If there is one thing I have learnt from PJ Healy, it is that a good experimental economist needs to take his or her beer drinking very seriously.

Kiri bought me a beer advent calendar for the celebratory season with 24 different beers, half from the Parallel 49 brewery and half from the Central City Brewers (who make the red racer beers). I figure this provides a good opportunity to follow PJ’s lead and start reviewing some beers. I’ll keep updating this post throughout the month as I enjoy the beers.

Beer #1: Parallel 49 Schwarzwald 9% ABV 22 IBU
Rated: 5 out of 10
This beer is an interesting one. It is flavoured with chocolate and cherries, in the style of black forest cake. I normally really, really dislike flavoured beers, but this one is almost passable. The flavouring is achieved using cacao nibs and sweet dark cherries. The colour is very dark, almost black with a hint of red, and there is almost no head. The alcohol content is probably a bit too high, as it seems to overpower some of the other flavours. The chocolate and cherry flavours are not too overpowering, but not really subtle either. Not bad for a flavoured beer, but not great for a beer.

Beer #2: Red Racer Pilsner 5% ABV
Rated: 7 out of 10
Like all Pilsners this beer is very inoffensive. It is crisp and clean like a Pilsner should be, but the finish is just a little bit on the creamy side compared to what I would expect from a great Pils. It is a very pale yellow, again with very little head (I think this will be trend throughout the entire case). A good beer, that you could just keep on drinking on a hot summer’s day. I almost gave this one an 8, but knocked an extra point for the non-PIlsnery aftertaste.

Click beneath the fold to read the rest of the beer reviews…

Beer #3: Parallel 49 Filthy Dirty IPA 7.2% ABV 55 IBU
Rated:  9 out of 10
This is a very Pacific Northwest craft beer, an IPA with a lot of hops and a funny name. This beer is unfiltered (hence the name), and is nearly opaque. It formed a nice head on pouring, but it didn’t hold very well. This is a rather typical craft IPA, but it is at the better end of the scale. There are 5 different types of hops and they complement each other way to form a bitter yet flavourful beer.

Beer #4: Red Racer Belgian Style Wheat Ale 5% ABV
Rated:  6 out of 10
The description and ingredient list on this bottle makes you think that this will be a Hoegaarden imitation, and that is pretty much what it is. The beer had very little head, and was opaque. Before commenting on the flavour I will note that I had Indian food for dinner beforehand, which probably threw my palate out a bit for tasting such a light beer. It tastes a little heavier on the coriander seeds and a little lighter on the orange peel than a Hoegaarden, and it has a finish that I can only think to describe as a ‘dry shandy’. It’s not a bad beer, but I’d prefer a Hoegaarden.

Beer #5: Parallel 49 Old Boy Classic Ale 5% ABV 27 IBU
Rated:  7 out of 10
This is a rather dark ale, with a dark coppery red colouring. Again there is very little head. There is a rather pleasant nose, although there was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on that smelt out of place. The beer has ‘chocolate malt’ listed as an ingredient, which seemed a little surprising to me because I was tasting caramel rather than chocolate undertones. Wikipedia vindicated my beer drinking bona fides, informing me that chocolate malt produce vanilla and caramel flavours (but not chocolate flavours!). Certainly, the chocolate malts are what is driving this beer. All in all a good, but not great, beer.

Before reviewing the next beer, let’s discuss some economics. The next beer is the lowest alcohol beer in the advent calendar, but at 4.2% its not really that low. This raises the question, why aren’t there any good low alcohol beers in North America? In contrast, Australia has beers such as Boags Premium Light and Cascade Premium Light that are under 3% alcohol but still good beers. The answer to this conundrum is, believe it or not, taxes.

Alcohol taxes in North America do not vary with the strength of the beer, where as low alcohol beers in Australia get significant tax advantages over regular strength beers. But this doesn’t quite explain the whole story. If the tax treatment was the only difference, then we would still likely expect to see some good low alcohol beers in North America (the Australian experience shows that there seems to be at least some demand for them). The additional problem is that a good low alcohol beer is actually more expensive to make then a regular beer. This means that, in North America, a good low alcohol beer will be more expensive than a regular beer. Meanwhile, in Australia, low alcohol beers are probably about 25% cheaper than regular beer thanks to the tax breaks.

Why does it cost more to make a low alcohol beer? You can’t just get a normal beer and water it down, or ferment it for less time, because the beer will taste terrible. What you need to do is get a good quality beer, crisp but with some complexity, and then distil out some of the alcohol. This adds an extra step into the production process and increases the production costs. But it does make for a clean crisp low alcohol beer.

Now, onto the next review.

Beer #6: Red Racer Oatmeal Stout 4.2% ABV
Rated:  7 out of 10
This beer is very dark, nearly black, as you might expect from a stout. Again, the head doesn’t hold very well. This is a true stout, and it has that typical dark yet smooth taste. The finish probably isn’t quite as creamy or rich as I would like from a great stout, but it’s still a very serviceable beer.

Beer #7: Parallel 49 The Toques of Hazzard IPA 9.2% ABV 76 IBU
Rated:  6 out of 10
This IPA has a dark golden colour, and hides both its strong alcohol content and heavy bitterness well. However, the flavour that hides the alcohol and bitterness is a sweet fruity flavour that I can’t quite place and I’m not sure I like. For a beer with such a great Canadian pun in the title, the result is a little disappointing. And I’m still waiting for one of these beers to hold a good head.

Beer #8: Red City Pale Ale 5% ABV
Rated:  8 out of 10

This beer pours much like your standard west coast pale ale; a nice golden colour but unable to hold a head. The nose is enticing and fruitier than most pale ales. The flavour is both smooth and floral, although it lacks the typical bitterness on the tail end that you might expect. It’s a surprisingly fresh take on the west coast pale, and the type of beer that could easily create a drinking problem (yes, I am watching Airplane while reviewing this beer).