Macho Muchacho
Blue Point Brewing Company

Welcome to the opening salvo in my Happy New Tying Up Loose Ends Beer Sunday (Week 759)! The first is naturally an entry for The CANQuest (tm), but not everything today will be.

From the CAN: "MexiCAN-style Lager brewed with Agave, Lime, and Salt".

Upon Crack!ing open the vent, I beCAN a C-Line Glug into the awaiting glass. I was pleasantly surprised when it a) foamed up intensely to form two-plus fingers of dense, foamy, rocky, tawny head with great retention & b) its color. It was a gorgeous Amber to Deep-Amber/Light-Copper (SRM = > 9, < 13) with NE-quality clarity. An Amber Lager! Nose was redolent with lime & salt! 8=O It reminded me of being out to sea as a U.S. Navy sailor. I never tired of being underway & it is one of the few things that I miss, even 20+ years into retirement. Mouthfeel was thin-to-medium, not watery, but not far beyond it, either. The taste was very interesting with the agave giving it a honey-like sweetness to acCANpony the citrusiness of the lime and to offset the saltiness. Man, this was gooooood! I know that the brewery is held by A-B/InBev & that many would eschew their beers as a result, but I am not in that camp. I do not know that this could be pulled off by an independent brewery with Ska being the lone exception. They make an excellent MexiCAN Lager, but theirs does not include these adjuncts, IIRC. Finish was dry & CANpletely refreshing. I CAN totes see filling my beach-bound cooler with a case of these CANs. Wotta great start to the day! YMMV.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the can, it pours a slightly rosy amber with a nice head. I get a fresh ocean scent in the nose, along with a touch of lime and malt. The mouth gets the light malt lime flavor. Nice and summery!

 

Blue Point Brewing Co. "Macho Muchacho"
12 fl. oz. can, coded "18APR17..." and sampled on 15JUN17"
$1.99 @ Total Wine & More, Cherry Hill, NJ

Notes via stream of consciousness: Blue Point from Long Island, NY, I just tried their "Prop Stopper Seaweed IPA". But this is a Mexican-style beer! There seem to be a lot of them coming out these days and I wonder if there really is a demand for these. Is American craft-brewed Mexican-style lager a fad? But, this is not just a Mexican-style lager, it's also "brewed with agave, lime, and salt" which makes it a different beast altogether! So, OK, I've poured it and it doesn't look like much. The head, which was white by the way, dropped almost instantly, and the body is a slightly hazy deep amber/copper in color. I see no lacing left behind. *sigh* The aroma is interesting, and actually reminds me of a sea-side bar. It's kind of toasty, almost woody in a way, with a hint of lime, some funk or vegetal character which must be coming from the agave, and salt - can you smell salt? Or am I imagining that? Whatever, my first impression was sitting at a sea-side dock where there's some briny water and funky stuff around the pylons beneath you. I should also note that the label is really cool, but you should see it for yourself. Moving forward, the flavor delivers most of what it promised, although it's coming together for me almost like pizza in a way, which is weird. I guess it's the acidity of the lime which is like the acidity of the tomato sauce, and the toastiness of the malt which is like the crust, and the agave which gives it something else but I'm not sure how that fits in. Maybe it's just me, I'm kind of weird. Smelling it now I definitely get more of the lime upfront. And with subsequent sips I've moved past the pizza and get more of a lime-accented toasty lager. There's some agave as well, and it's fairly distinct if you know what you're looking for. It's a little bit spicy, and I get a kind of cinnamon-like flavor although I'm not suggesting there's any in there, just that I get that impression. It's interesting and tasty, and much more refreshing than some of the other "Mexican-style" Vienna-style lagers that I've tasted recently. The bitterness is held back a bit, and with the acidity of the lime and the salt it finishes dry, and lime-like, with some lime flavor lingering. I'm suitably impressed, this should make a great summer beer! My question is, will I want to have more than one of these in a row? I'm not sure. Probably not, but it was enjoyable and entertaining the first go-round. I'm heading to Virginia Beach this weekend and I'll definitely grab at least a six-pack of this.

 

I didn't add this beer, but it looks like I am the first to review it. Poured from a 12 oz. can. Has a copper color with a 1/2 inch head. Smell is of limes, malts. Taste is salty, limes, touch of malts, more salt. Feels medium bodied in the mouth and overall is a mediocre beer.