Like every good beer story, this one starts with a bet.



I was sipping a brew at the Fish Bowl in Olympia with a member of my posse when we had a heated debate about beer. At issue was the fact that I make money drinking beer and he was talking smack as if anyone could do it.



He is what most would call a red neck when it comes to beer drinking. He’s a Keystone and MGD sort of guy, even though he is well removed from his college fraternity and can well afford beer that doesn’t suck. He said he actually likes the taste and defends his walk down ghetto lane by saying he doesn’t like spending the extra money on “good” beer when those brews are just as good. That is heresy around these parts.

When we were about to throw down, I proposed a bit of a wager.



He could pick three “ghetto” beers for me to review. I would sip them one day and see if I could try to make them based on my notes and refined pallet from the night before.

He bought two cans of Steel Reserve 211, Rainier Ice and Mickey’s — all ghetto beers of the highest order. They have all the makings of poor-boy brew. They come in 24-ounce cans; those cans have “easy pouring spouts,” and they are malt liquors that retail for 99 cents. Generations of high schoolers have gotten drunk off $2 worth of this sort of beer.

I was mortified at the labeling that promoted the “taste” and “power” in the same sentence. What is beer power after all? But I was up for the challenge. We got home and prepared for the test.



First up was Steel Reserve 211 from the Steel Brewing Company in Texas. I took a few swallows and jotted down some notes.



This high-octane brew has everything stacked against it. First off, it comes in a can. That is like serving champagne in a paper cup or wine in a coffee mug. But I looked pass that and wrote down some comments about the beer itself.



Even a steady, angled pour created a solid, three-finger head that I didn’t expect. But it quickly dissolved into a flat, pond-like sheen that looked more like a glass of piss than beer. While the head was at full staff, however, I was able to get a good whiff of things to come. And it wasn’t good. It smelled like moldy straw.



The biting carbonation did a fine job of actually masking the flavor, but then the aftertaste of flat beer hit, almost drawing me to take another swig just to get the taste of what could best be described as a prison cellmate out of my mouth. I have to say, however, that it got my head buzzing after just a few sips.



If you wanted to get a buzz and had only the money you found in your couch, this would be the beer to get. The hangover would be a bitch to deal with since the sugar content is so high that it robs your body of hydration, the leading cause of post-drinking hangovers.

Then came Mickey’s from Miller Brewing Co. This one has lower alcohol content and had every character of a light beer. It was a lighter yellow than the Steel Reserve and poured almost like water. It, too, created a tall head that held up longer than the rest, but still not a lot of staying power. It smelled like sweet corn instead of straw, but it was still a bit too grainy rather than malty.



The taste wasn’t as harsh and biting as the Steel Reserve. The corn and citric aftertaste make this one an easy beer to spot.



Then came the local favorite. Rainier Ice, the only “ice” in this competition.



The smell was as expected, kind of skunky and grainy. Tastes like a cheap beer, but not an overall horrible taste.



The following day, we blindly poured six shots of each and let the sampling began. I scored fairly well. I got four correct. I mixed up Steel Reserve with Mickey’s twice. That could have been caused by the fact that the only ones I got wrong were the last two I sampled. The cumulative funk must have thrown off my taste buds. But I got more right than wrong. And I have a big headache to prove it. But $20 from the bet and the bragging rights made that pain well worth it.



Crossing the line

On another note in South Sound beer news, Kevin Cross has climbed his Mount Everest. He has killed the dragon.



He has now consumed his 1,000th Guinness at Doyle’s Public House in Tacoma. The moment of glory came today at the first pitch of the Red Sox game, and not a moment before.



“They won’t give me my beer until the first pitch,” he said, moments before his lips touched glass.



Doyle’s was holding a party in his honor to mark the event.



“We at Doyle’s are proud to have Kevin be the first to achieve this milestone,” Russ Heaton said in announcing the event. “This is no homerun record, but I can assure the only HGH he is on is Guinness.”



Cross is now first to achieve “Gold” status in Doyle’s Guinness Club. That averages two pints a day — every day since the bar opened a year ago. That’s not a bad pass considering he was also gone for three months out of the last year.



The number two position is at less than half his rate.



Cross still doesn’t know what being a gold member means; those details haven’t been worked out since no one thought someone would reach 1,000 pints so quickly.



“The running joke is that they’ll give me one percent of the bar, but they’ll probably just give me a two-by-four,” he said. “Maybe they’ll just give me 10 t-shirts.”