This beer tastes like burning

The worst beer I ever had,

To my credit I have had a lot of really great beer in my life, perhaps enough good beer to fill a small swimming pool. However, I have also had my fair share of bad beer and some I would even call truly awful. Everyone has had bad beer before, running out of Anderson Valley in the middle of a beer pong tournament and having to switch to iron city, or getting to a frat party and asking if the keg is “natty ice,” only to learn that once I tasted it I would wish it was “natty ice.” But this is a little story about my gold medal of bad beers.

 

I was in Paris over Thanksgiving shopping at the monoprix, which for those of you who don’t know its basically the “target” of France. The beer selection everywhere in Paris is pedestrian at best otherwise I would talk about them more. All the standard 6 or 7 best known beers in Europe: Becks, Hieniken, Chimay, etc. are there. But one beer stood out. To call it the European colt 45 would be an insult to Billy D. Williams. For the life of me I don’t even remember what the name of this beer was, all I remember is that it came in a one liter can, it was 10% alcohol, it had a Viking of some sort on the front, and it cost just under two euros. I believe the beer was from Poland and, of course, I didn’t piece it together at that time that Vikings didn’t come from Poland. This should have been my first clue that nothing about the beer was as it should be. So in my infinite wisdom I, of course, picked this beverage over, say I nice bottle of red wine costing about the same. In my mind the “Great Beer Viking” had thrown down his giant Viking ax to challenge me and I was about to accept.

 

On the way home, I did a fast calculation in my head. One liter times 10%, then convert to ounces… that’s 4 ounces of pure alcohol or as I like to think of it seven or eight bud lights… maybe I should have gone with the red wine. Once again in my infinite wisdom I didn’t even bother to put anything in my empty stomach before I start drinking this thing, but I did take pictures.

 

So the first one is before I have taken the first drink and as you can see I look calm collected in control and most of all, it looks like I am having fun.

And in the second picture I still look like I am having fun but I assure you, I am not.

A picture is worth a thousand words and I think the third picture speaks for itself.

Where to begin with how this beer tasted? I’ll start if off by saying it had a very strong chemical taste. No taste of grains or hops what so ever, I wonder if yeast was used for fermentation or some surplus government mutation ray gun. The aftertaste was so strong I felt like I did a shot of paint thinner, then someone slapped me across the face, and then kicked my puppy. In my mind hop plants in Oregon are withering and dying, vast grain fields are burning in the Midwest, and Michael Jackson (God rest his soul) is turning over in his grave, yes my friends this beer is that bad.

 

I am very tempted to pour this thing out, especially when the girl I am staying with tells me to pour “that damn thing out.” But where I come from we have an old saying no soldier left behind, even when that soldier is liquid evil in a big black can with a Viking on the front. This beer had become my white whale. I don’t know how Moby Dick ends (it’s a very long book) but I am going to catch my white whale. And so over the next hour I finish drinking this thing. And with every sip my palette and brain say goodbye to the memories of drinking good beer. Good bye anchor steam liberty ale on a warm summer day, good bye Anderson valley winter solstice on Christmas Eve, good bye Rogue chocolate stout after finals, I don’t need any of you anymore.

 

And finally I make it to the last glass, which is the last picture.

I don’t know what more to say than at this point I felt both proud and ashamed of myself but mostly I just felt sick to my stomach and sleepy. The evening concluded when I tried to fall asleep and I was told that “I stunk like malt liquor” and I responded by saying, “while sweetheart I have been drinking malt liquor.” It was an interesting night that won’t soon be repeated and coming back to the Pacific Northwest and enjoying the cornucopia of wonderful beer we have here all I can say is that life is too short to drink bad beer. But if you have to drink bad beer you had might as well share the story. So feel free to share the story of your worse beer ever.

 

Final rating of Polish Viking beer: 3 out of 700