Beer Review: Amstel Lager

Reviewed at the 1^st Mumbai International Beer Festival

Not too keen on trying this after the weak Amstel Light, I was pleasantly surprised with Amstel Lager. Sipped an 80 ml serving of this bronze (not so very in the sunlight though) brew at the beer fest: Nice bitter hops; this doesn’t have the skunkiness I’ve come to expect from lagers, and no disgusting adjunct characteristics either. I really liked the pleasant sweet bitterness and the malt aftertaste. So much better than Amstel Light!

RATING: 3.5/5

Beer Review: Amstel Light

Review: Shahrukh Khan’s Ra.One

Beer Review: Birra Moretti

A pleasant surprise from Italy and Heineken, Birra Moretti is a clean lager that’s on the smooth side. I was expecting this to be an adjunct lager like Budweiser or equally useless shit like Heineken, but the malt base in Birra Moretti is more than welcome. Low on hops and playing it safe, Birra Moretti smells grassy, has a thick head that takes time to disappear, and tastes sweet. Nice surprise, indeed.

RATING: 3.5/5

READ: Heineken | Budweiser | Peroni

Restaurant Review: Pot Pourri

Bandra’s loss is Navi Mumbai’s gain, because the popular Pot Pourri has been in Vashi for a few years now. A restobar with a European setting, Pot Pourri offers world cuisine and changes the menu every few months. This includes okayish sizzlers, decent pizzas and starters that are either awesome or awful. The drinks are priced quite high – a pitcher of draught beer costs more than it would at Alfredo’s, and even that’s expensive. Try asking for Farmer’s Meat Pizza (pork toppings!), Chicken Doz Sausages (served with grilled onions and creamy potato mash), Bacon-Wrapped Chicken and Chunky Beef, Pork Sausages & Roasted Potatoes (tossed in Goan-style sour-spicy masala) even if they’re not on the menu, and stay away from Lemon Charmoula Prawns (with garden salad and olive oil) and Pollo Involitini (chicken fillets stuffed with mozzarella and fresh herbs grilled and tossed with lemon, olive oil and garlic); I can’t handle bland stuff and had to drown those fenugreek-fucked prawns and the drab chicken in Tabasco to be able to eat it. They also have a dessert section which is pretty good, and lunch buffet on Sundays – but Sunday doesn’t have happy hours and you’ll end up spending a fuckload on drinks. Check out the slideshow below or just go have a good time at Pot Pourri!

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The Quoted Tongue #9

                                       A beer in hand is worth two in the fridge.

Beer Snobbery 4

Getting drunk all by yourself in bars will at some point lead to a stranger telling you that duplicate beer is sold all the time in this country. The much cheaper maal comes from other territories and is stocked by bars, pubs and restaurants because it means a bigger profit margin to them. Most of us may not realize it, but if your third or fourth bottle of lager tastes a bit different, chances are it’s the fake stuff. The ones who can understand this taste difference will have their query laughed off because they’ve had a few, and this is what happens all over India. I’ve had Kingfisher that tasted weird in a hotel in Jaipur, Rajasthan three years ago – I mean, it tasted weirder than Kingfisher does. This has been happening with ‘imported liquor’ for years; the branded scotch you pay big bucks for isn’t the real thing, and even the guy who owns or runs the liquor store may be unaware of it. To be on the safe side, what you can do is drink beer than cannot be duplicated. Just a few sips of Fuller’s London Pride Ale and Brooklyn Lager will tell you that some things cannot be duplicated. Cloned, yes… duplicated, no. Because if someone who wants to get rich quick could brew something of quality that high, they’d have their own brand out there. Even that fat booze baron Vijay Mallya can’t do it, and is taking over Heineken (the Kingfisher of its nation) because he is a boob.

