Me and You and a Blog Named Brew: It Does Not Work Every Time

Saturday, October 6, 2012

It Does Not Work Every Time

Beer #301 Haywards 5000 / Shaw Wallace & Co, Mumbai, India

Tailgate day in State College, as the Lions are taking on the #24 ranked Northwestern Wildcats. Hopefully the rain holds off, hopefully we see our fourth victory in a row. Let's do this!

What better beer to review today than..... the best selling malt liquor of India? We picked up Haywards 5000, and my initial reaction was, "This looks like a bottle of malt liquor."

It does NOT work every time

Maybe I was having flashbacks to Olde English 800, a malt liquor I'd find myself drinking once in a blue moon back in college?

Also does not work every time

Anyway, Hayward's pours with a pale, super crystal clear yellow color. The aroma is... nothing. Maybe the aroma of failure? The taste has notes of grain, sadness, and regret. This shit was really, really awful. Per the internet, it's allegedly 8% ABV, which is decently strong, considering it doesn't have any flavor to speak of.

Looks like Shaw Wallace, the brewer of this swill, is ultimately owned by SAB Miller, which puts it out of the craft beer category and into the 'random macro brew from a far away land that you don't see often around here' category we occasionally stick our toe in. Can't win 'em all.

Thing to Think About Today:
If we're bringing malt liquor into the conversation, can we stop and talk about not only the best malt liquor out there (not a real big accomplishment), but also the greatest beer ad campaigns of all time? We're talking about Colt 45 and Billy Dee Williams!

This? THIS works every time.

Williams was (is?) the epitome of cool, and somehow made drinking the otherwise awful Colt 45 seem like an incredibly wonderful idea. Plus, that campaign gave us the incredibly brilliant tag line, "It works every time," which of course implied that absurdly hot ladies would be lining up to have wild and likely unprotected sex with you if you drank this stuff. I defy you to watch this and not want to sleep with Billy Dee: