When Life Gives You Lemons, Do Not Make Lemon Cass

So, CASS has a new beer available -- Cass Lemon. While the original Cass is probably my Korean beer of choice, most of Cass's other brands have not impressed. Cass Light is as bad as Capri. Cass Red tastes like the water in my sink after I've washed a lot of dishes.


And now there is Cass Lemon. Tonight I tried my first one. The weather has been warm lately, the kind of weather you might like a Corona with a wedge of lemon or lime in it. Good time for a lemon beer, right?

Wrong. It was bad. Bad bad bad. The first thing that came to mind? That scene in ANCHORMAN, when Paul Rudd tried Panther cologne and one woman compared the smell to Bigfoot (or, more specifically, a part of Bigfoot's anatomy). That is what Cass Lemon is like.

To be more specific... it is a light Korean beer, with less flavor than usual and an overwhelming fake lemon flavor infused into it. It tastes like they took Cass Light and mixed it with Lemon Pledge.

Bigfoot.

Why cannot one Korean beer company make a good beer? Just for variety... Just to see what would happen.

Shudder.

An In-Depth and Thorough Review of the Newly Redesigned Hite Stout Beer

Blech.

Like Making Love in a Canoe

JoongAng Daily writer Cho Jae-eun gives us an odd, brief history of Korean beer. I am tempted to fisk the article, but I fear I would be here all evening. The article has a little bit of useful information in it, but, sadly, it is obvious the writer does not know much about "real" beer, and so had to recycle a lot of OB and Hite PR material. I do not want to sound all mean and negative... Oh, who am I kidding? I am mean and negative.

Suffice it to say, Korean beer is bad. Really, really bad. I do prefer Cass and Hite and Hite Prime/Max (whatever they are calling it this week) over Budweiser and Miller and mainstream American beers. But that is not saying much. Japanese beer is rarely much different, although there are a couple of brands that are marginally nicer.

As for Canadians who love Labbats or Molsons -- you need to be quiet. Contrary to popular opinion in Canuckland, mainstream beer there is nearly as bad as in America.

The other Korean beers -- Cafri, OB Blue, Cass Light -- are pretty much undrinkable. And Cass Red is just nasty. It tastes like syrup, not beer. It is the Majuang Port Wine of beers. (I mean the Majuang stuff they used to sell at convenience stores for 1,800 won... count yourself lucky if it never passed your lips).

I am slightly ambivalent about Hite Stout. It certainly is no stout. I can remember when it tasted a little bit like a dark mild, but (as they story states) it has been rejigged and watered down for local tastes since then.

Whatever happened to Hite's ExFeel? That was another terrible beer. The name was supposed to mean "Excellent Feeling," but instead sounded like a way of referring to an former girlfriend.

Korea's brew houses are a little better, but not much. Very uneven. They often start out okay, then the brewmaster takes off and quality quickly goes down the toilet (Exhibit A: Platinum... such a sad decline and fall of a once good beer joint). I am told Big Rock in Gangnam is pretty good, but I do not get down to that part of town much.

I wish I had a most useful way of ending this article, but I do not. Oh, yes I do. Watt's on Tap in Shinchon has a decent pale ale on tap (from Canada). Good weather for sitting on the roof and drinking that.

Anyhow, I hope someone comes up with the bright idea of offering well-made, natural, flavorful beers to the public. Bring in Sleeman's or some German microbrewery or somesuch. It is just crazy enough an idea that it might work.