Bands, festivals and the lot are releasing branded booze by the dozens these days and we come across more and more brewers inspired by the metal lifestyle… GRIMM makes it its mission to get to the bottom (of the bottle) of this trend with insightful reviews and extra backgrounds. So sit back, PICK YOUR POISON, and discover all you need to know about your favorite band’s alcoholic brands!
Poison Fact Sheet
- Band: Motörhead
- Poison name: Bastards Lager
- Poison style: beer – lager
- ABV: 4,7 %
- IBU: /
- Brewery: Krönleins Bryggeri (Sweden)
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(ABV = Alcohol By Volume; IBU = International Bittering Units)
It’s December 28th 2016. It has been one year since Lemmy left this world shortly after his 70th birthday. Is there a better day to play some of Lemmy‘s rock ‘n’ roll tunes and to crack open a bottle of Motörhead Bastards Lager?
Tasting
It is difficult to get good foam when pouring the Bastard in a glass. The little white head is also gone pretty quickly. The same goes for the intense carbonation you have at the start which dies out rapidly if you are holding the beer and chatting with friends. With such an unstable appearance, I guess they mean for us to drink this one fast! The Bastard has a typical yellow golden lager color. The aroma smells mostly of grains. When tasting, the beer has a malty start. You can detect some hints of corn in there while the taste gets sweeter near the end. But it never gets as sweet as for example our Belgian Jupiler. For the finish we are left with a short bitter punch, but after that only a short lasting watery aftertaste. The beer definitely misses hops for character.
Packaging
Here the beer does score good points. Clearly, more efforts have been put into this part of the production process than in the actual flavors of the beer. The golden Snaggletooth on the label makes the Bastard instantly recognizable and fits the color of the beer. The commercial description on the bottle says:
For all beer drinkers and hell raisers, fans of loud and fast rock and roll, no matter if you have no class or are a damage case, this mean machine lager is fuel for any head banging opportunity.
‘Beer drinkers and hell raisers’ makes it appeal to all rockers, metalheads and fans of Motörhead who recognize the reference to their 1980 EP where they cover this ZZ Top original. The bottle also states the beer is produced for Brands for Fans Sweden. In the ‘About Us’ section of the website the company states:
Our way to create business success for both artists and beverage producers by qualitative releases and credible communication have made sure that we captured the interest of both the rock fans as well as beverage fans.
While we look forward to taste other products of them in the future, we certainly hope the focus goes equally to ‘qualitative releases’ and not too just ‘business success’ due to outstanding packaging. Another hint about the quality of the beer can be found on the bottle when you read it is brewed by Krönleins Bryggeri in Sweden. You know another release by this brewery? Let me give you a hint. It is a collaboration with maybe Sweden’s most famous export product. That’s right, Krönleins Bryggeri is responsable for the Ikea beer you can buy near the cash registers at the end of your shopping. I don’t know about you but I visit Ikea for furniture and decoration, not quality beers…
So let us face what we are dealing with here. This is a commercial beer aimed to please the masses and not the fine connoisseurs. It is fun to drink with friends while standing in a crowd and rocking out. However, budget wise there are probably much cheaper lagers available in your country compared to what you pay for Snaggletooth’s print on the label of your beer.
