Sacajawea Bares Gifts

It was a typical hot as volcano lava Midwestern summer day back in August of 1981 when a group of four freshly graduated college kids descended on St. Louis to begin their training for a stint in the Peace Corps. (Corps as in CORE, not CORPSE). Little did they know how that magical summer of free love, free herbs and free range chicken would be the start of a lifelong friendship. Prince Mike and his bride to be, Sacajawea Sweet Pea had both just graduated with honors in Amish Fashion Design at Florida A&M University where Prince was not only a three time All-American in interpretive break dancing, but also spent time rupturing spleens on the horny lads that ignored the "look but don't lick" policy while working as a bouncer at the local "gettin nekkid salon" called The Lusty Lady. The other half of the fantastic foursome, Big Audio Dynamite and his newlywed wife, a mud "rassler" who went by the moniker Dirty Coconuts had just celebrated Big Audio's release from the Nottahoochee County Jail in Pascagoula, Mississippi where he had spent almost 7 full hours being locked up for indecent exposure after giving an entire dorm full of unwed mothers a ride on his custom built "chopper" while wearing only his birthday suit and a smile. After their basic training, the group did a 6 month tour in Equatorial Guinea teaching the locals such things as how to grow "medicinal" herbs and the importance of performing weekly prostate exams on both the men and goats to ensure the tribes virility would be maintained. A possible career path that would have seen them tour various developing nations throughout southeast Asia and along the coastal regions of sub saharan Africa was interrupted when the boys answered a casting call looking for stunt doubles for Crockett and Tubbs on the hit tv show Miami Vice. Torn between their love for adventure and exotic damsels wearing little more than grass skirts, the lure of fast cash and an endless supply of luxurious Italian made suits made the decision to forgo helping the lesser fortunate that much easier. Sacajawea had recently returned to St. Louis to volunteer for a week teaching the art of braiding cornrows to a new batch of wide-eyed coeds eager to change the world. While she was there, she scored the BC4M a slew of new beers which we were anxious to taste. Coincidentally, Big Audio was also celebrating another year of aging, so the boys gathered at Prince Mike's for our weekly meeting. First up was a Tallgrass Brewing Co. Oasis (7.2%), which arrived in a can that looked like it could pass for one of those energy drinks. It featured a picture of the monopoly man getting sodomized by a globe and despite the puke inducing thoughts from that visual, the beer was actually pretty good. Malty and as dry as a box of sand, it had a decent hop explosion that didn't buckle your giblets. Next was an Odell Brewing Co. Red Ale (6.5%). Deep rich red in color, this one was much better than the standard mass marketed swill like Killian's and also rated a good. Big Audio remarked, "Damn, the only way this would be better is if it was on tap, and I had a bucket of wings being served to me by a naked Hooter's girl". "Amen to that" said Snake as we moved on to a Charleville Vineyard and Microbrewery Hoptimistic IPA (6.5%). The bottle had a label featuring a scarecrow on stilts harvesting hop vines and a sappy message on the side from "Joal" the brewer. "What kind of pole smoker spells the name Joel like that" asked Fred, as we poured a frothy concoction that tasted like a dispenser full of liquid soap. "Maybe we can use this to clean the carpets later" said Bim as we gave it a so-so and went on to a Goose Island Demolition (7.2%), a Belgian golden ale that screamed out "you won't like it" to the Belgian yeast despising assemblage. The label said it would taste fresh up to 6 months past the bottling date, so we were a bit apprehensive when we saw that the it got capped in January (of 2009). The beer poured both crisply and cleanly and remarkably, the flavor was damn good. "Easily one of the best blondes I have ever wrapped my lips around" said Wilder, as we gave this one a surprising good. Up next was a Boulevard Brewing Dark Truth Stout (9.7%), which is part of their "smokestack" series. Pouring out from the bottle the smell was reminiscent of a recently doused cub scout campfire as the smokey scent hit your nostrils. The flavor was ok at best, but the presence of what was probably pulverized used charcoal briquettes in the bottle caused us to pour most of the bottle down the drain. Hoping that we hadn't just created a superfund site in Prince Mike's garbage disposal with the contents, we poured a gallon of bleach in the sink to kill off the evidence and then opened a Big Sky Brewing Moose Drool Brown Ale (5.1%). While the name and label are fantastic, the beer itself is just FUCKING awful. "What did they use to brew this, moose jizz?" asked renowned neighborhood wildlife admirer Bim as we attempted to swallow what was accurately described by Big Audio as "curdled chocolate moose milk". A true sucks, this is one of the worst beers we have ever rated. Hoping to turn the night around, we tried a Ska Brewing True Blond Dubbel (8.0%). "I do love me some blonde doubles" said Snake, to which Fred replied, "They aren't talking about DD's, but I know what you mean brother". The bottle label featured a pair of Parisian streetwalkers leaning on one of "them fancy scooters a European metrosexual would be riding" said the Harley riding Big Audio. "You know what fat chicks and mopeds have in common?" asked Snake, "They're both fun to ride until D-Rail comes around?" suggested Fred, referring to D-Rails propensity to bang scooter riding chubbies while back home in his native Singapore. The beer was ok at best, featuring a mouth filling amount of that insidious Belgian yeast we still don't like so we rated it a so-so. Only three beers remained, the first was a Stevens Point Brewery 2012 Black Ale (5.4%), which was light as a bag of cotton candy but darker than the underside of a Ugandan porn queen's belly roll. The taste was a little sweet, with a hint of hops that just wasn't enough to make the rating rise above so-so. Next was an Odell Brewing Co. Cutthroat Porter (4.8%).The beer had a cool label and a very light smokey porter style taste that was decent and quite sessionable. "I could pound them all night" said Wilder, "but I sure as fuck wouldn't want to" for a beer we rated a good. The final beer of the night was a Bear Republic Racer#5 IPA (7.0%). It poured strong with a definitive citrusy aroma that said "there are some hops in this mofo", and the taste was quite good as well. Not in the same zip code as a Pliny, it still possessed a strong body and subtle kick and was a great way to finish the night off. We decided to call it an evening, since Big Audio had to take his better half down to Elizabeth City for a coed jello wrestling tournament at Headlights, so we bid them adieu and wished them the best of luck. Another successful evening, we thanked Sweet Pea for her efforts to increase our catalog of beers rated. Until next time boys and girls......listen to the immortal words of the greatest heavyweight champion of all time, the Nature Boy Ric Flair as he "tells it like it is"...