Jeebus, a lotta stuff happened this last week… Along with the overtime situation at work, I’m amazed that I found some time to buy some RAM online and upgrade my MacBook to the maximum 4 gigs, I purchased some “specialty” beer glasses online, as well. I also replaced the empty ink tanks in my Canon printer and made some new friends who run websites on the ‘Net. More news later as time permits, but for now, It’s Sunday, and time for the Saturday Night Blue Collar Review. Pfft! Thanks for hangin’ in there for the extra day.

I didn’t have much time Friday during my visit to the highly acclaimed, world renowned Morris Beer Store, but I had to do what I had to do. Buy beer. So there I was, standing in front of the same beer shelf looking at a lot of the same beers I’ve seen (and had) before. Gail, the Beer Maven was chatting up a customer and advising her of dinner wine choices in another aisle. She even knows her stuff when it comes to wine. Wine is made from grapes and is drunk by snobs. Concentrate. I checked the cooler. Meh. I didn’t know what I wanted. Mexican? Italian? German? Belgian? It was almost as if I was choosing a meal for the day. I stood closer to the shelf and slowed my scanning. Should I do another summer seasonal beer? Nah. I wanted a beer beer.

My eyes briefly landed on a sixpack adorned in green on a silver background. The first thing that struck me was “green glass = skunky beer.” I took a closer look. Not green glass. I grabbed a bottle and checked the use-by date. Interestingly enough, it was brown bottle. I was snookered by the green label. I gave up and settled on this sixpack of Berghoff Original Lager Beer wondering if there was any connection to the downtown Chicago restaurant of the same name. The $6.99 price left me plenty of change from the ten for vending machine snacks at work.

As I mentioned, I bought some specialty beer glasses online. I decided to buy a regular pub pint glass, the kind you see in every English pub. It’s a 16-ounce plain ol’ beer glass. I picked up a wheat beer glass, as well. This sucker is big and tall and holds 22 ounces. I opted for this size after I watched a great video on how to pour beer. The wheat beer, it seems, needs the room for the head when one dumps the entire contents of the bottle into the glass except for the bottom of the bottle dregs which go in last. I also bought some fruity stemmed Pilsener glass which I may or may not use.

Here it is finally, Sunday/Saturday night and time to pop open one of these green brown bottles of beer. I chose to use the new pint glass, perhaps, I think, it’s the next best thing to a blue collar beer mug. It’s what the blokes use across Atlantic Lagoon. I grabbed a Berhoff and used my Genuine O’Brien Paints Combination Paint Can and Beer Bottle Opener to decapitate the first beer.

I poured the bottle contents into the glass as instructed and observed. The beer poured a dark yellow, I’d say a tad bit orange even. The head came up nicely and quickly dissipated to just about an eighth inch’s worth. That could be due to the newness of the glass. Micro-bubbles were all over the place below coming up nice and lively.

I took a whiff. Hmm. A little yeasty, perhaps. Brewer’s recipe special, I think. Not unpleasant at all but something interesting awaits, I’m sure. The first sip exploded with flavor all over my mouth gland. What a nice surprise; a great taste with no side effects. Nothing out of the ordinary but everything special. This is a well brewed beer. The taste is manly and quite flavorful as if it was made to order just for me. As more sips went past my taste buds and down my gullet the flavor settled in. It stood up well. No other hidden herbs or spices manifested themselves to detract from this wonderful taste. The taste finally settled toward the back of my mouth and renewed its worthiness with each sip.

As it turns out, there is, in fact, a direct connection between the Berghoff Restaurant in Chicago and this beer. The history goes way back to the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893.

Berghoff is a beer you should try more than once. If you’ve been following along here, make a list of some of your favorites, then buy those beers again when your in the mood for good mouth drenching. Include this beer on the list. You will surprise yourself again and again, each time you buy this beer. Your buddies and family will raise their eyebrows and comment when they first taste this beer. Definitely not a lawnmower beer, but a good manly beer with a 12-gauge taste. Highly recommended. No wonder the Chicago joint is so famous.

The SixPackTech ratings for Berghoff Original Lager Beer are:

Taste: A > a Strauss waltz right in your yap.
Smoothness: A > a fine tuned engine with a nice throaty rumble.
Drinkability: A- > these six will do nicely.
Bang for the buck: A- > a little more dinero for a helluva lot more taste.
Wife’s all-encompassing opinion: “It’s not bad. It’s not bitter. It’s got something. It tastes like… something. What is that? It’s not bad.” (Isn’t she simply amazing? Such insight. Such perception. Such something.)