Godfather
Devans Modern Breweries Ltd.

 

 

Poured from a bottle into a pint glass
Appearance – The beer pours a clear deep golden color with a small fizzy white head. The head fades very rapidly, leaving just whisps of lacing on the surface of the brew and sides of the glass.
Smell – The aroma is a mix of caramel and some cereal grain as well as corn syrup like smells and a bit of skunk. There is also a hint of wheat and a bit of brown sugar.
Taste – The taste is big of a caramel and corn sweetness upfront with some lighter grainy notes. There is a touch of paper and some notes of a very light herbal nature. As the taste advances it gets a bit drier and more grainy with just a hint of alcohol coming in at the end, leaving one with a smooth malt liquor like flavor to linger on the tongue.
Mouthfeel – The body is light to medium with a moderate carbonation level. For the more malt liquor like flavors the feel is great and makes for an easy sipper.
Overall – I actually rather enjoyed this. More of a malt liquor like flavor, but overall smother then most malts. Packs a punch, but in a more approachable way.

 

 

 

Clear golden bubbly body, white cap. Smells of macro malts, sweet corn big time, little euro grains, and subtle berries and lemon zest. It really isn't that bad given the style, but very sweet with the macro malt flavors, so much sweet corn and honey. Feel is thin, but not very crisp and clean, kind of languid for style. Could be worse

It's pretty cheap, tastes like generic lager but packs a punch. I'd get again.

Look: Clear gold. Virtually no head.

Smell: Sweet, almost artificially so. Corn syrup and malt.

Taste: Mild, sweet malt and corn syrup. No hopiness or any other flavors.

Mouthfeel: Surprisingly full body with good carbonation.

Overall: An overly sweet and unbalanced adjunct beer.

It has been an odd day here at Chez Woody as I simply ran through so much of the backlog, especially CANs, but then I came across an oddball Indian bottle, courtesy of my local, in-person trader, @tone77 & I decided to give it a whirl.

From the Bottle: "Lager Beer"; "International Quality"; "For Export Out of India".

Are they saying that this beer is SO bad that it is unfit for Indians?!? I've been to Bombay (Mumbai) & it was NO treat!

I Pop!ped the cap & awaited a stinking cloud of rot, disease & filth to assert itself. When this did not happen, I continued with a moderate C-Line pour, still guarding against the worst. It formed just better than a finger of fizzy, foamy, soapy, bone-white head with limited retention. SOFA. Not Status Of Forces Agreement, but so fa, so good. Color was Straw-Yellow (SRM = > 2, < 4) with NE-quality clarity. Nose was clearly imbued with corn, but such is the nature of the style. Mouthfeel was medium, solid for any Lager, especially an AAL. The taste was way too corn-y for me. Was this mainly corn? Phew. Finish was semi-sweet, like sweet corn, but I was finished. Ugh.

Alright let's dig into some British ale. Or, it was in the British section of the beer store, at least. And there's a dude who looks like an English imperialist on the bottle, hoisting a mug. But it says here that this is from India, which is a bit surprising and maybe even disquieting. For context, an Indian brewery putting an imperialist British solider on their logo is like an Israeli brewery making Himmler into a mascot. Then again, history is written by the winners and all that.

So, err, this is like an imported malt liquor, basically? And it's just strong enough, at 6.5% ABV, to enter into the danger zone wherein malt liquors stop being slightly more robust American adjuncts and instead begin to resemble lamp oil. (For a primer on this phenomenon, compare the totally ok and drinkable Olde English 800 (5.9%) with OE 800 High Gravity (8.0%)).

This pours okay. Darker gold than most adjuncts, nice white head. Smells... totally okay. A bit intense, grassy and grainy with some noticeable hop. Not bad at all, but firm, and in my experience you don't want a beer like this to come with all that much character.

But... hey hey it's actually totally fine. Kinda good, even. I'd group it with Schlitz' bull malt liquor: it is an amped up adjunct but they lean nicely into the floral cereal nodes so you don't pick up much alcohol or offputting sweetness. It has a warming effect, sure, but it's pleasant overall.

 

Godfather is a tough one to review.
I agree with Emerge077 that the label is almost a bizarre blast from the Cold War past. Further odd that this particular beer is only exported from India. But, let's not spend time on cultural enigmas.

Then, there is this beer that expands a limited style. It has more alcohol than any of its peers that I can remember and it is well hidden. While it Looks and Smells and Tastes average for an uneventful style, it still holds together without a weakness. This is an accomplishment!

Of course, this is my only beer from Devans Modern Brewery. And as Indian marketing often appears to us in the west, their website tries too hard. But Devans is making a go of it in a culture not so friendly to alcohol. So, cheers!

 

 

I like it but taste is diffrent. https://thoughtcloud.net

 

500ml can (@6.5% ABV) - 'SuperStrong', 'High Power Beer'. Wow, these guys haven't exactly been keeping up with the times, have they?

This beer pours a crystal clear, bright pale golden yellow colour, with two fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and somewhat fizzy off-white head, which leaves a few instances of calving iceberg lace around the glass as it evenly sinks away.

It smells of gritty and grainy corn mash, wet cardboard, a bit of indistinct plain fruitiness, and some earthy, musty, and perfumed floral 'hoppy' essences. The taste is bready and doughy pale malt, Corn Pops, more hard to pin down bland fruity notes, mild rubbing alcohol, and some weird, edgy floral character that I'm not yet ready to allow as being hop-borne in origin.

The carbonation is damned-near non-existent in its dead-seeming frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and sort of smooth, as that sugary 'malt' pulls a fast one on my weary palate here. It finishes off-dry, the lingering maltiness thankfully shedding most of those other shitty hangers-on.

Overall - well, this certainly isn't as bad as it initially appeared to be, as the ill-promise of the aroma quickly wafts off, leaving a generic adjunct lager, with a (mostly) inoffensive extra point and a half of the good ol' boozy-booze. Yeah, this weirdly European-looking 'godfather' does a lot better job of keeping it between the ditches than any other recent offering from the South Asian subcontinent that I've had of late.

Excellent for the price.

Poured from a 500 ML bottle into a pint glass at the World of Beer in Columbia, SC. The appearance is the same as a traditional adjunct american lager. The aroma was an unpleasant smell of old grass and skunkiness. The taste was actually worse than the aroma. I am a big fan of Kingfisher beer from India and this isn't even in the same league.