Guinness @ Scotland Yard in Hoboken

I can't believe I haven't reviewed a Guinness here yet (or if I have, I don't remember). Scotland Yard is by far my favorite bar in Hoboken that combines Scotland, Colombia and frat house basement to create a great place. After work you'll find the usual happy hour regular businessmen there grabbing beers, shots or maybe just sipping on some Rumpelmintz. The entire bar is half off till 7 which means Guinness is $3. On the weekends you'll run into anyone looking for a reasonably priced beer or a game of beer pong.

As for the Guinness, it was a decent pour that wouldve been better if it wasn't in a Budweiser glass, but for $3 I'm not complaining. Taste was pretty much what you would expect a Scotland Yard Guinness to taste like, a bit too bitter and not so crisp, but definitely above average. While I'm not going to say its a contender for the perfect pour, I will give it a medal for best value. At $3 you can't beat it.

Guinness at Montclair Station

From the beginning this looked like a disaster - a Guinness being poured into a skinny glass with a handle. However, I was surprisingly delighted when I watched a very well thought out and efficient pour that was probably as good as you could do with the tools at hand. The beer was served a bit too cold, but it was decently smooth with slight bitterness. Overall, probably one of the more interesting ones I've had due to the glassware it was served in. Far from the perfect pour, but not bad either.

River Horse Summer Blonde Ale

River Horse is one of many solid New Jersey breweries and is located out West in Lambertville. I don't think I've reviewed many of their beers on here, but I've never had a bad one from there. Their Summer Blonde Ale, which featues the female river horse on the bottle, did not disappoint again. I'm usually a hard person to please with a summer ale because although I want something a little lighter for those hot days, I don't want just a watered down beer that tastes like Coors Light with lemon. The Summer Blonde was bready with some slight citrus nodes, but not nearly as citrusy as I expected. It also finished with some faint earthy hops (wouldve liked it to have been a bit hoppier). Overall, a very refreshing beer that fits the bill for a good 90+ degree day drinking beer. I would've liked a little more flavor and hops, but its a far cry from some of the watered down summer beers you'll find, but won't see on here.

Newcastle Brown Ale on tap @ Gallagher's Pub

After a brief hiatus of buying beers for my mini-kegerator I decided to try the Newcastle Brown Ale one. I've had the Heineken Light one on tap here a few times and even though I'm not a fan of Heineken, it was pretty good out of the keg. The Newcastle Brown Ale was much the same. I've had Newcastle in bottles and never was a big fan, probably because they use clear bottles which equals skunking. Out of the mini-keg though, its quite delightful. A heavier, but very smooth beer that has a very nice taste to it. It's aroma was much like the taste - caramel and nutty. Aftertaste was a bit metallic, but not too bad and it went down very smooth. I think the best part of it was the mouthful which was soft, medium-bodied and silky smooth. Very delightful. Overall, the lack of hops brought it down a bit, but not bad at all - 100 times better on tap vs the bottle for sure. I'd say its my favorite mini-keg so far for sure.

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.