The Great Malt Liquor Taste Test

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"Olde English 800 cause that's my brand /Take it in a bottle, 40, quart, or can/Drink it like a madman yes I do/Fuck the police and a 502"

Eazy-E- "8-Ball"

Technically, malt liquor is defined as any beer that is brewed with malted barley and is more than five percent alcohol. Technically.  Our definition of malt liquor is a little different; it's anything that will get us good and drunk for as little scratch as possible. If it comes in a big torpedo-shaped jug, whatever. If it comes in a 24-ounce tallboy, fine. Hell, you could sell it out of Tupperware containers from the back of a used ice cream truck, we don't give a shit. If we spend four dollars and wake up on a pee-soaked mattress, it's malt liquor. Still, for us it's not about what malt liquor is and what malt liquor isn't, it's about which malt liquor is best. So, on a warm summer day, we decided to find out.

In all, we ended up with twelve different brands of malt liquor ranging the gamut from the classics like Colt 45, to the painfully obscure Camo XXX. We also threw in Bud Light as a control, hoping we could separate the ghetto from the watery brewed-by-the-billion beer. The experiment was conducted blindly, the taste test participants watched a baseball game as the control, Nate, went into a different room to pour equal amounts of malt liquor into identical glasses; we didn't want our booze prejudices getting in the way of a fair and accurate taste test.

The testing would have three participants, your handsome writer, his roommate/control Nate, and Dave the Beer Snob. Dave and I, not knowing which malt liquor was which, would taste first. We would then comment, rank and guess which variety we though the booze was. After this, Nate would taste the malt liquor in question and offer his own commentary and ranking.

Malt Liquor isn't known for its flavor levels or its nuance, so we decided to grade it on a 1-10 scale for a bunch of different things, the scoring breakdown is as follows:

Flavor: Pretty self-explanatory. Does the malt liquor in question taste like ambrosia, or does it taste like shit?

Appearance: For this we looked at the can or bottle and decided if it looked cool or not. Again, this is an article about drinking beer, people, not a dissertation on the native tribes of the Amazon, though we hear they prefer St. Ides.

Street Credibility: If Ghostface Killa saw you drinking this on the street and asked to to pull down your brown paper bag, would Ghost be impressed and bust out a freestyle rap honoring your choice of beverage, or would he sneer in disgust and make one of his cronies diss you?

Ghetto Romancibility: When you offer this beer to the lady of your choice will they let you get

up in 'dem guts, or will it be another night with Handgelina Jolie?

 

The Results:

13) Bud Light

Flavor: 7

Appearance: 2

Street Credibility: 1.3

Ghetto Romancibility: 3.7

Overall Score: 3.5

 

 

Notes: If you've never had Bud Light before please walk outside and insult the closest angry minority until they beat you to death with something from a dumpster. Bud Light is meant to be inhaled as quickly as possible to get the drinker as drunk as possible in the shortest amount of time possible. The flavor is passable, but the can is bland, the drink is unimpressive and it won't help anyone sex their sweet lady down. We're happy our control places so low in the taste test.

 

12) Labatt Max Ice

 

Flavor: 4.3

Appearance: 4

Street Credibility: 5

Ghetto Romancibility: 4

Overall Score: 4.325

 

Notes: In their years together Canada has given the United States Pamela Anderson, William Shatner, an endless supply of easy jokes and shitty beer. Labatt Max Ice is kinda like all of them, it has big cans, is a parody of itself, and is a shitty beer. Max Ice is above average in nothing, much like Canada. There's the easy joke for the quadfecta.

 

11) St Ide's

 

Flavor: 3

Appearance: 5.3

Street Credibility: 9.7

Ghetto Romancibility: 1.7

Overall Score:4.925

 

Notes: Sweet mother of god is St. Ide's a ghetto brew. The malt liquor tastes like a hobo's unwashed taint, but with a Street Credibility score of 9.7 anyone and everyone should give props to the man who's comfortable enough with their awesomeness to actually down a whole forty of this rotgut.  Bonus points to any dude who can con a lady into pounding St. Ide's; if a man can barely drink the stuff, how will a feeble woman manage?

