With little going on, I ventured out to Friar Tuck to price check cherry juice, for the purpose of making a cherry wine. Why cherry wine? For cherry brandy.
I haven't been out in public much in the last two weeks, nor have I seen a friend in-person in a very long time. With that in mind, I had no idea what to expect when I went in. There were only two staff members in the whole place. The cherry juice was about 2 bucks more than what it costs online. I'll order it. I've got time.
Employee in the back of the store seemed nice and kept his distance as he attempted to help me find some sour beer. I settled on putting a sour beer into a mix pack and brought it up to the front.
The sour beer, a "Schlafly's from the Ibex Cellar: Sour Blonde Ale", was apparently shelved incorrectly and rang up as 6.99. Time to swap it out for something that can go in the mixpack. (Side note: What a name on that beer. I had to look it up just to get the order of the words correct.)
When I came back, I realized the only other customer in the store was waiting about 15 feet behind me. He was holding 6 bottles of wine and a large glass jar of orange juice and waiting for me. "Oh jesus, I am so sorry."
"It the fucking apocalypse. I wake up, I drink mimosas, I go for a walk, then I wait for tomorrow. You're not bothering me, I've got time. It's cool." Nice dude.
Get to the point, moron. I guess I'll review my mixpack in a series of posts. The rest of them won't be this needlessly long.
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Background:
Please consider that I am trying to calibrate the 100 scale to be similar to a school's grade breakdown. There are going to be some A's. There are also bound to be some Fs. Neither of the extremes are the expectation.
This is beer, so it takes a lot to alienate me fully. I'm not a drink snob, so I can see positives in a Keystone Light. Unless it's a lite beer with zero flavour that also did 9/11, I'm probably going to see a positive or two.
The way I review beer is admittedly dependent on how much I've had before I taste the beer. I did my part to not give a grumpy review and got 53% drunk before I poured this beer. Accordingly, it is possible that you, the reader, might believe I made an error in my judgments. Post a retort, you poopass.
Finally, I had my spouse or significant other pick the order for me to review the mixpack I purchased. This is an attempt to assure that my biases or assumed preferences won't have a chance to bloom.
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The scoring system:
- 10 points for the beauty of the pour. If this seems high, I don't know what to tell you. It's only 10% of the total. (Math!)
- 10 points for odor. Hard to lose many points here, but when they mess this up, they mess this up.
- 15 points for carbonation. The way it is canned or bottled matters. Disagree? Try Guinness from a can vs. Guinness from a bottle.
- 15 points for mouthfeel. Insert joke here. The totality of texture, which is dependent on density. Will also consider if it fits amongst the style it is supposed to be. I'm probably not the person to determine this but I'll try, I guess.
- 50 points for flavor. Listen, buddy: If it doesn't taste good for any reason, the beer isn't going to review well. Significant offenders: Yeastyness, sweetness, bitterness, and errors in brewing that cause undesirables like such as the pewp flavours (archaic chemistry term).
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Company: Birra Moretti
Name of beer: La Rossa Doppelbock
Origin: Italy
Founded by: Luigi Moretti
Bought out by: Heineken International, 1997
The review:
Beauty of Pour: 9 out of 10. It looks like the other doppelbocks I've had. Brown when held to the light, fairly dark when it's just sitting there. I ain't sexualizing it or nothin' but it looks pretty good.
Odor: 8 out of 10. It smells sweet, maybe a little too sweet. Like someone stirred sugar into the final product.
Carbonation: 10 out of 15. It's more flat than I expected. I dunno. Maybe that's the style and intentional? It is devoid of the reasonable effervescence of the doppelbocks I have had. It's not that it fully lacks carbonation (I mean look at the picture), it's just that it doesn't have carbonation throughout. The bubbles are all chilling up there on top and the rest if it is dead and flat.
Mouthfeel: 11 out of 15. Guys, I'm probably drunk. And I'm mildly offended by this beer's mouthfeel, but I cant articulate why I feel as such. It's oddly thin.
Flavor: 36 out of 50. Someone out there thinks this beer is great, I'm sure. It has all the things humans usually like: Alcohol, sweetness, and a distanced fondness for Italy. But it isn't my thing.
Complete score: 74 out of 100. I wouldn't buy it again, but it didn't make me puke. If you like doppelbocks, it might be worth your time. You got something else going on?
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