ABV of 5.5% which is about half a percent higher than most European lagers, however, slightly below average than other Polish breweries. But man, like, can you remember when you used to drink Beast Ice and that taste horrible and only had 5.9% ABV? Progress; gotta love it!

But you can find better polish beers that are stronger and cheaper. Not a bad beer though.

Drinkability: 5/10
Taste : 5/10
Value: 5/10
Curb Appeal: 4/10

Overall: 4.8/10

Obolon Brewery's Lager

The Ukraine is WEAK! But this beer is actually alright. Obolon brewery, not to be confused with Obi-Wan Brewery, jumped started in, like, 1980, changed it name a few times and here they are. I sorta dig this brewery cuz they borrowed like 90 million dollars from banks to spread their booze and from what I read, the CEO, Oleksandr Slobodian (known to his friend's as 'The Original S.L.O.B.") dabbles in politics and I find it unlikely he's gonna pay these loans off; that's just my opinion though. Sidenote: They make this with rice. Scholars suggest it is done to break the Asian market.

This lager so looks like urine after you run like 10 miles but tastes and smells way better! A very mild smell and a bold taste that doesn't linger in your mouth for too long. It hits the stomach pretty well. Between you and me I wouldn't might slamming a bunch of these babies tailgating, it tastes that light. Like I could eat a million sausages and run around a parking lot totally hammered, accidentally bumping into cars, purposely bumping into cars, high-low a few people and run from the cops. It's 5.0% ABV (5.2% in the 'Kraine) and I paid like, $1.69 for 500mL which is just about the coolest thing I ever heard. I didn't even realize it was so cheap. Maybe that's why the Original S.L.O.B. is going broke, he can possible be making money on this!

Drinkability: 7/10

Taste: 6/10

Value: 7/10
Curb Appeal: 4/10

Overall: 6.0/10

Carolina Brewing Company Nut Brown Ale

Who knew that a beer could change world history? Well, this beer did. Within hours of enjoying my first Carolina Brewing Company Nut Brown Ale, Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had bitten the dust. Crazy. I never knew that this beer with its brown and nutty taste, 4.7% alcohol content, and stomach-filling ability could bring down global terrorists. That's a great marketing campaign - "Beer so good, terrorists DIE!" This brown ale left a sour, sticky taste in my mouth that lingered for a while, similar to the feeling you get after you brush your teeth (if it were beer-flavored toothpaste). It is brewed in Holly Springs, NC, and it just so happens that all of the NAVY SEALS that brought down Bin Laden hail from Holly Springs! I made that last part up, but if it were true, that would be one hell of a coincidence. I picked up one of these for the great price of FREE at a potluck dinner, which is a bargain, but I think they can be had for ~$9 a six pack, which is the typical price for a six-er of local beers. I don't know if I would buy it at the store, but next time I see it for free again, I'll be all over it. To conclude, if you see in the news soon that Muammar Gadhafi has been blown to smithereens, you'll know that I had just enjoyed another average Carolina Brewing Company Nut Brown Ale. USA! USA! USA!

Drinkability: 5/10

Taste: 5/10

Value: 4/10
Curb Appeal: 7/10 (+1 for being anti-terrorism)

Overall: 5.3/10

Rivertown Babbling Blonde

Rivertowne is a Pittsburgh-based brewery that has four brewpub and pourhouse locations in the greater Pittsburgh area. I've had the pleasure of getting drunk at their North Shore location before a Pitt game before, the food was solid, the atmosphere was fun, blah blah blah. But what happened on April 27, 2011 will not soon be forgotten. I was handed a bottle of Babbling Blonde, an allegedly crisp, malty ale, for consumption during a Pens playoff game. The superstitious idiot in me saw this as an ample opportunity to sway things in the Penguins direction, because it was from Pittsburgh, and I buy into shit like that quite often. What I experienced was 12 oz of disappointment and about as much effort put into the bottling of this beer as the Pirates put into a game on a mid-August afternoon.

Let me preface this by saying that this had to be some sort of bottling malfunction. The experience I had upon opening this bottle does in no way reflect the experience I had while boozing at one of their locations. I cracked the bottle open and smelled something that screamed "mow your lawn, deadbeat". It allegedly presents a light yellow to deep color and a mild malty flavor, something common for the American Blonde Ale. What I got after the first sip was a mouth explosion of foam that continued to spew from the bottle and my face all over the porch and front yard. I chalked it up to a prank, but after investigation, the beer was in the fridge for ample time to settle. I decided to pour it into a glass, like real beer snobs do, but the glass promptly filled with more foam (we're talkin about 5% beer to 95% head). The price runs about 24 bucks/case, which offers some value from a craft, especially at the 5.3% APV, but both of those are moot points when you just get blasted in the face with a bunch of foam. Rivertowne, I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. And we know that's way worse.

Drinkability: 0/10
Taste: 2/10
Value: 5/10
Curb Appeal: 0/10

Overall: It's less than a 1. I'm not going to bore you with decimal details.