Country of Origin: France
Price comparison: About 2½ times the price of everyday beer.
Alcohol percentage by volume: 13%
Cute bottle/label? Skinny little 8.4 ounce brown glass bottle with a gold foil wrap on the neck and a nearly-cartoonish depiction of the devil on the label.
Appearance: Beautifully clear orange with not much head but fairly decent carbonation and some floating lace.
Scent: The alcohol hit my nose first; heavily sweet scent of bananas and sugar and faint traces of malt followed.
Flavor: Very strong alcohol flavor; almost spicy. Some hoppiness once it warmed.
Impressions: This gave good buzz but frankly, I've had stronger beers, malt liquors, and barleywines that were far less in-your-face. This wasn't unpleasantly alcoholic, as such, except that I'm pretty sure it started life as a lager and mutated badly into something almost completely unlike beer in flavor. If I wanted Jim Beam I'd have bought some; I'd have gotten a bigger bottle for my money, too.
Will I buy this beer again? While I wonder vaguely whether it'd be worthwhile to try to let this age into something more mellow, I don't care enough about it to shell out extra money for such a teensy little bottle that didn't taste that good to me. I can get good buzzes elsewhere.
Rating:
2 out of 5 cute beer glasses
Reviewed: January 16, 2004
