One Bottle Collection beer for every 5 days before Christmas. Rating system: not actually meant as a “tense” comment. All these beers either don’t exist anymore, or I tasted in the past. Hopefully, if not so hot before, they’re better now. If they do still exist. Or hopefully, if not better they’re as dead as the… Dickens.
Ghost of Christmas Present… remember him? Jolly, fun: the kind of guy you’d invite to a party for the season, and the kind of beer you could bring to a festive affair and not be totally laughed out of the room by festive beer geeks. That’s the best a beer gets in this series. Now Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t a great award. You can see from the picture he can be a bit of a grump. Probably from mediocre’ beer. And best not bring a Ghost of Christmas Past Beer to a beer geek festive affair. You’ll be the limp wet noodle of the party. A Ghost of Christmas Future beer? You remember that guy, right? If you want to be laughed at, have to bring most of your offering home and feel like you’ve just attended your own funeral instead of a party, bring a Ghost of Christmas Future beer. Some Ghost of Future Beer might best serve as embalming fluid.
Written by Ken Carman
1995 Anheuser-Busch Christmas Brew
I hate to slightly disappoint my readers, expecting a total dis on all things AB, but I don’t remember this one in the slightest. If I hated it; I’d remember. If I loved it; I’d remember. Solution: a rather bland, unremarkable, past attempt at competing with craft beer by the leader of the, “Oh, shisen, do we have to compete? Can’t we just legally drive these guys outta the biz with nasty tactics?” movement. Well, leader sometimes. Miller: now Miller/Coors, has been numero uno in the nasty more than a few times. The only thing missing is an actual numero uno with a bullet or two.
That we know of.
And you have to give them just an ounce of credit for trying instead of the usual past tactic: telling distributors if they carried craft beer there would be no Bud products.
I haven’t seen this bugger for a while. Of course I haven’t looked for it. Maybe they still make it. My guess it was superior to some of their more aggressive attempts, like a Michelob version of Stout that tasted like they used way too much Black Patent and hardly any other malt. Kind of like chewing on a burnt up log from a yuletide fireplace.
So one rather bland Ghost of Christmas Past award.
Without intent, I have collected well over 1,000 beer bottles since the early 70s. When something finally had to be done about the cheap paneling in this old modular, I had a choice. Tear down the walls while, oh, so carefully, replacing the often rotted 1X3s. Or: cover them with… The Bottle Collection.
