Day Five - Be Fruitful

True story. The first time I met my wife's extended family was at an outdoor barbeque hosted by her brother. I showed up with a couple of six packs of Sam Adams Cherry Wheat with the intention of sharing some of this nice brew like the good guy that I am. I'm sure to make a good impression, right?

(Cue up sound of 'wrong answer' buzzer)

As I was soon to discover, this was strictly a Bud Light kind of crowd, so absolutely no one wanted to have anything to do with some girly man fruity drink. Fine...more for me, then. But it was my first lesson in that not everyone is as adventurous as I am when it comes to beer.

So today there is a fruit theme going on. Because I like Cherry Wheat, I had picked up a couple of fruit-style beers on my last trip to Total Wine. The first was Sea Dog Raspberry Wheat, which was pretty good. It reminded me quite a bit of the Cherry Wheat, which is why I liked it. Somewhat of an aftertaste that wore on me, but overall a nice beer.

Next up was Wild Blue, which labeled itself as a blueberry lager. I had a feeling this wasn't going to be a positive experience because the manager at Total Wine called the beer "interesting." That's like your best friend telling you that the girl he set you up with "has a nice personality." Ugh...run for the hills time.

When I poured it into the glass it looked like grape juice. The aroma smelled like grape juice. And the taste was like grape-flavored cough syrup. With 8% by volume alcohol content, you could drink Dimetapp and get the same effect.

Where the hell is the blueberry? It was grape lager(?), I think, which is another name for cheap wine, in my estimation. In fact, my wife thought it was a grape wine cooler, not a beer. So, was this concoction made by Mogen David? Is this Ripple relabeled as Wild Blue?

Well, surprise, surprise, the brewer, well hidden behind another name, is none other than A-B.

Now, just in case you still think I have something against the BMC machine, I tasted and rated this beer(?) before I learned it was brewed(?) by A-B. This beer(?) has to be intended for the Pink Lady crowd because no self-respecting beer drinker is going to consume this offering more than once. I'm just glad I didn't show up to that outdoor barbeque with this beer(?). I'd have been laughed right out of my brother-in-law's backyard.

After all, no guy wants to be known as a lightweight when it comes to drinking beer. Or clueless when it comes to bad beer. So, I scored the Raspberry Wheat higher than the Ratebeerian average, but scored Wild Blue lower than the Ratebeerian average. So what does that mean to me?

There's hope for me yet.