Brazil

We enjoyed our Brazil beer night, and our conversation might have gotten a tad sidetracked from time to time.

Palma Louca

Cory: This tastes like tonic water to me.  If I didn’t know I was drinking beer, I would think this was beer-flavored water.  But I’ll drink it because it I believe it has alcohol although the bottle doesn’t say it does.

Darin: Tastes like Corona with lime.  It’s not a bad beer.  I’ve had worse.  It’s got a really creamy after taste on the palate.  The color’s really light.  I wonder what it would look like in a clear glass.  I like the label.  I’m surprised how light and flavorless it is.  The more I drink it, the more I get that salty seltzer water flavor out of it.  Almost like a beer-flavored Perrier.  (That’s what I was saying.  Duh. CM)  After giving it a shake, it definitely brings out the seltzer flavor.  I think this would settle your tummy versus get you drunk.  This has gotta be the mildest beer we’ve had.  The more I drink this, the more I don’t think I would drink it again.

Cory: I don’t think so either.  But if someone gave it to me and I didn’t pay money for it, I’d probably drink it.  But would you think someone tampered with it if someone gave this to you?

Darin: If someone gave this beer to me and I took a sip, I would definitely look in the cooler they grabbed it from to see if there were other kinds of beer.  As it gets warmer, the flavor gets stronger, or maybe it’s just my dislike for it.

Cory: There’s 4.5% alcohol volume.  The website from the label has asses and the first sentence of the website talks about porn.  That’s why Brazil is leading the nation as far as forward-thinking.  Brazil invented Brazilian waxes, their cars run on ethanol, they have porn on their beer websites, and their beaches are nude.  Are they really nude or is that France?  Well, I’m sure no one would bat an eye at people walking around nude on their beaches.
  

Darin: Which makes me wonder, if they have nude beaches, are all the people hot?  Because they’re all running around naked or maybe they have a different definition of what hot is and they base hotness off of personality.  I considered going there once, but if the army is fighting the drug cartel in the streets with machine guns, maybe it’s not a tourist attraction to go to.

Cory: I feel like if I finish this last beer I might vomit.

Darin: That is why I chugged that last bit.  I thought to myself, how much Alka-Seltzer can you tolerate?  So I just chugged it.

Cory: So let me ask you this.  Drinking Alka-Seltzer or drinking cough medicine?  I’m so distracted by the taste in my mouth that I can’t even transcribe Darin's answer.  I feel like if I burp it might not just be burp. 

Darin: We were brutal to Belgium, we won’t be getting an invite to that country.

Cory: Have we ever been nice to a country?  There must be alcohol in this because I feel flushed.

 

XINGU Black Beer

Darin: Smell it.

Cory: I smell absolutely nothing when I smell it.

Darin: Pour it in a glass and get some head on it.

Cory: Holy moly, this is black.

Darin: I like the smell.  There’s no head on this.  I like it, it’s got a roasted flavor to it.  Not like roasted meat.  But more of a…I don’t know what this roasted flavor is.

Cory: It does taste like a black and tan.  I think I still have a lingering burp from the last beer and I don’t want to drink this too fast and have it come out as more than a burp.

Darin: I know what this is – malt.  Almost like a slightly burnt malty flavor to it.  I knew it would come to me if I just kept drinking it.  I think this has a berry flavor to it.  I’m thinking a slight flavor of currant with dehydrated pineapple.

Cory: You’re so full of shit.

Darin: You don’t taste that?  What do you taste?

Cory: (laughing)

Darin: Drink and inhale through your nose at the same time.

Cory: Yeah?

Darin: What did you taste?

Cory: Beer?

Darin: You don’t taste pineapple?  It is bitter, and I don’t know what the bitterness is from but it’s bitter, not like that black beer we drank that one time at Saint Stan's, but you drank it and I don’t know how you did it.  But that really says a lot about you.

Cory: I just spit all over my laptop.

Darin: When you inhale, even through your mouth, you don’t taste the berries?

Cory: (smelling and inhaling) No.

Darin: How is that possible?  Maybe I’m crazy.  Wait, I’ve figured it out.  I know what this tastes like.  Picture in your mind and in your taste buds, strawberries that have sat on the refrigerator shelf for too long, but you eat them anyways, that’s what this tastes like.  Like a stale crisper taste to it.  You’re probably too snooty to have ever had that.

Cory: Which was my next point.  Why would I eat strawberries that go south?  If I see them going south, they go in the trash.

Darin: Well if you had had them, maybe you’d be able to recognize this flavor.

Cory: There’s like zero head on this.

Darin: That’s what I said, it’s almost flat.  I mean you’re not gonna have a burping problem with this one.

Cory: I really don’t want to spill this on my white chair.  Since it has black in the name. 

Darin: You know what I was thinking?  It has an after taste on the palate, very much akin to, let’s just say, brandy that’s been marinated with Madagascar organic vanilla bean pods. (Clearly Darin might need to be cut off at this point)

Cory: Wait, what?

Darin: I hope you’re putting your own thoughts in here.

Cory: This is your own thoughts and I don’t even know how to spell Madagascar.  Okay so it has a marinated Madagascar organic vanilla bean pod flavor?

Darin: With a marinated brandy infusion!  Don’t forget the most important part.  Oh my God you’re kicking my ass now.

Cory: Because I like this beer and I didn’t like the last one.

Darin: Clearly this is much more drinkable for you.

Cory: This beer reminds me of sitting around the Pelican Inn drinking Guinness.  I can’t even spell my own name right, how am I supposed to describe beer?  Brazil’s been good ot me.  Brazil’s treated me much better than Belgium.

