Every year I travel to my dirty, quirky home state of New Jersey to visit my family for Christmas. As strange as it seems my favorite time of the year is the week I spend checking off the following list of holiday tasks:
Sleeping on various bunk beds and couches.
Waking up with strange animals on top of me.
Showering with Dora the Explorer body wash and brushing my teeth with Spongebob Squarepants toothpaste.
Visiting my Grandma in the nursing home so I can see her stare at a wall for an hour.
Building snowmen with my nieces (and as soon as my nieces retreat inside for hot cocoa, putting massive snow-boners on the snowmen for my parents to discover because I still haven’t matured past the age of 11).
Visiting old friends for a get together and spending hours into the deep night trying to convince one of them named Joe that he is being a drunken, bungling, shitfaced FUCKFACE who is in no shape to drive home.
Trying my damnedest to stay as intoxicated with as much holiday cheer as possible. And by “holiday cheer” I mean “booze”.
Thankfully my dear mother is keen to my checklist and spares no effort to ensure her pantry is appropriately stocked with whiskey, bourbon, rum, and beer. This year she procured a delightful assortment of craft beer for me to consume; including an IPA, a Belgian tripel, a stout, an American strong ale, a Belgian blonde ale, and a Euro pale lager. What a wonderful, caring woman she is! From nipple to pint glass she has always been a nurturer of the highest order. I love that shuffling old crone.
The first of her bestowed holiday brew selections that I have decided to review is, unfortunately, my least favorite: “Lucky Buddha Enlightened Beer” by The Lucky Drink Company out of Australia. It isn’t a bad beer, but since it’s a Euro lager, holding it to a high standard would be like expecting Warwick Davis to dunk over Lebron James. If you recall I viciously criticized this style of beer in my review for Samuel Smith’s Euro pale lager. Lucky Buddha isn’t as good.
Lucky Buddha looks like ginger ale, but with a pretty, bright white, foamy head. The aroma is very nice, actually: sweet, pungent, wheat aroma with green grapes and ginger. It has a nice light lager flavor, but again this is a boring, tasteless style. Ginger, wheat, grapes, rice, and a touch of hoppy bitterness. It completely lacks any flavor of alcohol, which isn’t a surprise. On the back end it tastes a bit like skunky lemonade (that’s not nearly as bad as it sounds). The aftertaste is very mild with a tiny trace of medicine, sweet lollipop and bitterness. There is no lacing at all. The texture bears resemblance to highly carbonated water but it’s not bad.
There isn’t anything enlightening about Lucky Buddha Enlightened Beer. And it’s almost as exciting as watching old people sleeping. But out of all the beers in this style, if you must purchase one, then I recommend this be it, because the Buddha shaped bottle makes a nice collectible. My mother wants mine. I think that’s why she tossed this one in such a high quality assortment of high gravity brews. Well played, Mom.
Lucky Drink “Lucky Buddha Enlightened Beer”
Beer Type: Euro Pale Lager
ABV: 4.8%
IBU: 12
Style: 8/10
Overall: 5/10