Here’s how to not be a boob: Don’t go to the ‘official’ Mumbai Oktoberfest organized by the Indo-German Chamber of Whatever. I was there last year and it was an overblown event held to squeeze money out of people who thought they were being a part of something great by being there. On the last day of the event, people had to drink Kingfisher with the money they’d spent and learned nothing about German culture.

The Indo-German Chamber of Shit has started sending out emails to get people to make reservations for Oktoberfest 2011. They’ve stated in the email that it’s going to be 30,000 rupees (+ service tax) for a table of ten, but haven’t mentioned which German beers they’ll be pilaoing people this year. My guess is it’ll be the same beers they were trying to promote last year in the name of German culture. So, don’t be a trendy kid and fall victim to the hype, and don’t forget the official Oktoberfest is organized by the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, which means they care about money more than anything else, and that they don’t really give a shit about beer or culture or you.

Oktoberfest 2011 you can celebrate by drinking the German Wheat Beer from Doolally – you can do this by going to the microbrewery in Pune or by visiting a pub that stocks their beers. Or you can go to Gurgaon because it has six microbreweries. Or you can buy beers of your choice from any Living Liquidz outlet in Mumbai and stay home. Just don’t settle for Kingfisher this year. Prost, ladies and gentlemen!

MORE LINKS:
The Best Beers In India
Beer Snobbery 1
Beer Snobbery 2
Beer Snobbery 3

Beer Review: Fuller’s Vintage Ale 2009

This 500 ml bottle of Fuller’s Vintage Ale is brewed in limited batches and guess who found it in aamchi Mumbai? We picked up two of these classy beauties and were blown away more by the alcohol strength than the taste. The taste is good, of course – the syrupy tartness is instantly overpowered by the obvious 8.5% hatred this beer throws at you. Too fucking strong, two of these might make you pass out on the floor. We love that our bottles are numbered. Best before 2012 they say, but we’re having them in fucking ’11, and they taste really good, and they also say ‘Limited Edition’, scoring major points with the elitist choot in me. This 2009 creamy shit is quite complex, but I’m too drunk to recognize any flavour other than the caramel malt and I have a fucking cold, so excuse me. T2 says he likes this better than the Chimays he’s had, but he’s just drunk. I’d take any Chimay over this; hell, I’d take Fuller’s premium ale any day over this.

RATING: 3.5/5

Beer Review: Corona Light

Another way to waste your money. Corona Light is worse than Corona Extra. It’s quite disheartening that weak lagers like this one are coming to India instead of tasty ales and stouts, and all because people can’t handle stuff that’s not very different from Kingfisher. Who are you fooling, Mexico? Corona Light is carbonated water – nothing more, nothing less. My piss has more character than this.

RATING: 1.5/5

Beer Review: Kingfisher Draught (On Tap)

Consider yourself lucky if you get this beer fresh, because most places serve this in a lethally stale form. Medium-bodied and dry, Kingfisher Draught has a decent balance of malt and hops, and has a faint alcohol bite which gets stronger as the beer warms. A pitcher or two of this stuff can go down easily but can also give you a nasty hangover.

RATING: 3/5

Beer Review: Khajuraho

This super strong beer which claims it is the “Pride of India” comes in a Kingfisher bottle. Khajuraho has been around since before I started drinking but I’m having it tonight for the first time only to write about it. It’s an, as we all know, extremely strong beer. The label says “alcoholic strength exceeding 8.75%”, and Khajuraho, as I expected, is too sweet. This fizz-less monster has the colour of jaggery and is a beer people drink when they want to get knocked out.  

RATING: 1.5/5

 

Beer Review: Black Eagle

Another inexpensive beer (it’s priced even lower than almost as cheap as London Pilsner) has turned out to be an unworthy drink. Black Eagle, which calls itself “100% Mauritian”, is a light, clean drink that can be guzzled in huge quantities. No alcohol bite, no metallic aftertaste even though it comes in a can, and even with the alcohol strength at 5%, it goes down easier than a Breezer. Unfortunately, Black Eagle tastes like soda.

RATING: 1/5