Abita Andy Gator

11% ABV on draught, so say the waitress though no place confirms this number

I lived high on the non-kosher hog this summer, abusing my mind and body on the weekends with villainous al-kee-hawl. I’m not a 19-year-old year old any more, that fact has become abundantly clear. Why is there no modern-day Carry Nation around to swing an ax at my pint glass to prevent me from imbibing?

Thus, I thought I’d make the first weekend after Labor Day into a teetotaler’s delight. Thought it might be fun to see what would happen to me after a weekend of sipping on ginger ales and Yoo-Hoo. How razor-sharp would my mind become? How much energy would I have? How taut of spectacle would my belly morph into? How easy would it be to pick up women?!

Ah fuck it, I’d popped my first brew by Friday at 8 PM.

After making my friends and I personas non grata at the inglorious Press Box last week, we had to find a new locale to watch college football on Saturday. Enter Mara’s Homemade, a Cajun juke joint owned by some real-life Looooo-see-anna natives, a husband and wife team whose alumni roots cause them to root for both LSU and OU and likewise have all their games on their sole flatscreen.

God must have been mad at all the sodomites, homosexuals, Jews, and/or sinners in New York, because he allowed his great flood waters to stretch up north our way over the weekend. By the time I’d sauntered into Mara’s at the 3:00 hour, my jeans were wet up to my knees like I’d been noodling for catfish all morning. Shoulda wore some capri pants. Those effete Euros sure know where it’s at.

After tripping the lights (and tipping the bottles) fantastic on Friday night, I truly did not want to drink on Saturday afternoon. But the sweet lady that owns Mara’s so convincingly convinced me that I had to. “You want a Hurricane, don’tcha, hon?” is what she said the second I slopped into the restaurant, my Nike Shox squirking like leaky galoshes. And though she asked a question and said it ever-so-sweetly with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eyes, I’ve never so much felt the peer pressure to order some booze. And let it be said, this lady was at least three decades from being my peer.

The Hurricane was exquisite and potent. I don’t know if the women intentionally hooked my sexy ass up or if Mara’s Hurricanes are just always so rummy. A part of me thinks it the latter. My career record with Hurricanes is a bad one as they have always lead to me doing something foolish and waking up the next morning in a pile of garbage, my first encounters with this devilish concoction dating back to New Year’s 2001 on Bourbon Street when I was only 21 and was drinking 64 ouncers at an unholy pace. I only had one of Mara’s though, so the aforementioned would not lead to the lattermentioned. It was a bit syrupy, as all Hurricanes are, and a second was simply not in the tarot cards.

I chilled for a bit then, munching on Mara’s food. It’s solid, good, if not a bit overpriced and non-plentiful. I will still hail the Delta Grill as the finest Cajun restaurant in Manhattan. But Mara’s is worthy and certainly worth visiting if you find yourself in the East Village. A quaint little place with just the absolute nicest people running it. However, I would highly suggest they offer some gameday deals and knock a buck or two off their across-the-board $7 (!) pints if they want more customers.

Look, you wanna know how to run a bar, Mara’s, get me to drink number four. That’s all you gots to do. Because if I order a fifth drink then I am hunkering down for the entire night. So charge me $5 for a pitcher of beer and then you can charge me $5 for beer #5, $6 for beer #6, and by beer numbers 10plus, I’ll probably give my ruined liver to have just a taste.

Mara’s has the full line of Abita brews, pretty much every major pop that overrated brewery makes on either tap or bottle, shipped north to NYC at a bit of premium from what I understand. Our oddly sexy, shorts-jumper-wearing waitress–the daughter of the owners perhaps–suggested Abita’s barleywine Andy Gator. From my steel trap memory I knew that beer got horrendous reviews online, but I love barleywines so I had to try it.

A few minutes later, a pint that was a watered-down pale golden color like a Miller Lite was set in front of me. “I ordered the barleywine actually,” I said, thinking a barleywine should be a ruby red/amber/dark purple color even.

“Oh, that’s the barleywine, hon.”

Odd.

I smelled it. No odor whatsoever. What barleywine has no smell? Stuff like Old Guardian or Fred is so potent in smell that its fumes are almost enough to get you loaded. Not so with Andy Gator.

The taste was even worse. Honestly, even from taste I could not identify it as a barleywine. It tasted…terrible. I had my friend call up the Beer Advocate reviews of Andy Gator because I was absolutely certain something was wrong. The tap lines had been crossed. Nope. Indeed Andy Gator is considered a barleywine and indeed it pours a light golden color.

I tasted absolutely no hops it in. Heck, I tasted absolutely nothing good it in. Very little flavors. Just harsh, bad alcohol. Tastes almost like a malt liquor. And a cheap one at that. Not Colt 45, more like Bum’s Bathwater fortified wine or something. A terrible beer. I could barely finish it.