Darin: Me too.  I don’t know if I’d travel to Belgium after Brazil.  I like this much more than the other beer.

Cory: Yes, this is more our type of beer.

Darin: Did you see what Robert said we should get?  Like U13 or something? 

Cory: From Brazil?

Darin: No, it competes with that Austrian one we did with the high alcohol content or something.(Watching Cory's son flying the helicopter in the room)  How many other 4 year-olds do you know that drive a remote control helicopter like that?  Seriously, that’s awesome!

Tucker: That be cool?

Darin: Yeah, that’s awesome!

Cory: Is this our last beer?  Or do we have more?

Darin: This is our last one.

Cory: I wish we had more, I like this one.

Darin: This was a good beer, I’d definitely drink more, if it weren’t so pricey.

Cory: This is a good beer.  I wish we had more because if we had more of this we could be drinking all day.

Darin: Yes, this is much better than Alka-Seltzer beer, I don’t know what they were thinking.  Okay so lesson learned, Brazilian light beer, not the best. Brazilian Dark is pretty good and I would serve this. 

Cory: I think that sums us up.

Belgium

Honestly I don't remember what the beer bottles looked like, but I think we started with a gift pack. Cory was kind enough to take detailed notes on Belgium which is good because this beer night kicked my ass!

Here are Cory's notes for that night.

Belgium:

Dragon Beer: Pungent at first – sweet and made me gag.  After airing it and sipping for several minutes it was much more modest and almost tasted like caramel.  Darin thinks it smells like urine after you drink coffee.

Pirate Beer: Darin thinks it is mapley with a roasted flavor and black licorice.  I think it tastes like medicine and gives you a kick-back like after you take a shot.  It’s not as strong as the Dragon Beer, but still tastes like how old men in suits smell.  Tastes like burned black licorice.  Would not buy this.  Darin’s final comment was, “That was rough.”

Chimay Red: The Cadillac of beer?  Lighter than the last two.  Darin says it has a slight bitter hops aftertaste.  I think it tastes like autumn leaves.  Roasted malt of some sort, we don’t know what kind?  Kind of tastes like little pieces of straw sprouts.

Leute: Darin and I concur, it smells like after-puke.  I think the taste is subtle, however.  Darin thinks it’s floral or what a bed of flowers would taste like.  I think it smells like my dad after he rides horses, but it’s so subtle that it’s not offensive.  I like it and would definitely try it again.  So would Darin, after a turkey and bacon sandwich with cranberry sauce on a sour dough roll because he thinks the sour taste would go well with the throw up taste.

Augustin: Darin said it tastes like Cascade hops and white yeast.  I think it tastes like what Peet’s Coffee smells like when you first walk inside.  You can definitely taste the hops but it’s subtle.  It’s a lot more floral than the last beer.  You can really taste the bitter taste the hoppiness on the back-end of the pallet.  It’s not silky smooth but a nice taste. 

Augustin Blond Blonde: Citrusy, light, almost tastes like lime.  Darin thinks it tastes like a green hoppy flavor, not that he knows what that tastes like but it’s not roasted and it is hoppy.

Augustin Grand Cru: This one was lighter, easier to drink, citrusy, no throw-up after-taste, and we’d definitely drink it again.

Big Beer: (*note: This beer was a 750ml and we got the Abbey Tripel as suggested by the friendly neighborhood BevMo guy) Darin’s voice got deeper and he described it as a buttery beer.  Like buttermilk with lime.  I didn’t notice a change so perhaps it elevated the male testosterone level.

Austria

Samichlaus Ale
According to BevMo is listed in the Guinness "World Book of Records" as the strongest beer in the world!

I am pretty sure that Cory and I are in agreement on this one, it was super sweet in a sickening kind of way. It was like drinking some sort of cough syrup but not as tasty. Upside is the alcohol  content was 14%. I would not buy this again.




Stiegl Goldbrau Premium Lager

This is a simple lager and very light in taste, pretty much unremarkable in my view.








Zipfer Premium

First off this is a cool bottle, and I loved the hand feel. The beer was crisp, light, and had a nice tang or zip. I enjoyed drinking this beer and would buy it again.
 

Australia

For Australia we chose Mountain Goat Pale Ale, and Hightail Ale.

Two goats, no money but plenty of beer

Mountain Goat started out in Dave’s backyard in the early 90′s. Dave was cranking out homebrews almost every weekend when a postcard turned up from Cam (backpacking through Canada).

Cam was traveling OS after quitting his music industry job in Melbourne. “When I turned up in Vancouver a friend took me out to some local bars serving a host of local micro-brews on tap. I just suddenly got the picture and realized what Dave was striving for back home.

After two years of frantic product development in Dave’s backyard and a lot of red tape the first serious Mountain Goat beer was born. The Hightail Ale hit the shelves (well around three

So why Mountain Goat? Well, a mountain goat’s a big hairy animal that’s never gonna fall over.

http://www.goatbeer.com.au/

Darin's Review: I drank the Hightail Ale for this review, and Cory drank Pale Ale. First off, I would like to say the label on the bottle is part of the fun of this beer because they tell you how to pronounce the beer in "Australian". Cory and I had much fun making up Australian words and sayings while drinking this beer and I wish we had written them down so we could share the laughs. The Hightail Ale is an amber and had a very nice malt and floral hop flavor. I distinctly remember how the hops smelled of wild flowers from the fields when I was growing up.

Good beer, good company, good times.