Natty Ice broke our site.
by Danny – June 4th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Categories: Beer Brands |
Tags: anheuser-busch, hangover, natural ice |
Classy beers get classy pictures... and vice versa.
Beer enthusiasm often has humble beginnings. Many of us start our lives in beer prior to the celebrations of our twenty-first birthdays. It is not uncommon to get a running start to the legal starting line beginning in our late teens, hitting twenty one with a full tolerance and an impressive backlog of hop laden adventures.
In the interest of self reflection and full disclosure we decided to step back into the dark days of our own beer drinking and analyze how we gained the fine palettes we now celebrate. We did not recognize the fact that this experiment would put us on such an unfortunate hiatus. Read on if you can stomach our rediscovery of Natural Ice.
A personal reflection…
I was known in my collegiate days for my love and tolerance of the Natty Ice. At a time when I could not have set foot inside the beer stores that I now embrace and peruse like a wide eyed child, I knew that a mere eleven US dollars could garner me a case of (what I thought was) a very strong beer. My room was the Natusphere and was wallpapered as such. I even used the box bottoms to create a rather aesthetically pleasing trim. Those were the salad days. My beer runners knew my order as the liquor store no doubt knew theirs. It was a simpler time.
A break from tradition…
Buying beer for myself was an eye opener. The difference between $11 and $15 dollars seemingly melted away when faced with the wide variety of options I was presented. It may not have made the news in our small burg, but the day I showed up with Old Scratch at a gathering of friends and swore off the Natty was a milestone those present surely have not forgotten.
Rediscovery…
It was with blurred memories and a lack of necessary trepidation that I decided to retrace my footsteps. A friend, two thirty packs of Natural Ice and two free nights would prove a more than adequate set up for rediscovery of a beer that should have stayed a drunken skeleton in my basement closet. Natural Ice is thick and stinky. As stated by my partner in this experiment, Natural Ice has a “sweet taste of sheet metal”. The higher ABV seems to result from addition of Everclear to Natural Light.
I used to defend Natural Ice. I’d say that it really isn’t that bad in comparison to its peers. I was wrong though. It is bad. Even if it tasted like the finest beer of Germany, it would not be worth the aftermath. Waking in agony, I called for a priest. When exorcism failed I asked for a small prayer as I was surely not going to make it through the day. Natural Ice is capable of dealing the hangovers that keep you fro feeling right for a few days. Is it really worth feeling like shit for a day and a half for a night you can’t remember? No, at least not very often.
[Thanks Mark and Jessica]
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Sometimes we have to remind ourselves of why we do not drink beers such as Natty Ice on a regular basis anymore. I can’t say if its due to memory loss or recapturing a little nostalgia, but sometimes you just have to drink it old school and be prepared to feel the pain.