So our friends Ed and Kim stay at camp later than
most people, so assorted liquor cabinets get emptied
into theirs, and someone was working for a brewery
and was studying the competition. So. Four varieties
of the stuff in the fridge, and I resolved to get
through them; did, over several days.

Namaste - heavy clove and allspice, citrus, a
little hoppier than the norm. Excessively nasty,
which makes me feel good, because interestingly
the Dogfish Head brewery owns various catchy
names as referring to beer, including this one,
and actively pursues enterprises that come even
close to what some corrupt courts might consider
infringement. Trying to put small breweries out of
busineness by bleeding them through legal fees,
when on the merits the small guys would win, is not
something that endears a corporation to me. I'm
thinking of publicly calling for a boycott of the
Dogfish Head and all its brands, despite that it
makes generally excellent brews. Excluding this one.
Ack, phbthth, ptui.

Hoegaarden - a classic Wit, with some clove and
citrus but not caricatured as the Namaste stuff is.
I didn't care for it when I first tried it decades
ago, and I don't care for it now. Not horribly
horrible, just to be drunk only when free.

Alaskan - this is a rather muted (read weak) but
still somewhat objectionable version, with the
lemoniness in balance with the cloviness, but
who wants cloves in beer, not me.

Blue Moon - water. The least painful to drink, as
it is weak in alcohol, weak in taste, and hardly
Belgian at all. The label crows that it's brewed
with Valencia orange peel. What buyers of Coors
and Coorslike products don't know is that Valencia
oranges are among the cheapest and most boring of all
oranges. When I went on the Coors tour in Colorado
many years ago, I was looking forward to the tasting
room to see if there were any limited run or otherwise
interesting offerings and was disappointed to find
that the only two on tap were Coors Light and Blue
Moon. I opted for the latter, and it went down easily
enough that I had three glasses of it. But then as
now buying it would be out of the question.

New Glarus Spotted Cow ale - this relatively young
family-run brewery produces eccentric but well-made
beers; it's sad perhaps that the tastes of the brewers
and mine do not coincide in any way. To risk sexism,
I'll throw out that I find the beers generally girly
tasting, with more floral and fruity flavors than I
enjoy. This is almost a stereotype - lemony, fruity,
and weak, and if I were tasting it blind, I'd have
thought it a white beer as above.

New Glarus Two Women lager - this was the best thing
available at the Central Wisconsin Airport concession,
so I dropped 7.70 + tax and tip, bringing the cost to
something like 8.88. It's a medium-colored beer, darker
than most lagers in both hue and flavor. Unfortunately,
the maltiness is more than balanced by that citrusy
floral nonsense that this available-only-in-Wisconsin
company's products are known for. Perhaps I should have
had a Bud Light for a buck less. From the New Glarus site:

Four thousand years before Christ, Sumerian women
created the divine drink of beer. Viking women brewed
in Norse society. European Ale Wives were so
successful as cottage brewers they were taxed.
Artisanal women lost their domination of the daily
ritual of brewing during the Industrial Revolution.
Todayÿs brewing trade is controlled by men.

The collaboration of two Craft companies both led by
women, New Glarus Brewing and Weyermann Malting, is
unique. You hold the result Two Women a Classic
Country Lager brewed with Weyermannÿs floor malted
Bohemian malt and Hallertau Mittelfrueh hops. A
tempting and graceful classic lager found ...
Only in Wisconsin!

Beaujolais-Villages 16 (Jadot) - a pretty standard
generic French quaffer such as I might have drunk
40 or 50 years ago, good acid balance, a mild bit of
tannin, pleasant fruitiness, but not a huge amount of
Pinottiness. Could live up to 5 more years.
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