Good beer doesn't come in cans. I've heard that adage since I came to Bowdoin over three years ago, and until this week, I hadn't had much reason to doubt it.
A canned beer conjures up an image of a pale liquid, designed to approximate the taste of water as closely as possible, sold in 30- racks, and hastily chugged before being discarded in the neighbor's bushes as BPD closes in.
Certainly the canned offerings from the mega-breweries in Colorado, Missouri and Milwaukee bolster this stereotype, but a new breed of small, craft breweries are beginning to can brews that are serious beers, nothing like their mass-produced counterparts.
Or at least that's what a friend told me when I saw him sipping from an unfamiliar can. Microbrews in cans would be a godsend to law-abiding citizens who do not want to take glass to the beach or Ivies. I decided to put my friend's claim to the test.
First, a note about procedure: I am normally a firm advocate of pouring beers into glasses to fully appreciate the aroma and color, but pouring a canned beer into a nice glass makes as much sense as the Meddies attempting to justify their hazing by castigating the hockey team.
So we drank straight from the can, and while many of the beers reviewed may have improved in a proper glass, the allure of cans is a convenience, not a formality.
Baxter Brewing Company Pamola Xtra Pale Ale (4.9 percent alcohol by volume) is brewed a short trek away in Lewiston, Maine. Cracking the can releases a pungent, promising aroma that smells distinctly like an IPA.
The beer is nicely carbonated with a pleasant mouthfeel, but it is almost entirely devoid of flavor.
If Bud Light is the gold standard of flavorless beer, this beer is simply Bud Light with a miniscule kick and a longer aftertaste. Though it claims to be ale, it has none of the characteristic malt or hops of pale ale.
On the plus side, fellow tasters and I had feared the metallic taste that often accompanies cheap canned beer, and we were pleasantly surprised to discover that there was none.
Overall, however, I cannot recommend the Pamola Xtra Pale Ale for much of anything, unless flavorless beer is your passion.
Butternuts Beer and Ale Porkslap Pale Ale (4.3 percent) from New York has an entertaining can design, so much so that one taster freely admitted to being overly generous with his ratings because of the can alone.
This pale ale is what Baxter Brewing Company was unsuccessfully attempting to craft. The aroma is malty, and the taste is still fairly mild. While you'd have to struggle to taste the hops, the beer is pleasantly bitter, with malt flavors dominating throughout, and the mouth feel is pleasantly carbonated.
Porkslap has a long, lingering aftertaste that reminds you of your last sip in an inoffensive way. The malt flavors did cause the beer to become slightly sweet toward the bottom of the can, but it was nothing that couldn't be dealt with. If you are looking for pale ale in a can, you should definitely give Porkslap a chance.
Whale Tail Pale Ale (5.6 percent) from Massachusetts easily wins in the nonexistent category of best name. When I cracked the can, it released an extremely enticing aroma, better than any of the others reviewed, but that is where Whale Tail's accolades end.
The flavor was extremely hard to place; it tasted nothing like any beer we had drank before. It was sweet and citrusy, with absolutely no beer characteristics. After much deliberation and consultation with an expert, I decided that its taste most closely resembled a watered down version of Twisted Tea.
For this column, I was in search of beer, not hard iced tea, and this brew failed to meet expectations on all fronts.
Butternuts Beer and Ale Heinnieweisse Weissebier (4.9 percent) is the only wheat beer reviewed in this article, and it was undoubtedly the worst beer I have tasted in my life.
Pulling back the tab released the unmistakable odor of a farm—and not in an environmentally-friendly way.
To put it bluntly, this beer tasted like a combination of chicken feed, hay, and partially fermented grains, blended and then strained—a concoction reminiscent of putrid new-age health-food smoothies: full-flavored, yet with none of the alleged benefits. In short, do not buy this beer under any circumstances for any reason.
Red Racer IPA (6.5 percent) hails from British Columbia, Canada. The aroma is subtle but has the hops characteristic of an IPA.
Unlike many IPAs that can overwhelm a palate on the first sip with a sharp hop bite and an intense finish, Red Racer hits you in the face, but instead smoothly washes down while gently introducing complex flavors.
There is certainly the expected bitterness from the hops, but it is also possible to discern notes of citrus and pine, and the mouth feel is distinctly creamy.
The bitter aftertaste lingers, but it does not overwhelm your palate like other IPAs.
As a sidenote, I did enjoy sampling a local favorite, Baxter Brewing Company's Stowaway IPA (6.9 percent), but it had the unfair advantage of being tasted on tap at a bar in a proper glass and was therefore excluded from this review.
However, Red Racer in a can was still better than Stowaway on tap. Red Racer was the clear winner of the night overall. If you are not a fan of IPAs, Porkslap is my next choice. The rest of the beers I sampled simply aren't worth your time. While this tasting found that good brews do come in cans, they are few and far between.