420 Strain Insane OG
SweetWater Brewing Company

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slightly haze gold, thin white head, nice retention and lace
Dank. A bit of rich malt and corn underneath. Hint of smoke.
Rich malt with a bit of dank hops and a soupcon of smoke.
Light bodied and crushable, with appropriate carbonation.
Definitely not a traditional Vienna lager, but it seems like what B-Real might lift instead of a 40 now that he's old.

 

Not a bad vienna lager - was surprised to see it so high on the list of highly-ranked beers in this style. 5/19/20 date printed on bottle so this was quite fresh. Pours a lighter caramel-brown color with just a little cap of white head and minimal scant lingering lacing. Smells of malt, toasted nuts, bread, grain, corn, a little faint hoppiness. Taste follows the nose, decent balance and character, a little sweet for me. Smooth mild slightly thin mouthfeel but overall good carbonation and a strong beer for its category.

 

Heavy on hemp flav.

 

These 420 variants from Sweetwater have been lacking to me, but damn, this is good...

Right from the moment I poured it out into the pint and took a sniff - I knew this was different. Of course, I had been here before with these different 420s, but instead of tasting incredibly weird, it was good, just plain, damn good. Mouthfeel was crisp, light-bodied, and the taste was one of the best lagers I have in a very long time. Definitely would carry this around to introduce others to the world of craft beer - it's that good.

 

From a can, poured into a Stange. Best by Never.

I'm not sure what this beer is, but it says it's a craft Mexican style lager, so I'm rating it as such.

Look: A Medium dark amber hue. Looks like the start of a great beer although it's got just a very thin lacy head. Not the start of a great Mexican Lager. 1/5

Smell: Probably the "best" thing about this beer. Mild and non offensive with notes of dank hops and malt, light metallic notes. Still not exactly the nose you're getting off a mexican lager. 3/5

Taste: For a mexican lager it's absolutely offensive, and deserves to be poured out. Tastes like a skunked corona someone let sit in the sun for six weeks and then mixed with dirty bong water. And corona is a terrible mexican lager. But bro it's dank. And it's a "malt beverage with added "natural flavors" it's totally there for the cool 420 kush crowd. More on how offensive that should be to any beer drinker later. Putting that aside for now you get some really skunky notes that COULD JUST COME FROM HOPS, but im sure whatever hemp BS they put in here totally amplifies the notes. But the beer lacks the body or the alcohol or even any piney notes to really stand up to said dankness. So this ends up tasting like a bad watered down IPA. 1/5, really 0/5.

Feel: It's hard for me to tell exactly how close this mouthfeel is to a mexican lager, because I just want to pour it out. And to me the mouthfeel of a mexican lager, should be. Hey, I could drink six of these. Still. it's lightly carbonated, you don't really pick up any alcohol, and if you pinch your nose it goes down quickly. I wonder if putting lime in here would help, but I don't want to waste a lime I could otherwise use to rub on a papercut.

Overall: This beer is everything wrong with beer. Sweetwater is a mediocre brewery at best, but this offering, and I'm guessing their whole "Strain" line is a disgrace and an abomination. They don't know what kind of beer they are making. They don't even care. It's just a blatant corporate sell out to profit off the increasing popularity and legality of marijuana and it's associated products. It even comes to you with a "fellow kids" marketing campaign with pointless washed up celebrity involvement. The absolutely most disgusting thing about this cash grab, is that you can make amazing really skunky beers WITHOUT adulterating your beer, with shitty extracts by using the right hops profiles and quantities. Lots of breweries are doing it the right way (and not calling it a craft mexican lager) These jabronis decided to do it with some extracts because they are lazy, and don't care about their craft. I'm not trying to get all german purity law on anyone, there are plenty of great beers out there with added flavorings. But why are we adding flavors, we could naturally get from just brewing, and why is the end result still so bad?

 

 

 

Clear Amber, foamy white head recedes to a film. lacey ; smell is mild, pleasant; The taste is mild and pleasant too; Mouthfeel is good, moderate carbonation. This is a "Mexican style craft lager" - as good as or better than most Mexican beers I've had.