Here’s a tip: if you wait til the new year to buy your advent calendar you can save like it’s candy on November 1st.  Below are collected reviews that I live-posted on facebook on January 21st, combined here in one easily digestible (unlike some if those beers) post.

This took place over almost exactly 5 hours and made the trip to the bar after almost unnecessary!  Also, in hindsight, drinking Ciroc Black Raspberry between beers as a palette cleanser was probably a poor choice if we wanted to stay upright.

Enjoy!

Beer #1 by Tiny Rebel (UK)
Name/ABV: FUBAR Pale Ale 4.4%
First Impressions: Smells good, maybe cause it’s my first beer of the day (PM anyways). Worried I should serve it warm if it’s from the UK but I’m gonna take my chances. 4 Ingredients like beer should be.
Taste: Crisp and clean even though there is sediment which shouldn’t bother anyone. Could easily drink a sixer at a party.
Final Word: Perfect after work beer or starter beer. Not sure why the name is FUBAR though which makes me double think the sediment.

Beer #2 by Tiny Rebel (UK)
Name/ABV: Orange Mocha Frapp Stout 7.0%
Note: Looking ahead it looks like there are 2 beers in a row by one brewery. So 24 beers, 12 breweries, just FYI.
First Impressions: Smells like cold press coffee and is so dark that light doesn’t shine through the glass. It’s like a frosty glass of Wesley Snipes.  Or a, slightly less-racist, Terry’s Chocolate Orange.
Taste: So imagine you’re at a diner and the busboy clears off a table of coffee, orange juice, and a dirty ashtray straight into your mouth and then farts in your eyes.
Final Word: Not a fan but I can seem the appeal if you like stouts or like to try things once and post about them on the internet.

Beer #3 by Baja Brewing Co. (Mexico)
Name/ABV: Mexican IPA 7.0%
First Impressions: I don’t really like IPAs at all but I have nothing against Mexicans…yet. Nice piece of ass on the label.
Taste: Well I think it was filtered through the donkey is all I can say.
Final Word: This is the second closest I’ve ever been to a donkey show and this left a worse taste in my mouth.

Beer #4 by Baja Brewing & Cerveceria Cholula Collaboration (Mexico)
Name/ABV: AY AY AY PA Session IPA 4.5%
First Impressions: Great. Another IPA, and a session one to boot which means more prominent hops (but at least low ABV) which is my problem with IPAs initially! Far less ass on this bottle, hopefully inside too.
Taste: Surprisingly drinkable! This is quite good beer, nice redemption, Tijuana. Not that you needed it.
Final Word: They should serve this at resorts instead of Corona and in clubs instead of bullets.

Beer #5 Yukon Brewing (Canada)
Name/ABV: Imperial Stout 8.5%
First Impressions: To quote my BFFF: “If it’s Imperial it’s sure to miss.” If you don’t understand that you hate Star Wars and beer,
Taste: Well I know the 8.5% is either alcohol or turpentine. It’s sweet like mead but still kicks like the mule from the last brewery.
Final Word: Great airport beer if you only have time for 3 and want to sleep through anything baby-related or nine/eleveny.

Beer #6 Yukon Brewing (Canada)
Name/ABV: Tamarack & Spruce Tip IPA 7.0%
First Impressions: Not a great sign when it’s an IPA and 2 flavours you’ve never heard of in your sexy-ass life.
Taste: Actually not bad! Hints of sweetness and I guess Tamarack which I refuse to Bing.
Final Word: I could recommend this at the bar to any hipster or fan of wonderful Tamarack.

 

Beer #7 Eviltwin Brewing (USA)
Name/ABV: Fruit Salad IPA 7.0%
First Impressions: Fruit salad seems appropriate since I now have a celebrity guest helping me review, everyone please welcome Adam Caviar. The greatest person in the world and only one to respond to my texts!
Cary Taste: Pretty tasty and not biting for a 7.0% IPA. Like a parfait for when you want to keep your buzz going.
Adam Taste: Fruity, like a radler without the awkward feeling of having to order a radler. Summery, like the flowers in bloom near your local less-than-optimal skinny dipping spot.
Final Word: Would definitely dip my toes in this again, which I did to Adam’s.

