Entries by Mark Stevens

I sometimes feel like the prodigal son when I’m out in the pubs or at my local beer warehouse, pulling down bottles of every strange brew I’ve never before sampled. After all the sampling, and all the experimenting, I often find myself coming home and popping open a bottle of a tried and true favorite masterpiece. Such is the case with Anchor Liberty Ale.

I’ve been drinking a fair amount of Abita beer over the last month or two. I’m trying to identify a house signature while at the same time becoming familiar with the entire Abita family of beers. It’s not that I find Abita particularly fascinating — I don’t, mostly because their beers tend towards lighter bodied brews than I usually prefer, but I enjoy the tasting challenges anyway. My latest foray into the Abita product line is Purple Haze.

While sharing his wisdom on life with Bart one day, Homer Simpson told his son to never be afraid of weasling out of things. “It’s what separates men from animals…except for weasels.” he said. I couldn’t agree more, and while I’ve been weasling out of finishing up with my tasting notes on the Abita product line, I’m finally figuring that maybe I should be un-weasel like today and pop open a cool Abita Amber and see how it stacks up against the rest of the Abita stable of brews.

Beer is beer, and wine is wine, but what the heck are we supposed to make of cider? Cider tasting might actually have more in common with wine tasting, but wine people don’t seem to want to adopt it as their own, and so it’s become something of a step-child to beer aficionados.

Spaten Ur-Oktoberfest is one of the finest amber lagers that you can buy. Taste a bottle and I think you’ll agree.

Looking for something with a nice, malty, nutty flavor but that’s not too strong? Paulaner Oktoberfest Marzen might be the brew for you!

Superior is not among my favorite Mexican beers, and I can’t say that I’ve ever gone out of my way to buy it before. I don’t avoid it either.

Negra Modelo is one of the richest tasting, most robust beers in Mexico. A complex beer, redolent with caramel and chocolate flavors from the malt, the beer is perfectly balanced with a bit of spiciness or nuttiness in the hop aspects of its flavor profile.

Light and spritzy with just the barest hint of grassy hops and a very slight tingly mineral scent that’s probably from the carbonation (carbonic acid). Generally clean with nothing offensive, but neither is there anything enticing.

A lot of folks who either don’t know much about beer, or who don’t care much about flavor or the quality of what goes into their mouths, seem to have stuffed the ballot box so to speak, with dozens of glowing reviews of what is, in fact, one of the worst beers brewed in Mexico.

This is a very light-bodied American style pale lager (an offshoot of the pilsner style). This is, in my view, probably the blandest, least interesting style of beer on the market, although it probably accounts for 90% of beer sales in the U.S.

Aventinus is one of the biggest, boldest, baddest wheat beers to ever come out of Germany — here’s why…

St.Arnold Christmas Ale is sweet and soft, but generally uninspired and it shows some oddities. Here’s why I’d pass on it and wait for better Christmas brews…

If you’ve got a hankering for a bold sweet malty brew with a flavor bigger than the Lone Star State itself, head on over to Shiner Winter Ale country!

One of the most pitiful excuses for “beer” ever to disgrace the shelves of a liquor store. Recognized as hazardous substance in some states.