The problem with silly beer

As ever, Boak and Bailey have been writing posts that are well worth reading, one of which ties in nicely with a personal experience of mine. Their post on silly beer, aka 'high concept' beers, is great and makes some very good points on the values of experimentation and the importance of breweries taking risks.I totally agree, but a beer I tried recently definitely shows the other side of the argument, and how bad experimentation can be.

I was drinking in the truly excellent Exmouth Arms in London (more on that to come) with an old friend recently and as the early afternoon turned into evening and we were still ploughing through the beers our eyes began to wander to the bigger, more unusual bottles of beer stacked up at the top of fridge. Isn't that always the case?

After a few truly excellent beers, Stone Old Guardian and Schneider Weisse Nelson Sauvin spring to mind, we decided to give the weirdest beer in the fridge a go, Rogue/Voodoo Donut Maple Bacon beer (brewed in collaboration with Voodoo Donut who featured on Man vs Food). It's a mental looking bottle of hot bright pink paint and it's brewed to taste of a maple bacon donut, how bad can it be?

The answer, if you haven't already guessed, is very, very bad. Genuinely, truly disgusting. Unbelievably sickly sweet, as thick as syrup and with a cheap, nasty fake maple flavour like the pots of syrup you get from McDonalds. No bitterness to speak of and very little flavour reminiscent of beer, it wasn't even smokey, I really don't know who could enjoy it.

The worst part? I've got a bomber at home which I purchased in New York. More fool me.

 

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