The fun part about the internet is the ability to review products before you buy.  Which can be nice, but it resulted in a lot of blogs specializing in certain things, like say, hair products.  Then marketing departments start to notice the number of clicks they get and the blogger figures out what their price is.  Then what happens?

“These all suck, buy brand X hair spooge.”  All of them do it on some level; never saying a negative word about any one of them willing to toss a few bucks their way.  I guess you might say it’s pretty good work to get paid to play with other people’s stuff, then write up something and post something online.  Why mess that up by writing something negative?

I’m not getting paid, and let’s face it there’s like 80 of you, so I don’t need to worry about that.

This is my review of Samichlaus Classic Bier.

If you’ve never heard of it, it’s probably because it’s hard to find due to a small batch of it being brewed once a year.   Officially, it is Austrian in origin but in recent years moved its brewing to Switzerland.  This is a 14% abv beast, that might be the worst beer I’ve ever had. That might be interpreted as hyperbole but I had to think this one over for a bit.  Could it really be that bad?  Let’s compare:

Stone Stocasticity Project.

Take everything that Stone has ever made.  Maybe you had no idea why everyone was throwing a chip at the dealer and said, “C & E” but you followed suit and came back with 15x your bet and bought the entire product line.  Whatever the reason you bought everything Stone makes and put it in a blender.  That is what this tastes like.  The only redeeming quality its it’s healthy 7% ABV which quite frankly is a given.  Stone Stocasticity Project: 1.8/5

 

Crush Cucumber Sour

This one.  This is a sick joke played on Mexican Hipsters.  Yes, they do exist.  Crush Cucumber Sour. 1.5/5

 At this point you must be wondering what was wrong with Samichlaus.  First, it took me forever to figure out how to pronounce it due to the font.  It makes me think they are trying to hide something.  At one time they identified it on the bottle as the world’s strongest beer, which might have been true at one point but now is not even close.  It was lighter than I anticipated given its ABV.  It is a reddish-brown color.  It smells like something I can only describe as spiked almond milk.  It is sickeningly sweet, like chocolate covered malt balls.  If it was ever hopped, I can’t tell.

 Maybe I got a dud, because people apparently like this.  Samichlaus Classic Bier 1.5/5.

 

*UPDATE*

It was brought to my attention the information in the article is incorrect. H/T DEG:

NEIN!

Samichlaus kommt aus dem Schweiz! Schloß Eggenberg in Austria purchased the recipe from Feldschlösschen-Hürlimann-Holding. Samichlaus is still listed on the Schloß Eggenberg brewery’s webpage. I did some digging, your source has things backwards.

The beer is still made in Austria.