A Brief Review of a Garlic Beer I Recently Tried

A couple of weeks ago, whilst staying at my Grans place, I was given a few bottles of drinks to take home by my Gran.  One was bottle of (what I think) is Japanese Saké (Rice Wine). The other, was a bottle of Garlic Beer.



The beer is brewed by Yates Brewery, situated in Newchurch on the Isle of Wight, and is sold by 'The Garlic Farm', at a cost of £3.50 (about $5.30) per 500ml bottle, and has an ABV of 4.1%

Now, I quite like garlic, and although I'm not all that much of a beer fan (I prefer either Cider, Rum, Vodka or Whisky and other spirits when it comes to alcoholic drinks), I was eager to give this a try so I could at least review it.

So, last Friday evening, as I was relaxing in bed while listening to some podcasts online, I cracked open the bottle to give it a try.

My first impressions were somewhere along the lines of "OH MY GOD! IT'S EVERYWHERE!",  for as I opened the bottle, a foot long  geyser of foam erupted from the bottle, drenching my walls and bed. It was at this point that I started to get the feeling that this review probably wasn't going to go too well.

As I got up to get some kitchen roll to clean up the mess, I was hit by the smell. The unmistakably strong smell of garlic. So strong I started gagging.

About half an hour, one fresh set of bedding, several sheets of kitchen roll, and half an aerosol can of Fabreeze later though, I was finally ready to sit back down and try (what was left) of the Garlic Beer.

Raising the bottle to my mouth, I was hit once more by the garlic smell, only this time it was stronger. Much, much stronger. As I took my first sip, my mouth was filled with an extremely strong taste of carbonated garlic. As I swilled it about a bit, an extremely faint beer taste started to seep through, but was instantly overpowered by the after-taste as I swallowed, which alternated between that of strong carbonated vinegar, and carbonated garlic.

This after-taste persisted in my mouth for several minutes after swallowing, and I was only able to get rid of it by grabbing a nearby bottle of Longrow Single Malt Peated Whisky, and swilling my mouth with a few shots of it before downing it.

With the offending taste gone, I took the reminder of the bottle of Garlic Beer, and emptied it down the sink. It was at this point I noticed two things about the bottle. The first, which I noticed after draining the contents, was that there was actually a half-clove of garlic inside the bottle. The second thing I noticed, printed along the side of the label, was the following "Best Before April 29th, 2012".



So, would I recommend this drink? ... Depends. Although garlic may make food better, the same is sadly not true for beer, so if you're looking for a nice novelty beer to try, I wouldn't recommend it. If however you're a sadistic S.O.B, who wants to buy it with the aim of getting others to drink it, so that you can delight in their suffering, this yes, I would absolutely recommend it.
...
Just don't open it at your place