First, the Not So Awesome Brew…

Every month, a Not So Awesome Brew is featured as a baseline. After all, what is an Awesome Brew? Awesome compared to what? Compared to something like this:

Molson’s Golden, 5.0% ABV

This month’s not-so-awesome brew comes not from the United States, but from our neighbors to the north, Canada.  While Canadian brews got me through college, none of the ones imported to the States were awesome in any way, and this includes pretty much everything from Molson. Their flagship beer, Molson Golden, is a thoroughly uninspired blend of water, skunk, moose and Sasquatch.  Simply put, take all three of those animals, shave their hair off, dump that hair into a giant stainless steel vat with some fresh glacial melt-water, and you have something that not entirely doesn’t resemble Molson Golden, if not in taste, most definitely in smell.

There are few brews I’ve drunk that smelled as bad as this stuff (there are some… I’ll get to those in due time).  It was thoroughly skunked and I had to double-check the expiration date on the bottle to make sure it wasn’t far past due.  Smell aside, the taste is fairly uninspired, and tastes remarkably like absolutely every other American pale ale on the market.  The skunk creeps into the flavor, as does cheap barley and that’s it.  There’s nothing more in the flavor.  If you’re looking for a far better example of Canada’s legendary brewing skills, give anything by Driftwood, Unibroue, Half-Pints or Brasserie Dieu du Ciel a try.  Serve with poutine while watching reruns of Finding Bigfoot on Animal Planet.

And Now, the Awesome Brews…

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Goose Island’s 312 Urban Wheat Ale, 4.2% ABV

The first awesome brew this month hails from the windy city of Chicago.  I’ve had Goose Island beer before but had never seen this particular one sold in my region.  On my journey to Chicago, this stuff was all over the place.  Every restaurant and bar had it on tap, and after trying it out, I knew I needed to buy a case of it to haul back to Ohio for this review.  For the non phone-systems geeks out there, 312 is the original area code of Chicago, and like New Yorkers living in the 212 region, is something people are oddly proud of.

Goose 312 pours a murky orange and has a light, fizzy head. It’s referred to as an “urban wheat ale”, and honestly, I have no idea what the heck that means.  Maybe it means they only use wheat from the hood.  I don’t know.  It is a wheat beer though, which means it’s light and refreshing, but no slouch on flavor.  This is a beer you can drink several of in a night, like most American lite beers, but actually enjoy yourself drinking it glass after glass.  It has a slight citrus aroma and taste to it, which enhances it’s smoothness and easy drinking nature, but doesn’t make it feel like it’s a shandy.  Overall, a welcome example of how awesome “common-tap” beer can actually be.  I don’t know if you can get this stuff outside of Chicago, but if you can, put it on your summer ale hit-list.  Serve with Chicago style hot dogs (yellow mustard, white onion, neon-green sweet relish, dill pickle spear, tomato wedges, sport peppers and celery salt on a poppy seed bun) and a copy of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Jeppson’s Malört, 35.0% ABV

I don’t typically do hard liquor on Awesome Brews, but this stuff is too awesome not to be featured.  Jeppson’s is another find on my trip to Chicago.  It’s an old brew, that dates back to the 1930’s, and Chicago is one of the only places you can find this stuff.  Malört is a type of bäsk, which is essentially a Swedish schnapps.  Unlike most schnapps which are made from yummy things like blackberries, cinnamon or peppermint, Malört is made from wormwood.  So, that means this stuff tastes like Absinthe, right?  Heh, not exactly.

Another thing going on in the 30’s in this country, was nation-wide prohibition.  So how does a liquor such as this one survive a federal ban?  By convincing the authorities that it’s medicinal of course! This was something extremely difficult to do, but thankfully, the taste of Jeppson’s Malört is so god-awful vile, the feds were completely in the belief that nobody in their right mind would drink it recreationally.  See, Jeppson’s Malört is awesome not for it’s flavor, it’s awesome for it’s sheer brute power and uniqueness.

How can I describe the flavor?  Industrial strength Pine-Sol with just enough ammonia to be thoroughly unpleasant.  Add in enough crushed aspirin to give it a bitter afterglow with the power of a radioactive pile and you have Jeppson’s Malört.  The afterglow lingers for an eternity and no amount of other liquids can nullify it.  Not water, not beer, not Mountain Dew, not even milk.  Nothing.  While Absinthe is made with all the parts of wormwood that give it it’s pleasant green colored anise flavoring, this stuff is made from the crap left over.  In most cases, the strains of wormwood used to make Malört don’t even have the bits that make Absinthe drinkable.   As horrible as the taste is though, there is a certain spirit to this spirit that stands proud in the face of convention.  I’ll even dare say that after the second or third shot, this stuff begins to get entirely palatable.  If you fancy yourself with the gut of a viking warrior and want to try something unique and/or are looking to try a part of Chicago’s heritage, I honestly highly recommend it.  This stuff really is legendary and something tells me I’ll be through my bottle of it within a year.  Serve as a shot at room temperature along with a deep dish pizza, a copy of the Blues Brothers and a mighty willpower.

Some of the pictures taken for Awesome Brews were done by Diane Schuler of Schuler Photography