This beer is everything that’s wrong with postmodernism.
Basic Info:
Name: Michelob Ultra Raspberry Pomegranate
Origin: Anheuser-Busch, Inc., St. Louis, MO
Style: American Lite Beer
ABV: 4.0%
IBU: not available, but I’d be shocked if there’s more than one hop in a batch.
Calories*: 95
Carbs*: 5.5 g
Protein*: 0.5 g
Fat*: 0.0g
I drank this: at home, from a bottle, with a bendy straw.
*Provided because the website provided it, as though there were nutritional value to this stuff. I think they’re mocking people who drink it.
First, let me explain that the bendy straw served two purposes. First, there were quite a few votes in the poll for me to drink this over ice with a bendy straw, but I didn’t really want to water down the so-called beer, so I stuck the straw in the bottle and called it a compromise. Second, the straw served as self-defense: as illustrated in the last post, I’m fairly sure that swigging this stuff directly from bottle would result in a volcano of sticky foam cascading out of the bottle and all over the table, floor, my lap, etc. The carbonation, she is BOILING.
So. We’ll start off with scent, shall we? This beer smells like Kool-Aid. Really, Kool-Aid. Even my Dad could smell it, and Dad’s nose is notorious for functioning at about 40%. So, picture opening a packet of Kool-Aid and sniffing it (flavor is irrelevant, I think): that’s what this smells like.
After such a smell, I was a little leery of actually tasting it. You can see my unease on my face as I prepared for sip number 1. Not entirely unwilling, but definitely skeptical.
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At this point, the beer tastes like artificial strawberry bubblegum flavoring.
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Then, unfortunately, I swallowed the sip. This is what resulted:
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<—- me, trying very hard not to vomit on my jeans.
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The major problem with this beer is in the aftertaste. If you’ve chewed copious quantities of artificially-flavored bubblegum in your life (and really, who hasn’t?), then you can survive the initial sip. The aftertaste, however, will KILL YOU DEAD. It is the aftertaste equivalent of a pile of burning Strawberry Shortcake dolls.
To sum up: Michelob Ultra Raspberry Pomegranate is the taste equivalent of a dirty men’s bathroom with a strawberry air freshener stuck into a corner. It’s like someone dumped a packet of Kool-Aid into seltzer water and forgot to add the sugar. What’s really weird is that this beer really isn’t sweet at all – it smells sweet, but once you get it in your mouth, it’s all artificial (they claim it’s natural, but I’m not sold) flavoring and no artificial sweetener. I never thought I’d *want* to taste aspartame (i.e., NutraSweet), but it would have helped here.
To sum up in quotes:
“Oh, OH GOD.” – Tony
“It tastes like the death of happiness.” – Alan
And a quick note on the postmodernism comment above: this beer is all artifice and no reality. There’s nothing authentic about it. Seriously, if there were ANY raspberry or ANY pomegranate to be found, this beer would be deep dark magenta – the mere thought of pomegranate juice is almost enough to stain something permanently. That stuff is DARK. Yet, despite the obvious lack of any of the labeled fruits, the beer label claims that this beer contains “natural flavors.” I haven’t determined what those flavors are, as I don’t think Strawberry Shortcake dolls qualify as ‘natural,’ but there most assuredly are not pomegranates or raspberries doomed to share in this vile concoction. So there we have it: it’s a beer that isn’t, one that claims “natural” on the label when there’s nothing natural to be found, one whose appearance remains the same no matter what they do to it, artifice masquerading as reality. I mean, really, the creators of pomegranate raspberry ANYTHING should at least have the decency to throw in some red food coloring and *pretend* that the flavoring and the color have some sort of correspondence.
Somewhere, lying in his grave, Jean Baudrillard is laughing his ass off.
