Old Milwaukee Eisenbock = Epic Fail

Happy Thanksgiving to our loyal Gribblog readers. Yesterday we gorged ourselves on turkey with all of the traditional trimmings. Of course our good friends Jennifer and Lee (along with their son Alexander and daughter Kaitlynn) were present, and we had a great dinner. The turkey came out well thanks to some directions from Cooks Illustrated, and Jess’s recommendation to sharpen the knives made the carving process somewhat less stressful for me. I’m glad the turkey wasn’t alive for that! One fun addition to the Thanksgiving spread was an eisenbock I’d been planning to make for about a year. Last year at the grotto auction I purchased (much to Jess’s dismay) a $5 case of Old Milwaukee Light (oops).

Obviously I had no real intention of drinking it, but the money went to the grotto. I wouldn’t even recommend cooking with it—PBR is much better by all accounts—but I’d hoped that ice distilling the beer would improve the flavor. Although I froze the heck out of the beer and reduced the volume, thereby concentrating the flavor and alcohol drastically, nothing, it would seem, can tame the Beast. According to the cans, the beer won a gold medal at the 2008 World Beer Cup–I guess they have a category for beer that looks, smells, and tastes (I think) the most like piss. OK, technically it was for best American-Style Light Lager, but is there really a difference? Sadly, more bad flavor is, well, um, worse! Be ye warned, don’t try this at home.