Review of Heileman's Old Style Beer aka Why am I doing this?
Posted By Zach Saturday, 27 January 2007 06:55
As some of you may have notice, Old Style is one of my least favorite beers. Therefore, you may be wondering why the hell I'm drinking it. I guess the combination of peer pressure and the $2 price for a tall boy made me think it was worth trying again to see if I was wrong. Keep reading to see the results...
Taste: C- Old Style is certainly in odd beer in that it seems that the taste changes as you keep drinking. The first swill of this tall boy was slightly cringe-inducing, but not unbearable. As the drinks continued, one of my fellow drinkers and I noticed that it seem to get "in the zone" where is was actually tasting decent. This sparked a few theories, with the predominant one being that our taste buds were in shock and as long as we kept drinking relatively fast, we were OK. So, that theory proved to be as stupid as it sounds. Once I got to about 1/3 left, the taste went to hell pretty quick. After that, I had to struggle to finish off this bastard. Said fellow drinker even compared the last few gulps to drinking a moldy piece of towel. Not sure how she knew that, but hey, who am I to judge? Bottom line is that you seem to have a window of time where Old Style is marginally acceptable in taste, but damn, if that window doesn't slam shut quickly.
Packaging: B This is where Old Style actually excels. The basic logo of the can is some shitty looking wannabe midieval crest. Plus, as fellow Old Style drinker pontificated, any beer that has someone's name in front of it can't be all that good. Once you get past the initial design, you can look at little deeper and see some interesting scenes being played out on this can. I don't know if we found them all, but they seem to include a guy drinking a beer with a crossbow, a horse carrying a keg on it's back and some guy drinking on a horse with a dog walking below him. Not sure what the cryptic meaning of all of this is, but maybe it is some vision of a beer drinking utopia where Old Style flows freely and everyone rides horses while guzzling from huge mugs.
Value: B- I don't remember what this stuff costs in a store since I never buy it, but tonight is was a value at $2 for a 16 oz tall boy. That is decent for the size, especially at a bar, but I can't imagine spending a whole night putting down these babies.
Drunkeness: C I'm not real sure what to put down for this as I can think of a lot of things I'd rather to that get drunk off of only Old Style. Some more pleasant that others. I did notice as I was getting to the bottom of my 2nd that I seemed to be getting a slight headache. Not sure if that was from cigarette smoke or the beer. My money is on the beer. I'm thinking the morning after putting away a 12-pack of shit is pretty rough.
Overall: C- While certainly not the worst beer out there, last night did nothing to warrant pulling Old Style off of my least favorites list. As a side note, getting this stuff thrown on you out of a shot glass really blows. The only time I would drink this again is if I was sufferring with others (like last night) or if I really hated myself.