Beer Review: St. Ides, patron saint of shockingly bad flavor
St. Ides, patron saint of shockingly bad flavor
Whoops! I’m a little late with my posts — didn’t realize how long it had been since my last Malt Liquor update (must be down to just a handful of brain cells left). I’ve also exhausted all the Malt Liquors at my local brew pit, so I’ve had a harder time getting new dreck to review. But I did get ahold of some St. Ides, from the 7-11 during a trip with the kids to buy a slurpee. (And boy was that awkward, putting both of those on the counter…)
After taste-testing six malt liquors in the past year, I thought I was able to handle the typical malt liquor. St. Ides didn’t at first appear to be anything special. But this is a malt brew full of surprises. And, needless to say, surprise is NOT what you want when it comes to beer this bad. At every turn, in all respects, I shamefully underestimated this dreck, and it made me pay for my miscalculation. Here’s the rundown:
*** Characteristic: Flavor
My expectation: “Probably terrible, but I’ve done terrible before… bring it on!”
Reality: “Oh my dear lord! We’ve hit an iceberg! We’re going down! Oh, the humanity!”
*** Characteristic: Intoxification-ness
My expectation: “I might be giggling a bit too much by the end, but I’ll be back to normal by bedtime”
Reality: “Ehhhh? … I’m only down about halfway, and I can’t see straight… my toes are numb… I can see through metal, I swear…”
*** Characteristic: Hangover
My expectation: “Eh, a little water before bed, and I’m fine.”
Reality: “Could someone turn down the throbbing in my arteries? I think I can hear my eyeballs moving in their sockets…”
Maybe for some reason I was caught off guard (did I give blood earlier? do I have a tapeworm?), but this 40 knocked me on my behind. It was just like high school all over again. Late that night I happened to catch a few minutes of the kid’s show “Oobi”, where all the characters consist of human hands with googly-eyes glued to the knuckles. That show is surreal sober, so you can imagine my discombobulation. So while I don’t have much remembrance of the flavor, quality, or other characteristics I usually use to judge the beer, I will give this one a rating of 2 beers as a reward for reminding me not to be complacent. I gotta start training better… where was that Rocky 8-track tape?