The worst was the sweet old lady came by to ask my thoughts on her beloved Abita. I wish I could have said, “Wait for my review on theviceblog dot com on Monday!” but I couldn’t hide the obvious disgust on my face.

At the least, I can confirm that it may indeed be 11% percent because even after a day of stuffing my face with some crawfishy app (solid), fried okra (eh) and a catfish/oysters po’ boy (delish), I was kinda wobbly as I headed back into the Manhattan monsoon.

Abita, if you can’t compete with the big boys, don’t attempt something as ambitious as a barleywine. You’ve made the worst one I’ve ever had by an order of magnitude. And if I was the “Andy” this beer was named after, the gloves would be off.

D+

Hair of the Dog Fred

10% ABV bottle-conditioned

A quick-hitter today as I’m out of town for a wedding.  Splendid tales of vice to follow.

Hair of the Dog calls this a “golden special ale” but every one else classifies it as a barley wine and indeed it smells and tastes just like a good one.  No, a great one.  Immediate smell of apple cider upon my pour.  First taste floored me.  Right up my alley.  Just how I like a beer.  Incredibly strong and incredibly potent.  Almost like straight booze.  Flavors of Belgian candy and extreme hops with tons of yeast sediment.  Would love to taste this one aged.  A tad too astringent of finish and, whoa boy, glad I only had a 12 ouncer because I think a bomber would have Belushied me.  It’s not completely balanced either.  These are minor quibbles though.  This is probably the second best barley wine I’ve ever had after Stone Old Guardian.  A beaut.

A

Brooklyn Monster Ale

10.1% ABV bottle from 2007 (Beer Advocate lists the ABV as 11.8% but my bottle said 10.1%. Hmmm…?)

I still can’t believe that I didn’t realize that one of my favorite breweries, my “home” brewery no less, made my favorite style of beer, barley wine. I could understand if I’d never had it before, but how had I never even heard of it?! Any how, I found a six-pack this weekend and I jumped right on it, fully expecting a masterpiece. Unfortunately, that is not quite the case.

This is far too alcoholic for my tastes. I like high ABV beers with a lot of kick, but the alcoholic taste of this just isn’t well masked. Tastes of sherry, lotta hops, a little fruit, a little chocolate, and a sour finish. Great smell, but not very drinkable. Didn’t stop me from having four from the six-pack, but I would advise amateurs that they might enjoy this more as simply a single after-dinner dessert drink.

Only later did I learn that this wasn’t the kind of barley wine I’m used to. The kind that all my favorite American breweries make and that I adore, but rather Brooklyn Monster is an “English” barley wine. I’ve had countless American barley wines, but I think this is my first English. According to Beer Advocate:

English varieties are quite different from the American efforts, what sets them apart is usually the American versions are insanely hopped to make for a more bitter and hop flavored brew, typically using American high alpha oil hops. English version tend to be more rounded and balanced between malt and hops, with a slightly lower alcohol content, though this is not always the case.

Not what I found at all. I found Brooklyn Monster to be more potent in taste and far less rounded than American barley wines. This is decent and I will have it again, but I don’t find it world-class like, say, a Stone Old Guardian or a Great Divide Old Ruffian.

A-/B+

Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine Style Ale

11.26% ABV from a bomber (“limited early 2008 release”)

Any one who becomes known as a beer connoisseur—or a suppose a connoisseur of anything for that matter—will most frequently be asked to list their favorite(s) of whatever it is they lord a connoisseurship over. So the strip club connoisseur (read: your one asocial, sleazy, and most importantly lazy friend) gets asked to list his favorite peel joints across this great land, while someone like me is often asked what my favorite beer is. Most frequently to that question I answer Old Guardian. My favorite style of beer from my favorite American brewer. I’m not sure if it truly is my absolute favorite on all 365 days of the year, no matter the mood, but it’s certainly close. The thing is, though, that I intentionally avoid drinking this masterpiece 365 days a year, no matter the mood. That used to be unavoidable as it was pretty darn tough to even locate this bottling in New York City. I knew a few specialty beer stores that got Stone brewings (most usually Arrogant Bastard or their IPAs) but Old Guardian was rarely stocked. Thus, there was a time or two when I came upon a fresh shipment of the product and absolutely cleared a store out of bombers. (And do you know how hard it is to lug 12 bombers down a Manhattan sidewalk, clanking them around like you’ve stolen an alley’s bowling pins?!)

