World’s Worse Beer Juxtaposed with One of World’s Happiest and Coolest People
Jeff VanderMeer • March 11th, 2008 @ 7:36 pm • Photos
Tonight, we discovered the world’s worst beer.
And to remedy that disturbing image, our friend Joe Gordon, on his birthday, atop the Eiffel Tower. Joe, in addition to living in Scotland, which already puts him one step up on everyone else, and in addition to being Our Favorite Friend We’ve Never Met, works for one of the coolest bookstores in the world: Forbidden Planet.
March 11, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Worse than Coors Light?
March 11, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Hey, Greg! This is Flemish sour ale, aged in oak for 12 months. We think they should have taken it out around 4 months so it wasn’t so sour. It’s a dark beer, but you take a taste and it’s sooo sour and salty you want to immediately expel all of your internal organs, like a sea cucumber. Blah. Coors Light is pretty narsty, but not vomitous.
Jeff
March 11, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Oberon is the best….
March 11, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I was just about to put up some aussie contenders for worst beer, Jeff, but then I read your description…
March 11, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Oh, please do. Let’s turn it into the bad beer thread.
jv
March 11, 2008 at 10:50 pm
I thought ‘beer’ was Australian for ‘kangaroo piss’? They all seem to share a similar quality with that same large marsupial that would as soon kick you in the face as look at you. Hence, why I am personally not a beer drinker.
March 12, 2008 at 5:12 am
I’m in favour of PBR getting status as world’s worst, but there are personal experiences that skew the odds in its favour, for me.
March 12, 2008 at 5:20 am
I’m with Greg there, Coors Lite is hands down the worst I ever had the misfortune to encounter.
Haven’t come across any oz contenders that beat Coors Lite, TR. Not even Fosters Light, which I don’t think exists anymore? That had some equal requisite beer elements unlike Coors’ back of the rice factory dreg sweepings they chunk in with some preservatives into theres.
March 12, 2008 at 5:42 am
Hiya Jeff! I was going to wade in with Brains as a contender, but it doesn’t lead to sea cucumber-esque involuntary reflexes. It’s more as though someone took a very mediocre bitter, then beat it flat and left it out in the sun to dry for a month. Blech!
March 12, 2008 at 8:35 am
Yes! I just tried this stuff about a month ago and had a similar reaction. Yes, it was as bad as you say. I thought it tasted like bad fruit-beer, which is bad enough, but someone decided to fix it by adding vinegar and letting it sit out for a week or so.
And you take that back about PBR! Ok, you don’t have to, but Coors Lite is much worse. As far as your cheap, watery beers, I don’t think you can beat PBR for the price, though Hi-Life has a certain charm.
March 12, 2008 at 8:56 am
Lane:
Wow–someone else who has recently tasted this crap. Man, you’re so right–like a bad fruit-beer with vinegar added.
jeff
March 12, 2008 at 9:07 am
An old friend from law school had spent a few months in the U.S., and came back raving about this terrific beer he’d ‘discovered.’ No irony, he actually loved it.
Busch light.
Fer crissakes, this, to quote Eric Idle, is a bit like making love in a canoe.
March 12, 2008 at 9:17 am
Wow–that’s…wow…
JV
March 12, 2008 at 9:32 am
I’d have to say that Heineken is about 10 times closer to urine than Corrs light. Yes, Coors Light is a crap beer, no doubt, but I can at least swallow it.
As for the worst beer I think I’ve ever had. My friend once bought me a beer called “Dirty Old Man” (which ironically is one of the best names for a beer ever) which was described as a smoked beer. I thought that sounded like a rather fabulous idea. I mean, smoking stuff (fish mostly I suppose) is usually an excellent plan, why not do it to a beer? What I didn’t realize was that essentially the way to smoke a beer is to pour an ashtray into it, swill about a bit, and then strain it half-heartedly. No, I say. No.
March 12, 2008 at 9:34 am
I hate to say it, but I actually drink Coors Lite as one of my standby domestics. I realize that this may put my vote in suspect light, but I have yet to taste a beer worse than Red Dog. It’s like a can of cold, frothy urine mixed with metal shavings.
March 12, 2008 at 11:04 am
Do they still make Red Dog? Seems like it was real popular when I was in high school, but I haven’t seen it since. Nothing will get the tough drinking high school crowd like a mean bull-dog. See? I’m drinking a can with a dog on it, I’m rough and scary! There was even a dive bar on the edge of town called the Red Dog Saloon, with the bull-dog logo painted on its front side.
March 12, 2008 at 11:38 am
I love Red Dog. BRING BACK RED DOG!
March 12, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Corey, you live in Canada - you can get good beer!
March 12, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I really like Arrogant Bastard, but you can’t get it in Florida. :(
Jeff
March 12, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Aussie beers that suck -
Warm Victoria Bitter - ever licked a 9 volt battery? Imagine filling your mouth with that and then swallowing it. (Actually, I like VB when it’s cold. People think I’m mad.)
There’s this Queensland beer called XXXX. There’s also a joke about 4X (as we call it). Why do Queenslanders call their beer 4X? Cause they can’t spell beer. (The joke is meant to imply that they can’t make beer either…) 4X, which I tried only once, tastes watered down, and sort of like cardboard. Old, wet cardboard.
March 13, 2008 at 12:52 am
There’s a lot of beers that are bad when warm, though. That doesn’t count. ;-)
There’s actually a beer social networking type site (list of beers which you have drunk sort of think), of which I forget the name. Should see if Jeff’s disgusting sea life example is on that!
March 13, 2008 at 1:41 am
TR: There are many, many Queenslanders who would agree wholeheartedly with you - frankly old wet cardboard is putting it mildly.
March 13, 2008 at 3:29 am
Blue Tyson: Vic Bitter is especially notorious. One friend says it tastes like a sea of shit, when it’s cold.
AnonymousQueenslander: Crapped my pants for a sec when I saw your screen name. Thought you were going to let me have it for Emu Export, which ain’t any better, lol. It’s good that Queenslanders agree! West Aussies are worried, but now I can spread the word!
March 13, 2008 at 7:42 am
What I like about the beer is the brand name: “Rodenbach”, like Georges Rodenbach, Belgian author of “Bruges-la-Morte”, a classic novel about a man’s obsession with his dead wife and his affair with a look-alike replacement. The city in which it is set, Bruges, is almost the main character, and the atmosphere is quite unique, haunted and melancholy. Given Jeff’s sympathy for Decadent literature, I thought that was the reason for posting the picture, but I soon realised that Rodenbach, or at least the Rodenbach I imagine from reading his novel, doesn’t qualify as “one of the world’s happiest and coolest people”.
March 16, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Jeff, I have no idea what would make anyone associate me with beer in the same post :-) Reading the comments I am very glad I only drink lager-type beers during the hot weather and stick to ‘proper’ beers the rest of the year, i.e. one that come from a proper beer pump and not some electric one. Forget the weewee tinged beers, my friends, delight instead in the Truth and the Light that is Caledonian 80 Shilling Ale!
BTW, that weekend was my birthday treat, not the actual birthday (that was New Year’s Eve), but who cares, I got to go to Paris!!
April 22, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I’m intrigued! Even though I trust Jeff’s taste in beer I still am willing to put myself through a tasting of this horrid beer! I agree that Coors suxs but I consider it more of a bottled water than beer! In my opinion there are far worse beers out there than Coors!
Cheers!