 

10) Hurricane

 

Flavor: 5

Appearance: 3.3

Street Credibility: 5.7

Ghetto Romancibility: 5.7

Overall Score: 4.925

 

Notes: With a can that screams "buy me bro!" and a flavor that, for some god-forsaken reason, is pineapple-y, Hurricane looks and tastes like an energy drink. Sadly, instead of staying up until 4AM having the best brodeo of all time ::fist pump::, Hurricane will quickly make the drinker question their desire to keep on living, rather than powering thorough regrettable life choices. Like, last one to jack off on a cracker has to eat it, bro-ham!

 

9) Camo XXX

 

Flavor: 2.7

Appearance: 8.7

Street Credibility: 5.7

Ghetto Romancibility: 3

Overall Score: 5.025

 

Notes: If Camo XXX was pornography it wouldn't be one of those high-end pornos with wardrobes, plot and dialogue. Hell, Camo XXX wouldn't even be the "two people have sex on a hotel bed" porn. Camo XXX would be the porn where fourteen guys stuff as much dick into a strung-out girl as they possibly can. The box cover (or label, in this case) only shows the kinda-cute girl, and it's in the clearance bin, so what the hell, you buy it. Afterwards you can't scrub away those feelings of disgust and shame, and you can't unsee what you've already seen.

 

8) Milwaukee's Best Ice

 

Flavor: 6.7

Appearance: 4.7

Street Credibility: 4.3

Ghetto Romancibility: 4.7

Overall Score: 5.075

 

Notes: Milwaukee's Best Ice embodies the spirit of Wisconsinites across the globe: It's ugly, it's not good on the street, it's not good with women, but it's pretty tasty, probably because it's loaded with so much fat and cooked over a oopen flame for several hours. Fine, Milwaukee's Best Ice may not be cooked over an open flame, or even edible, but it's the rest of those things, we promise.

 

7) Magnum XL

 

Flavor: 7.3

Appearance: 2.7

Street Credibility: 3.3

Ghetto Romancibility: 7

Overall Score: 5.075

 

Notes: Magnum XL tastes surprisingly good, and its mild flavor makes it easy to give a boo to sip on before she gives you a quick handie behind an alleyway dumpster. On the other hand, Magnum XL has some of the worst artwork we've ever seen on a forty, it's just a black label with white lettering. It's impossible to have street cred when the label on your bottle looks like it took fifteen minutes to design in MS Paint.

 

6) Clear Creek

 

Flavor: 5.3

Appearance: 5.3

Street Credibility: 6.3

Ghetto Romancibility: 3.7

Overall Score: 5.15

 

Notes: Sure, Clear Creek isn't technically a malt liquor, but it was $2.99 for a four-pack at a Seven-Eleven, and it comes in a hilarious can, so it's an honorary member. For a beer that looks like it belongs in Old Man Dickenson's backup beer fridge, it's pretty street. Cold Creek has a strong flavor that any unthug will wince at, and keeping a couple of them down with a stone-cold face shows that you've killed before...and you'll kill again.

 

5) King Cobra

 

Flavor: 5.7

Appearance: 6

Street Credibility: 4

Ghetto Romancibility: 7.3

Overall Score: 5.75

 

Notes:  Like the darting snake it's named after, King Cobra has no problem surprising the man who is fool enough to drink it. It doesn't look like much, and it doesn't taste like much, but it packs a decent punch for a malt liquor, and it's tasty enough to get a lady to drink. This is an example of the blind taste test working. All we have are negative memories of King Cobra from a vaguely racist party we attended when we were college freshmen, but in a neutral environment it really isn't that bad.