Beer #8 Eviltwin Brewing (USA)
Name/ABV: The Check Please, Double Dry Hopped Black IPA 7.0%
First Impressions: Cary hate IPA and hops and double dries and blac…I mean just IPAs. Smells like someone mowed their lawn of pine needles that’s been fertilized with everything I hate.
Cary Taste: Like I blew a pinecone penis but didn’t mind it. Just like my days as a whoreteculturist.
Adam Taste: Be a stout or be nothing, It’s a double IPA but with extra steps. That being said, it can be camouflaged as a dark beer for the hipster-trying-to-be-a-man in your life and doesn’t taste bad at all.
Final Word: One and done.

Beer #9 Ugly Duck Brewing Co. (Denmark)
Name/ABV: Galaxy, Hoppy Belgian Blonde 6.5%
First Impressions: Take me to the moon or fuck off with your stars metaphor. One sniff hearkens to Rhonda Rousey’s dressing room after a particularly nasty UTI.
Cary Taste: This tastes, after one sip, like I was on the wrong end of an oil change. After being orally raped by the mechanic.
Adam Taste: The initial gag was something we call force majeure, the rest of it follows a step-by-step process of urgency offset by necessity to finish it and be done.
Final Word: As per first impressions: FUCK OFF!

Beer #10 Ugly Duck & Hornbeer Collaboration (Denmark)
Name/ABV: Export Lager 5.5%
First Impressions: For the try-hards. It’s them same brewery as that last abomination so hopes are at a holocaust low,
Cary Taste: It’s decent I guess. Though it’s just basically playing the toilet paper to the shit the last beer took in my mouth.
Adam Taste: I’ve had this before….. oh yeah, all other lagers. Ever. Line em up, Montgomery, lemme tell the difference. 
Final Word: Nothing can redeem that last beer,

Beer #11 Frontaal Brewery (Netherlands)
Name/ABV: Can You Pass Me the Milk? Cacau Milk Stout 4.0%
First Impressions: Despite a dumb name, it smells great. Can the filthy Dutch defeat the Danes?! If their women’s field hockey team has anything to do with it then I am going to jerk off to the Olympics again.
Cary Taste: So good, it’s like a shower in dutch honey after being stung by Danish disgusting beer,
Adam Taste: In the immortal words of Gordon Ramsey, “Finally, some delicious fucking [unintelligible].” Beer, or food, this is palatable and I enjoy it. If there’s two things I love most in this world it’s a tolerance of other people’s cultures, and the Dutch.
Final Word: Bring on the next freaky-deaky dutch concoction!

Beer #12 Frontaal Brewery (Netherlands)
Name/ABV: Ceres, Smoked Ry Scottish Ale 5.2%
First Impressions: Smells like my drunk Uncle’s mouth hole, after he said, “look at what I can do!”
Cary Taste: Taste like Willy Wonka’s asshole after a bender. So, top marks.
Adam Taste: Somewhat disappointed in my home and native land, Scotland. If ever there was a beer to instill rebellion and cause, we scots would have something to say. Cary likes it. I, a sensible human being, enjoy dry-humping cacti over this. It has the mass of disappointment that rivals it’s celestial namesake, Ceres.
Final Word: We settled on dry hump fight to settle the score. Win/Win.

Beer #13 Yankee & Kraut (Germany)
Name/ABV: Saison, 8.0%
First Impressions: Unassuming smell but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some ass within.
Cary Taste: I get a big flavor of banana, berries and citrus. A BBC if you will.
Adam Taste: Ah, coriander. How you saveth beer. In the beginning coriander created beer, and beer was good. 
Final Word: Can do, will do, should do. If you don’t like it that’s fine, I get it, but you’re wrong and I hate you.

Beer #14 Yankee & Kraut (Germany)
Name/ABV: Stout 5.4%
First Impressions: Unassuming makes an ass out of un and me.
Cary Taste: Taste’s fine enough for me to let Adam type his stupid pun in the first impressions.
Adam Taste: My pun is amazing, like this beer. 
Final Word: Good enough for the fraus we go with.

Beer #15 White Pony (Belgium)
Name/ABV: Ambra, Amber Ale 9.3%
First Impressions: Everyone seems impressed by the high ABV but less so of the non-English label…racists.
Cary Taste: I like it significantly less than Adam and the growing peanut gallery outside of our palatial Regina beachfront property. But hey, it’s subjective until I rewrite everything for the website right? 
Adam Taste: Honey in taste, smell and profile. And between you and me honey, it’s great. 
Final Word: I, Adam, am over my head if I don’t make this final word funny. So laugh, dammit.

