Connie Mack ESB
13 Virtues Brewing

On a recent visit I drank three pints of Philadelphia's beer. The first pint was pretty bad. The second was downright painful. But I thought, that's it - it can't get any worse.

To my utter astonishment, it got worse. It got much worse. Truly, I am astounded at how bad Connie Mack ESB is. I am reminded of a poetry slam I attended years ago in which a contest was held to see who could deliberately write the worst imaginable poem. The truth of it is, it takes a lot of skill to deliberately write a bad poem. You must first understand how poetry works, then deconstruct it and reassemble its constituent parts in a consciously discordant manner. The worst poetry of all is not intended to be that way, but derives its potent awfulness from the profound cluelessness of its creator.

So it is with Connie Mack ESB. You couldn't deliberately create a beer this bad if you wanted to. Drinking this beer is like taking some journey into a mythical heart of darkness. Each sip draws you deeper into The Inferno. You pray for salvation. But it never arrives. It's that bad.

In this case, the smell emulates the wretchedness of the taste. It's less intense than the taste, but blows like a red flag heralding the danger to come. The beer is clear amber with an astringent, teabag mouthfeel. Every measurable attribute is spoiled, putrid, corrupted by ineptitude.

And yet, Connie Mack ESB is somehow marvelous in its improbability. It's like discovering a species heretofore thought to be extinct.