 

4) Steel Reserve 211

 

Flavor: 5.3

Appearance: 8

Street Credibility: 7

Ghetto Romancibility: 3.7

Overall Score: 6

 

Notes: What Steel Reserve 211 lacks in flavor and overall quality, it more than makes up for with how goddamn hood it is. Not only does the bottle look like it was forged in some steel mill, but the flavor, a rare mixture of Sweet Tarts and man ass, makes it nary impossible to drink, unless you're a full-grown degenerate. Couple that with an extremely high alcohol percentage and Steel Reserve 211 really is hobo heaven.

 

3) Olde English 800

 

Flavor: 6

Appearance: 8

Street Credibility: 6.3

Ghetto Romancibility: 5

Overall Score: 6.325

 

Notes: Ah, the first of the Big Three. With its classic appearance and overall notoriety it's not surprising to see Olde English 800 ranking in the top three. Because it's a little too bitter, it lost points for Ghetto Romancibility, but other than that, it's a solid malt. Nothing good or bad to say here really, it's pretty unsurprising where Olde English 800 ended up.

 

2) Colt 45

 

Flavor: 7.7

Appearance: 7.7

Street Credibility: 7.7

Ghetto Romancibility: 4.3

Overall Score: 6.85

 

Notes: Like OE, Colt 45 did well in every category except in Ghetto Romancibility, and for the same reason too: It's a bitter beer. Based on Colt's overall placement, it doesn't really seem like a big deal, and since Colt 45 is synonymous with malt liquor, obviously the hoodrats like it enough to keep it around.

 

1)Mickey's

 

Flavor: 7.7

Appearance: 9

Street Credibility: 5.7

Ghetto Romancibility: 7

Overall Score: 7.35

 

Notes: The other two members of the Big Three slid by on Appearance, Flavor and Street Credibility, and while Mickey's has all of that, the King of the Malt Liquors has something else that the others lack: the ability to sex a lady down. Oh yes, the King has Ghetto Romancibility, and it is good. Mickey's is down with all genders, peoples and races, which makes it the King of the Malt Liquors.

 

So, did we learn anything from this? The answer, of course, is yes.

 

First, it's interesting to note the correlation between flavor and ghetto romancibility. Even with a few outliers (Hurricane Ice, for example, with a 10^th place score in taste, and 4^th place score in ghetto romancibility) , how good a malt liquor tastes matches up pretty well with its ability to let the drinker touch a titty through the wonderful act of sharing. This may seem pretty obvious, no one has ever gotten laid by giving somebody something that tastes like ass (unless, of course, it is ass), but it's comforting to know that buying good booze will get some good butt in return.

 

Also, oddly enough, appearance is closely correlated to the overall score. Only Camo, which looks fucking awesome but tastes like monkey dick, was oddly out of whack. One might argue that simply means that we weighted the appearance of the beverage too heavily, but we'd disagree. If, for example, we threw out Camo's 8.7 appearance score it would only drop Camo's overall score by a little more than 1 point, and only 3 places in the rankings, making it a totally shitty malt liquor, instead of a marginally shitty one. At the same time, if one cut's out Mickey's 1^st overall appearance then it would still finish second overall, to Colt 45, which would still be propped up by its high appearance score. Like when you justify sleeping with an ugglo, looks aren't everything, people.

 

The most interesting part of this test, though, is how everything kind of played out how we expected it to. Mickey's, Colt 45 and Olde English, long considered the mainstays of malt liquor, finished in 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place, respectively. On the flip side Bud Light, our control, finished last, and Camo XXX, a malt liquor we'd never seen in our entire lives, finished 9^th. If nothing else it proves that the titans of the brown bag are where they are for a reason: they're real good.

 

For the intrepid young men who set out to prove something with The Great Malt Liquor Taste Test 2009 the whole process was just as much about the journey as it was the destination. We took steps down dark, booze-strewn alleys that no sane man with more than two dollars in his pocket ever should. You, dear reader, should just worry about the destination, alcohol-laden bliss. Go to your nearest bodega and pick up a forty or four, because like Billy Dee Williams used to say about Colt 45, "It works every time."

 

 

 

 

 

 

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