Turning Wattle Seeds into Lemonade

I have a friend named Christian who is a wine/liquor guy, but lately, he has been wanting -- perhaps to humor yours truly -- to learn more about beer. Every couple of weeks we meet at Wegmans and pick out a couple sixpacks to sample.

One problem: he doesn't like hops, which is basically saying that he doesn't really like beer yet, at least not the full spectrum. Because of this, our trips to Weggie's often consist of my scouring the West Coast and East Coast sections, while he trolls the Belgian and European sections, their beers being more brown sugary-sweet and less hop-intensive.

Personally, I think we all come around to hops in the same way that we all come around to coffee: over time and on that one time that it just hits you the right way. But for the time being, I am trying out a couple odd Euro beers that I wouldn't normally purchase.

Problem was, a few weeks ago -- against my "are you sure?" skepticism -- we picked up a six pack of Baron's Wattle Seed Ale. Apparently, wattleseeds come from the Acacia plant, a pea-like bit of foliage that bears pods. That's right: peas in beer. Other than it's admittedly useful medicinal function (not that I need it, am I right ladies...?) it's not a beer ingredient I would normally fancy. In fact, a bit more knowledge of the Magnoliophyta plant division might have steered us away from this unfortunate choice.


I have to give Christian credit: though he doesn't like hops, his palate is remarkable. He took his first whiff of it and said, "It smells like peas." And at this point neither of us had any idea what a wattleseed was. And boy was he right. It has the aroma of cooked vegetables and cigarette ashes. And as for the taste, imagine a Bass Ale brewed with more brown sugar and boiled broccoli. Please don't hurt yourself driving to the store to get a case.

It's a really dreadful beer, one that I found undrinkable. I drank half of it and poured the rest down the drain. Naturally, Christian gave me three to take home and try out.

Back at Christian's this past week, I brought some beer, including the two remaining Wattle Seed Ales, hoping perhaps to fool him into drinking some more, but also see if I could get it to go down easy. I hate wasting beer, even bad beer, and it's still got alcohol in it for pete sake!

I decided to cut the beer with two American beers with very strong flavors, hoping that they would be enough to grab those little wattleseeds by the throat and beat them into submission.

The first test was Stone's Arrogant Bastard Ale. Stone is one of my favorite breweries, but I have had Arrogant Bastard more times than I can count this year. Plus it's abundant and cheap, so if I ruined a bottle, I wouldn't be happy, but I wouldn't be heartbroken either.

I poured the beers half-and-half. The color of the beer was very Bastard-ish. (For all it's flaws, Wattle Seed Ale has a nice brownish red color.) The aroma took on that of an Arrogant Bastard Lite: still has some of the harsher, darker notes -- the alcohol, the woods, the dark malts -- but muted. The wattleseeds were drowning in the richness of the Bastard. Strangely, it made the Arrogant Bastard more "drinkable," in the Bud Light sense of making it lighter and less filling. It was not an unabashed success, but it made the Wattle Seed Ale go down easy like a worm pill hidden in a chunk of Purina.

The second beer I tried was Magic Hat's Roxy Rolles, another beer that I like, but that I've had a million of this winter. The color remained the same chunky red, but a little more transparent. This was a pleasant surprise, since the severe, woody hops of Roxy completely choked the life out of what was left of the Wattle Seed Ale. If I may: the Wattle Seed was The Colonel from Boogie Nights, and the Roxy Rolles was his large African-American cellmate, slapping him and telling him to shut up.

All-told, I am going to have to try cutting these terrible beers a lot more. Neither pairing was an improvement upon it's original non-Wattle Seed counterpart, but it saved me from having to waste precious, precious alcohol.

Brewpoint with Willie Moe

Its time for another edition of Brewpoint with Willie Moe! Yes folks its time for Willie Moe to dole out his opinions on something in the world of beer. Mmmmm, world of beer, aaaaaaggghh! In this edition we go into the seedy underbelly of Bud, dum, dum, dum, dah. But more specifically Bud Light and their "Drinkability" campaign.

