Weston Brew Labs #2: Hot Pepper Ale

I’ve had this bomber of Weston Brewing Co.’s “Weston Brew Labs #2″ (Hot Pepper Ale) in my fridge for close to a year now, so I finally decided to drink it. This is my first chile beer so it should be exciting! The bomber was purchased at Lukas Liquors for $3.99. I think they still stock it if I’m not mistaken.

The beer is of unknown ABV. The brewery lists the original gravity as 1.047, but you need to know final gravity in order to calculate ABV. Each batch is made with 60 pounds of jalapeno and serrano peppers!

The beer pours a clear dark gold color with a thin head that disappears immediately. The aroma is 100% peppers with maybe a little corn in the background. Imagine you just cooked up a big pot of corn with chiles, that’s about what it smells like. Looking at BeerAdvocate, this beer is supposed to be really hot, so we’ll see if I can drink all 22 oz. or not!

WOW! It is HOT! No joke! Flavor is pretty much 100% peppers with sort of a corny/malty macro beer like flavor in the background. One sip had the heat level in my mouth up to about what I would expect after eating a single slice of jalapeno, so this is very hot and I doubt I’ll make it through more than one glass.

The flavor is one-dimensional: hot peppers. I would have liked to see this about 30% as hot as it is, which would probably make it somewhat enjoyable to me. As it is, this is something I’d take a couple sips of to say, “OK, I’ve had a chile beer…” and then probably never drink it again.

Trader Joe’s Name Tag Classic Lager – $2.99

Trader Joe’s has come to Kansas City and after having visited both the KS and the MO stores, I am… unerwhelmed. I’m a diehard Whole Foods guy, though, so I’ll revisit them both in a few months to see if they’ve added to their selection or done anything that would make me want to not shop at Whole Foods, but for now, “meh” is about as excited as I am about ol’ Joe.

We have great bottle shops in the area like Lukas Liquors and Gomer’s, too, but we’re getting married in a month so I was sent to TJ’s to pick up some wine (yeah, Two Buck Chuck) and do a taste test. While I was there I scored a 6-pack of TJ’s “Name Tag Classic Lager” which is a 5% ABV canned American Lager that is advertised as “no adjuncts, 100% malt.”

The ONLY reason I considered buying this beer is that it is $2.99 (everyday price) for a sixer. Brief research revealed that the beer is made in Monroe, WI by a contract brewery/bottler called Minhas Craft Brewery. After looking at Minhas’s beer list on Beer Advocate I spotted one or two other beers I’ve had that Minhas made, too, but they were lifeless and boring, as far as I could remember.

I’m not going to belabor this review… this is cheap American Lager lawnmower beer. I’m VERY surprised and quite skeptical of the “no adjunct” advertising, too. This tastes like a corn-adjunct beer, it’s very sweet, has barely a trace of hops and leaves one of those high-fructose corn syrup goobers in the back of my throat.

It’s certainly no worse than any Miller or Bud products, or Old Style (which is my go-to cheap beer), or PBR or any of the other lifeless, soulless zombie beers! At $2.99 it’s a steal. If the price stays the same, this will probably be my go-to cheap canned beer on the few occasions where I need such a thing. It’s as good any other macro American beer and it’s half the price. I call BS on Trader Joe’s claim that it is adjunct-free, but I could be wrong.