"What the hell I was thinking picking up a beer made with bacon?!?" I asked myself as I cracked open Three Skulls Buccaneer Bacon Lager, a lager made by Seattle's Three Skulls Ales that has additions of beechwood smoked malt (yay!) and bacon (eh?). The lager poured a clear, weak gold color with heavy carbonation and an incredibly short lived head. The nose was led by a combination of corn and sweat, with plenty of slightly-off aromas detectable beneath the surface, but almost no smoke, maple. or pork.
Three Skulls Ales Buccaneer Bacon Lager opened with the expected lager brightness but quickly flattened out into a carbonation-less soup of wet malt and creamed corn. The lager thickened up and became creamier as it faded to a smokey (most assuredly just from the smoked malts) end with just the slightest hint of bacon flavor. Disturbingly, after the flavors faded my mouth was left coated as if I had swigged oil or bacon grease.
Sometimes life is about pushing your comfort zone, or just enjoying a novel, guilty pleasure. This is about the only reason one should pick up this lager. It tastes too "off" to be a decent beer, lacks the rich, punchy flavor of bacon that could have offset this, and is truly unpleasant after it coats the mouth. Here's to trying, rhymes with...