It probably comes as no surprise that there is not one Beerjangler' who is an avid drinker of Bud or Bud Light. Yes, even Dunford, the self proclaimed huguenot (whatever that means), parted ways with the self proclaimed "King of Beers" after he could no longer readily find BudDry, the only beer to this day that matches his unique wit and style. Is it because we are, what the world outside Brewtopia commonly refers to as "Beer Snobs"? Well, maybe partially. But I can guarantee that every single Beerjangler' has, in the last year, partook of a Pabst Blue Ribbon (and we were drinkning it long before it was trendy), or a Strohs, or a Gennessee Cream Ale, or a Schaeffer's, or any number of other comparable beers. Well, alright, I realize there is nothing comparable to a sweet, sweet PBR, but you get the point. If you ever see us voluntarily forcing down one of Heir Wieser's mainstays, it's probably a good day for curling in "h-e-double hockey sticks", if you catch my draught. If you don't, it means Hell froze over, because us drinking Bud by choice is that far fetched. So, needless to say, we do not like Budweiser, as opposed to Bud Wiser, whom we love. But if there's one thing, and there probably is only one thing, I could always count on from the Bud Empire, was clever and funny commercials.

This makes sense because they certainly aren't putting all those thousands of dollars they make into making a better beer. From Spuds Mackenzie to the WAZZZZZZUP?! Guys to the Tree Frogs to any number of hilarious ads they have produced over the years, Bud has been the King of Advertising. Which is why I have been so distraught lately. These Drinkability ads are about as good as the product they are selling, which is to say they are not. The premise of these ads is to say that Bud Light has what all those other light beers are missing. Yep, you guessed it, "drinkability". "Drinkability"?! Are you effin kidding me?! There point is that all light beers are not the same, which is, I guess slightly true, but are they trying to imply that Bud Light goes down easier than say, Coors Light? Because I'm pretty sure that is untrue. What they are equating "drinkability" to is how easy it goes down by more or less saying beer is only drinkable if it goes down like water. Which may be true for Joe Nascar Fan, but not for this guy! This guys wants something called "flavorability"! Yes, the ability to have flavor in my mouth, whilst getting drunk. I know it's an "out there" concept, but it could just catch on! But the Budheads idea of "drinkability" is not even the thing making me the most mad! No, it isn't! Keep reading.

You see in these ads, someone will ask for any light beer because, "they all taste the same." This then cues the random dude who has the Zack Morris ability of freezing time to go over the inaccuracy of this statement. Now if this were actually Zack Morris, that would be funny! But I digress. Joe or Josephine Time Freezer proceeds to move through the backyard barbecue, asking us if eating ground beef is the same as eating beef off the ground, or if drinking regular water is the same as drinking birdbath water, or eating a carrot stick is the same as eating a stick, stick. My first question is how do these people get the ability to freeze time, when they clearly didn't even have the ability to do well on the analogy portion of their SATs? Even Zack Morris got a 1502 on his SATs. Okay, I suppose freezing time would be more indicative of their math portion, not their verbal, but anyways. The fact remains that not one of these comparisons is relevant or funny. I mean basically the comparisons would be more like Light Beer in a can is not like licking light beer off the ground. Maybe if they were like, "is eating a hamburger from McDonald's the same as a eating hamburger from Ruby Tuesday's? Is taking a dump at home the same as taking a dump at a gas station? Is poking a bear behind bars at the zoo, the same as poking a bear out in the woods, unprotected?" I don't know if they mean for these to be ironical or something, but what I do know is they do not make me laugh and that is about all I have ever got from the King of Beers. The commercial where there's a creepy hitchhiker with an axe and a twelver of Bud Light, and the guy in the car dismisses his lady friend's comment about not picking him up because he has an axe, with, '"but he's got Bud Light."? That's funny! But it even gets funnier than that. When asked what the axe is for, the stranger's reply is, "To open the Bud Light?" Come on?! You kidding me? I'm giggling just thinking about it! So please Anheuser-Busch, I implore you, stick to what you know, making crappy beer and funny commercials. It's all I ask. And this has been Willie Moe's Brewpoint!