I organize a monthly beer tasting group. It’s a small gathering of beer-educated friends who get together once a month to taste beers and talk about them. Each month we have a theme. The theme for January was “cheap beer.” The assignment was to find beers we had never tried but might actually want to drink for $7.00/six-pack or less.
The search proved more difficult than expected. When I started looking I realized that I had not paid much attention to how much I had been paying for beer. Aside from the light lager offerings of the big three breweries, there isn’t much out there for under $7/six-pack. With beer prices rising, this will become even more difficult in the future. However, as the event drew closer, everyone got into the spirit and we engaged in a race to the bottom in terms of price. Prices paid for six-packs ranged from $1.99 to $6.50.
The results of the experiment were interesting. We tasted 15 beers that ranged wildly in both style and quality. The entire list is at the end of this post. I’ll go over the high and low points here. The best beer of the evening was Black Hook Porter from Red Hook, purchased for $6.50. Okay, so that price was due to a mistake by the retailer, but we still let it in. This beer was dominated by coffee flavored roast malt with some caramel and a generous helping of American hops to balance it all out. It was really tasty. The Black Hook Porter was closely followed by Schlafly Coffee Stout from St. Louis Brewing Company. This was purchased in St. Louis for $6. An oatmeal stout made with cold-pressed espresso coffee, this had a huge coffee nose and flavor and a rich creamy/greasy mouthfeel from the oats. The coffee character was too intense for some, but most of us liked it. Other beers of note were St. Benedict Winter Ale from Point Brewing ($5.25), a Belgian tinged, spiced amber ale, and Michelob Pale Ale ($6.99). This was surprisingly good with decent caramel malt and a good helping of cascade hops, especially in the aroma. For the price it was worth picking up.
The low points were the Twisted Tea and Baltika #9. These two “malt beverages” were headaches waiting to happen. The Twisted Tea was the lowest priced selection of the evening at $1.99. It had distinct citrusy green tea flavors that might have been good had it not been for the massive overload of sugar. If you like to drink REALLY sweet tea, this might be just the beverage for you. I think we emptied half a bottle for six people. The Baltika #9 was one of the more interesting beers of the evening. It was packaged in a 51 oz. brown plastic bottle for $2.85. This was an under-attenuated sugar bomb with fruity pineapple notes and a unique model glue aroma and flavor. It was a bit like drinking the syrup from a can of pineapple with a bit of rubber cement added for extra viscosity.
The surprise of the evening was Fat Cat Lager. Available in fine liquor stores for $7.99/twelve-pack, this Vienna style lager shocked everyone with the amount of flavor it had; and not bad flavor at that. Light caramel and toasted malt with subdued yet noticeable hops. It was a little on the sweet side and faded almost instantly into nothing at the finish, but we all agreed that if you are looking for a lot of beer for a little bit of money, this is a good choice.
The one general observation that we made during this exercise was how sweet all of these inexpensive beers were. There was a definite sugar buzz to be had in addition to the effects of alcohol. We speculated that it could be intentional under-attenuation to give these beers some kind of flavor that might otherwise not be there if they were allowed to ferment out more fully. It could also be due to the noticeable lack of hops that would have balanced some of the sweetness. Overall though, we were surprised at the diversity of beers and, in some cases, even the quality of beers that we were able to find for under $7.00.
The full list of beers included Sleeman’s IPA 46, Baltika #9, Leinenkugel Original, Carta Blanca, Chelada, Brau Bros. Scotch Ale, Point St. Benedict Winter Ale, Schlafly Coffee Stout, Lone Star, Black Hook Porter, Leinenkugel 1888 Bock, Michelob Pale Ale, and Twisted Tea. Those in attendance were Wilbur Ince, Al Boyce, Paul Dienhart, Jonathan Crist, Mark Johnson, and Michael Agnew.