Beer #16 White Pony (Belgium)
Name/ABV: El Jefe, Hefeweizen 6.0%
First Impressions: Cleansing the palette with vodka in between each beer is starting to feel like a poor choice.
Cary Taste: I had passion fruit hearts in my eyes as it says it on the label, but alas my passion fruit lies below in some dumb comment,
Adam Taste: It’s my cup of passionfruit tea. 5/7, would drink again. 
Final Word: The Passionfruit of the Christ because Jesus this was good.

Beer #17 Alvinne (Belgium)
Name/ABV: Morpheus, Saison 6.0%
First Impressions: This seems like it should pair nicely with red pills.
Cary Taste: Saison is Belgian for Vasectomy leftovers.
Adam Taste: So the amalgamation of dog shit and wannabe passion fruit decided, in a CEO-dictated meeting, that 4-day old throw up deserved a real chance in the palatable market of beer artisan-ship. So yeah, all in all, pretty okay I guess.
Final Word: Fuck you hipsters, drink it and shut up.

Beer #18 Alvinne (Belgium)
Name/ABV: Une Belle Histoire, Farmhouse Porter 5.6%
First Impressions: Swirling it smells like a transformer flushing the toilet.
Cary Taste: Tastes like a fresh bale of hay before a morning gallop.
Adam Taste: Like fresh apples and carrots straight from human palm.
Final Word: Horse shit.

Beer #19 Negne (Norway)
Name/ABV: Calm Christmas, Belgian Tripel 9,0%
First Impressions: Confusing label and touches from my companion. Googling both for meanings.
Cary Taste: Have your ever seen a movie where the good guy offers the bad guy a last drink? If he gave them this beer, he becomes the bad guy. Barf.
Adam Taste: What ever happened to the great English language? Anyway, here’s Wonderwall. It sucks. 
Final Word: Cause after all…we’d rather have a double blind date with Jeffrey Dahmer.

Beer #20 Negne (Norway)
Name/ABV: Winter Storm, Nordic Farmhouse Stout 10.5%
First Impressions: 10.5 fucking percent?! Goodbye liverrrrrrrrr and bedspreaderrrrrrrrr, have you guys heard of dialysis?
Cary Taste: If you refer to a tall frosty glass in the first review, I think I just actually drank that.
Adam Taste: Listening to the Beastie Boys, I only have to tell you that it’s not worth it.
Final Word: This is over a tenth of a hundred percent, so yeah, i guess think about that…idiot.

Beer #21 by Eight Degress Brewing (Ireland)
Name/ABV: Warrior, Irish Red Ale 4.7%
First Impressions: Less confrontational than every Irish I’ve ever met unless I break out the C-word. Trust me.
Cary Taste: Cuntalicious
Adam Taste: Warriorrrrs, come out to plaaaaaaaay… JK don’t, stop making beer. 
Final Word: Clink Clink Clink

Beer #22 Eight Degrees Brewing (Ireland)
Name/ABV: Phat Phantom, Irish Stout 5.5%
First Impressions: “Aged in Jameson Whiskey Barrels” Wow that’s like saying I aged a Taco Bell shit in Arby’s Horsey Sauce.
Cary Taste: Could be the greatest beer in the world but I stand by my joke!
Adam Taste: IM SO DRKFIELE TNNAC I KNUBALfIN
Final Word: Adam is okay, I’m still laughing.

Beer #23 by 8 Wired Brewing Co. (NZ)
Name/ABV: Stone Free, Hoppy Sour Apricot Ale 4.5%
First Impressions: Sour beers are such a terrible niche that if I found this on Christmas Eve uh Eve, I would be murder/suicidal instead of just suicidal.
Cary Taste: JK It’s ok…If you like to drink the mystery liquid that comes out of garbage bags.
Adam Taste: I don’t like to be mislead, and by that i mean I’ve had this beer before so shut up. 
Final Word:  Good enough drink.

Beer #24 8 Wired Brewing Co.(NZ)
Name/ABV: God Save the Lager, Imperial Pilsner 7.0%
First Impressions:
Cary Taste: No god can save this, I don’t care what supermarket aisle you have dedicated to you.
Adam Taste: I’ve been held against my will, please never let me drink this again!
Final Word: Hahahah just kidding I’m fine. Changing my name so forget me you losers.

Hope to do this again soon, but not too soon.  Thanks to Adam for stopping by and making it so the last half of the review wouldn’t turn into overly-drunk rants about my exes, politics, and people who like Big Bang Theory.  And so my laptop didn’t get covered in hot vomit.