I’m in a pleasant mood. I’ve been doing some redecorating to my office since I’m in there for the vast majority of my work weeks, and I’ve been identifying lots of things that I think could use some reorganization. Things have worked out close to how I was envisioning them, and I’m feeling pretty good about the work I’ve put in, and I’m like 90% of the way done.
That said, I was looking at the time when I was wrapping things up, and I thought to myself, I’m in a good mood, so I’m going to enjoy the shit out of whatever beer I pull out of the fridge tonight. I can’t wait to prost.
I pull this green-ass can out of the fridge and take a look at the design. “Hell” WTF. Another fucking Hell bier? I already learned that in Deutsch “hell” means “bright,” so it’s safe to assume that this would be another bright and light lager like all of the other three hell biers preceding this one. But my objection is that this is yet another bier called hell, and I’m wondering whom between Costco or whatever company boxed this advent calendar, if there’s a modicum of trolling going on with all these bright and light lagers all called hell, or if they’re trying to tell consumers something with all this shit called “hell” in an advent calendar.
Regardless, I’m still in a pleasant mood, and I thought to myself that I’d probably be lighter and more generous to whatever beer came from today. And in all fairness, none of the hell biers were necessarily bad, it’s just that they all kind of fall into the category of light-bodied, light-colored, fairly easy to drink, Asian-beer types that are slightly watery, blander in taste but still easy to drink. It’s just that none of them particularly stand out of the pack, and falls into a designation of good beers to keep the party going, but none that are going to be the star of the menu.
So I have good news and I have bad news as far as Erl Hell’s rankings go. The good news is that thanks mostly to recency bias, I’m ranking this Hell bier as the best of the four (so far) hell biers. This places it in the second third of the rankings. The bad news is that, that doesn’t really say much because after 19 days, we have enough beers ranked to where the second third of the rankings still places it at a fairly middling #12 out of 19. But as I said, I’m feeling satisfied with myself tonight and this is me giving it a little bit of a bump as a result.
With five more beers to go, I’m wondering if there’s going to be one more hell bier or not. If I’m a betting man, I want to say no, but at the same time I can’t say I would be surprised if they had one waiting at #24.
Current Rankings:
- Jubilation Suds (#18)
- Bären Weisse (#16)
- First Coral (#2)
- Kirta (#5)
- Turbo Prop (#6)
- Schwarze Tinte (#13)
- Perlenzauber (#9)
- Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
- Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
- Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
- Alpen Stoff (#17)
- Erl Hell (#19)
- Grandl (#11)
- Altbairisch Hell (#15)
- Hell (#1)
- Tannen Hell (#8)
- Tradition (#10)
- Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvee (#14)
- Käuzle (#3)