Tommy Knocker - Butt Head Bock Lager

2 Monks out of 10

This is my third Butt Head, (not all at once) and it is somewhat of a disappointment.  I've not had many of the Tommyknocker brews but I've noticed that they've recently reworked their packaging.  Before you had an almost Mother Goose illustration of a bunch of gnomes or  "tommyknockers" playing around a mine.  They have since ditched that, and have created a fresher, hipper look.  A somewhat distressed background of a muted forest green type of color, & on the bottom of the bottle we have a mountain scape in an iron ore kind of red, with a stylized Tommyknocker staring us down with a big mustachioed grin.  I think its an improvement, but I was always partial to Mother Goose, so there is a part of me that will miss the old design.  However, I won't be missing it too much, because this is probably the last Butt Head I'm gonna try.  It pours a kind of dirty brownish red color, and creates a small head when poured.  A high gravity beer at 8.2% and the IBU is conveniently listed on the front of the bottle as well at 33.  We need to have a sour unit measurement, because this lager leaves a slightly sour taste on my tongue.  Some slight chocolate undertones as well, but nothing as overpowering as the overall disappointing taste it leaves me with.  I'm hoping that the other beers in this gathering are better.  I've struck out the last two times I've bought something new.   It is not absolutely  undrinkable, but I won't be drinking it again.

LA 31 Biere Noire

This my fellow onions was and is a strange and mysterious brew.  Being generally open minded, especially when speaking of spirits, I decided to give this particular beer a solid shot at glorifying my gullet.  I found this at Bruno's on 31 in Hoover, AL.  Not to be confused with the now famous 31 in Louisiana.  I'm not really sure why the reference to, what seems to me to be, an ambiguous road in cajun country.  It's very possible that it is the same 31 that runs through Alabama.  But, that is a meaningless question, and certainly not the one that we are here to discuss.  Our question, first and foremost is...how good is this strange and mysterious brew.  I've got a mixed touch about this particular beer.  There is almost no information about it on the internet.  No ABV is listed anywhere that I can find, and the one I'm drinking right not leaves me with a bit of a sour after taste.  It pours out a very dark brown, and the head seems to rise up and fill the room, no matter how carefully you pour it.  The silking seems to hang around and cling to the glass, which, I should like to think, is a good indication that I'm in for a tasty delight.  The first one I had the other night gave me the same bad impression that this one is leaving me with.  I did have one in between these two dismal disappointments, that I rather enjoyed.  Mind you, it was not one after the other.  In fact it was a single beer a single night.  The second beer I had from this pack had hints of coffe and chocolate and was quite a winner.  I was hoping that it was supposed to be decanted, so I carefully poured and left bit of an unfiltered swallow in the bottle.  Well, it didn't help, but I do think I see some debris down in the bottom. I'm not sure if this wasn't a bad batch.  I'm not satisfied with the 3rd one.  It seems to sit unusually heavy, and there is a bit of a bitter bite to this ale.  As I said before, the ABV is unknown, but I'm going to assume it's a high content beer, because every time I have one, I start to hear the familiar ol' hum in the amplifiers.  Lazy Magnolia distributes this beer and that could be the biggest disappointment within this whole endeavor.  LM typically has a great selection, however, the only thing that tell me Lazy is the distributor label.  I've got one more, and I'm hoping it's better than this one, but so far this has been a quite disappointment.  If I'm grading this on a 10 monastic monk system, then I'm giving LA 31 a 2.  So this might be second only to the infamous "Estrella Dam" way back when we started this whole endeavor.  Adios Amigos, I'm holding my nose and sucking it down!