Rauchbier!!!!

If you like Lapsang Souchong (tea dried in a smoke tunnel), you will love this beer. I had never tasted Rauchbier before (German lesson: Rauchen= to smoke). This one was called Aecht Echlenferla Rauchbier, the letters were difficult to read.... i don't know if that's really spelled correctly.....
Smooth, smoky, simple, but very nice. I need to try more complex Rauchbier before I can really say how it measures up. Nonetheless, it's a nice beer. I give it the thumbs up.

Loterbol

Belgian brown ale.
The label misguided me into thinking that this beer was something special. Perhaps only so many Belgian beers can make you jump out of your pants...

purple shmaze

For my premier review of beer on this barley pulpit, I have to be the premier downer, as well. Yes, you knew it was coming. I am forced to review that horrible scourge unleashed upon our fair beer-drinking society, Purple Haze. Concocted by the normally excellent Abita brewery, makers of the reasonably satisfying Turbodog, Purple Haze is absurdly bland. It claims to be an American-style wheat, flavored with raspberry, giving it a violet hue and a tinge of tangy berry. Not so. At all. Frankly, in a similar style of beer, I preferred a six-year old keg of Bud Light that turned up a party. That had character, and a bit of a floral finish. This, well, hell, I preferred a six-year old keg of Bud Light! People, do not succumb to the temptation to drink this rubbish. The raspberry flavor is nominal, and tastes rather like a brewing error (the mind conjures up scenes of a giant raspberry, a lá the Kool-Aid Man, bursting forth from the walls of the Louisiana brewery and taking the place hostage). Lifeless and bland, this is the beer poseur's Budweiser. I rate it two ICKYS.