Guinness @ Tierney's

What a Guinness should look like, courtesy of Doug

Guinness @ Victoria Hotel Bar and Grill in Hoboken

I hate writing 2 terrible reviews in a row, but I am trying to go back in chronological order so unfortunately I have to. While I've been going throughout the US trying to find the best pint of Guinness, I have stumbled upon a few bad ones, but this one was by far the absolute worst. To start, it took the bartender 10 minutes to pour it. I am not exaggerating at all, I think they hired this guy without watching him pour a beer. I sat in disbelief and horror as I watched him pour the Guinness 3/4 of the way, stop, pour half out because it was half head, pour it back up, stop, pour more out, etc. Obviously there was an issue with the tap so that's not his fault, but it is his fault for not doing anything about it and wasting God's liquid gold. This continued on for a good 5 minutes until he finally just let it sit there for 2 minutes before revisiting his brilliant plan again. After struggling with this for another 2-3 minutes he finally just gave in and presented the Imperfect Pour, a Guinness that was 65% black and 35% head on my estimation. After I stopped laughing, I gave the beer a try and, as expected, it tasted like the worst Guinness ever. In fact, I would rather not call it a Guinness because that tarnishes the good name of Ireland's finest export. However, I did finish it because you can't waste a Guinness, even if it is a bad one. Congrats Victoria Hotel Bar and Grill you have officially been awarded the Worst Pour Award. Stanley will be dropping off your certificate when he figures out how to walk.

Blue Moon Samplers

Well hello there! I have a backload of reviews I need to put up, so I'll start with the Blue Moon sampler that I did at Texas Arizona yesterday. To start, I'm not a huge fan of Blue Moon because it really violates everything about macro-breweries that I hate. Its owner by MillerCoors, but spun off as if it is it's own micro-brewery producing Belgian wheat beers that too many idiots believe. All you need to do is a little research to see that its produced by MC in Colorado ... WEAK! That being said, I decided to give this sample thing a shot at Texas Arizona since you got to sample 3 different beers that aren't technically released yet (even though by being on tap @ TX-ARI they are). The point of it is to have people sample the 3 and vote on which one they like the best, the winner will be Blue Moon's next seasonal beer. Cool idea .. cooler if it was done by a real micro brewery.
As for the beers: The first one I had was a blackberry wheat beer that tasted like cough medicine mixed with crappy beer. That's all of the analysis it deserves.

#2 was a apple flavored one that had a metallic aftertaste to it. I saw people @ the bar asking for pints of it post-sampler, I like to refer to these people as FOOLS.

#3 was tolerable, not so much because it was a quality beer, but because it was intriguing. They called it a Dark Chocolate and Bacon Porter. Now, I've had chocolate covered bacon before from this guy who works in my office and dresses like the Terminator on Fridays, so I know what a great combination it is (until you feel like you're having a heart attack 3 minutes after eating it, but I'll leave it at that since this isn't "Born to Eat"). The porter itself started off chocolatey and finished with a bacon aftertaste. It wasn't bad tasting and actually made me want bacon. That being said, if I'm judging it as a beer, it was awful. I basically just tasted a crappy porter mixed with bacon and chocolate. I think I couldve brewed this one at home and gotten the same results (I am considering it). On top of all this I was absolutely ignored at the bar by the 2 Blue Moon girls there giving out shirts (they had a box full of 50 and I didn't see anyone get one) and handing out voting cards to rank them. Maybe they could tell by my reaction to each sip that I thought they were all crap and would've told them to take all 3 back to Colorado and put them wherever they keep the cases of Coors Light that people send back because they ordered beer not water. Regardless, I was not impressed and highly recommend never drinking Blue Moon.