But, now, Old Guardian is fairly easy to find as most all Whole Foods have it at all times. So, now my rare drinking of the beer is done on purpose for, you see, I don’t want to ever not love this one. And, with my ever-present goal of trying as many different beers as possible, I often neglect to drink the ones that I’ve always loved, intentionally, and dumbly, avoiding them on the shelves. I probably hadn’t had an Old Guardian in a half-year or so when I saw it on the shelf and realized, It’s time again. A part of me is worried every single time that I retry an all-time favorite that it just won’t be the same. I simply won’t enjoy it as much. I’ll have somehow grown in my beer-drinking ways since my last sampling and realize a certain beer just ain’t what I used to think it was. I mean, my favorite movie used to be “Flight of the Navigator.” And then I turned 8. Therefore, I was a bit leery as I opened a gorgeous bottle of Old Guardian. Wow, my fears were quickly assuaged and I was taken to heaven. This beer is so potent and so tasty. It’s almost not like beer, more akin to a Sam Adam’s high ABV Utopia, though clearly not as intense. The orange and banana alcoholic taste shocks your tongue. You don’t take big gulps, just tiny little sips, savoring every single whiff and drink of this beauty. The flavor staying with you well after you put your beer back down. I like to stick my face completely into the glass as far as it will go and inhale this beer deeply for a good minute or so like I’m some sixteen-year-old redneck that stole a nitrous tank.

I wanted to time how long it would take to drink, to savor, an entire bomber of Old Guardian. I started the stopwatch at 9:18 PM and with the final sip I clicked it off. It was 11:15. A two-hour beer! In fact, a two hour high. It’s like floating on a cloud, not like getting wasted or fucked up as a bad macrobrew makes you feel. In fact, I didn’t even realize I was drunk until my friend came home and I started rambling on and on about how sorry I was that his favorite NBA team, the Spurs, had just lost their playoff series to the Lakers. Only then did I realize how wasted I was. Someone must have roofied my Old Guardian. Then again, funny thing, I was by myself all night. And, I haven’t roofied myself since freshman year. Nope, the beer had done it’s work. And I went to bed happy. I love you Old Guardian, see you again in October or so.

A+

Green Flash Barley Wine

10% ABV from a bomber.

Another beer from my recent Bowery Beer Room haul. My guy there, JT, unequivocally did not recommend it. I usually trust JT. You wouldn’t know it if you saw him—he’s a lithe, bookish fella that looks more like he should be working at a Barnes & Noble or in an university engineering department—but JT knows more about beer than any human being I have ever crossed paths with. In fact, he knows more about beer than the combined totals of every other beer drinker I know. It’s quite remarkable. I’ve never encountered a beer he hasn’t sampled in fact. When the hell is he doing all this drinking I wonder? It’s like when you found out Wilt Chamberlain had fucked 20,000 women. You did the math and by your calculations Wilt would need to be fucking a woman during every single second of the day to achieve such a prodigious number. Likewise, it would seem that JT should be drinking a beer every time I see him in order to have become such an expert. Alas, I’ve never seen him drink a beer once and he doesn’t even have anything close to a beer gut.

But, I digress. A few months ago JT had tipped me off to Green Flash’s IPA which he loved. I enjoyed it too but being more of a barley wine fan I was more interested in this offering. JT didn’t think it was anything special, but for the first time ever, I kind of have to disagree with him. It had an absolutely fantastic first smell, making me think I might actually have a classic on my hands. It isn’t as alcoholic tasting nor as sweet/fruity as I’ve come to expect from barley wines. But it was good nonetheless. A bit sour and a slightly unpleasant aftertaste though.

I could absolutely taste the caramel and toffee present in it and I’m not even really that good at separating flavors. Especially “hinted” ones. Superhopped up, which I consider a good thing in this case.

Not something I’d go out of my way to have, but I still liked it better than Green Flash’s higher regarded IPA.

B+

Southern Tier Backburner Barley wine

10% ABV from a bomber

After an Oliva cigar, a light Italian dinner, and two Peronis, I stumbled over to the Bowery Beer Room, New York’s Valhalla for beer drinkers. There, I picked up two big sacks worth of brews. Suffice to say, my “ladyfriend” was not thrilled when I arrived at her UWS pad stinking like a cigar and carrying enough beer to give five beer nerds alcohol poisoning.

Barley wines are probably my favorite style of beer, so I’m always excited to try ones I haven’t had before cause, quite frankly, there just aren’t that many in existence. My all-time favorite barley wine is still Stone’s Old Guardian which might actually be my #1 favorite beer overall.

The Backburner immediately hits you with a sweet taste like a classic barley wine. Very fruity, hints of candy. Not as potent of smell as I like in a good barley wine. Not too alcoholic tasting (which is a debit in my book but might be a credit in yours). Not too much bite, quite drinkable. Thus, I was surprised how much of a whallop this one packed. I was pretty shit-faced by the time I finished.

All in all, one of the better barley wines I’ve ever had.

A-