February 21, 2009: Dead Guy Ale

If you're in a serious relationship, every once in a while if you're lucky you'll hear three beautifully simple words: Girls night out. Wait, wait wait... don't you mean GUYS night out? No, I meant exactly what I typed....girls night out. Let me explain....

Most of the time when I go out on the weekend I'm with my girlfriend, and we have a great time. Given the choice I would definitely prefer to be in the company of my girlfriend over being alone on a Friday night. Every now and then though, she and her girlfriends will decide that they want to go for a night out without the boys. If she's out with her girls, then you can bet that I'm out with my boys. She is very much the voice of reason in my life, and her night out is my license to do all the things that I wouldn't normally with her by my side letting me know it's not a good idea. Tonight's bad idea: drink a gigantic jug of beer.

Tonight I'm drinking Dead Guy Ale for obvious reasons. I mean, look at the size of this freakin' jug! When I was walking the aisles of my local shop I found this behemoth hiding out on the bottom of a lonely shelf. They must have been hiding this thing, because there's no way that I would passed this one by before. There's a famous old saying that warns "Never eat anything bigger than your head." which seems like sensible advice, but what about drinking something bigger than your head? What happens when you consume half a gallon of beer in one sitting? I was about to slay this giant jug of Dead Guy ale to find out for sure.

I consider myself to be a realist, that's why I was sure to take notes about this beer right away because I new that when I was finished with the whole thing, I probably wasn't going to remember my own name, let alone what the beer actually tasted like. Here's what I wrote down:

• Nice, medium weight ale
• Slight soapy taste
• Very hoppy, almost IPA hoppy
• I like
• Dark reddish brown color
• good

Ok, so it's not the most comprehensive list in the world, but I'm sure most of my readers out there can appreciate the predicament I was in. As drunkenness slowly and steadily set in, I found it harder and harder concentrate on my beer, until finally I was simply chugging the final quarter of the jug when my buddies were ready to go out. In all seriousness though, Dead Guy Ale is a great dark ale from rogue breweries. Rogue is slowly starting to make a name for itself here on the west coast, and Dead Guy is in my opinion they're finest beer. If you're particular about the kind of aftertaste that your beer leaves behind, you might want to avoid Dead Guy because it is a strongly flavored brew. Most fans of India pale ales will adore this beer because of its hoppy taste and crisp bite. I highly recommend this beer to all my readers out there, but a word to the wise: don't attempt to buy Dead Guy Ale in jug form the first time you try it. It's a lot of beer to waste if you end up liking it, and let's face it, most of you wouldn't have the stones to tackle the jug anyway. Let's leave the big jobs to the pros.

Cheers,
Ian

P.S. I just realized that I hadn't yet commented on the name "Dead Guy Ale" which is probably the single greatest name for a beer on the face of the planet. Sheer Genius. It turns out that the beer was name in honor of the Mayan day of the dead and in fact has no relation to the Grateful Dead, although the beer has become popular among deadheads.

http://www.rogue.com/