Hong Kong Mega Post

I went on a cheap beer binge during my last weekend in Hong Kong. I figured I’d never get the chance to try most of these beers again so I bought a bunch of single cans of beer. Each of these were less than $4HK which translates into roughly $0.50US. Are there better beers to be had in Hong Kong? Perhaps. Are there cheaper beers to be had? Not in this humble reviewer’s opinion.

Bear Beer

This entry comes to us from Harboes brewery. Goes down very smooth. Nice bite at the beginning. No real after taste but that’s good b/c most beers that have after taste are gross. The can is a nice solid green and I love that their mascot is a polar bear. Very unique. I like the crown logo as well. 5% alcohol so you can get a fairly good buzz. Pours out with a nice head, golden brown color. About $3.50 for a can which works out to 45 cents US so a good value. I’m going to give Bear Beer 4 Bundy Faces.

Barrel 1850

Nothing stands out about this beer at all. It’s not good but it’s not terrible. It’s almost as if someone found a way to bump the alcohol content of water to 4.8%. People like to make fun of American light beer for being watery and looking like pee but this same criticism can be levied at Barrel 1850 and it’s not even a light beer. I’m also lukewarm on the can. It tries hard but the red, blue and gold color scheme doesn’t really work for me. Just seems like they were trying too hard to make their non-descript beer look different. Well it got me to buy a single can of it for $3HK (about 39 cent US) but that’s about the nicest thing I can say. I can’t give it more than 2 Bundy Faces.

Pearl River Lager

This beer was skunky going down. Very thin taste. The only thing that saves it from getting less than 1 Bundy Face is that the taste isn’t all that actively bad. It’s pretty terrible at the beginning and gets mediocre from there. Kind of like 95% of all songs made after 1996. Very watery. The can is nothing to write home about either, that is unless you live in a place like St. Olaf, Minnesota. Then again, St. Olaf can boast that it’s the birthplace of Rose Nylund , is home to the Butter Queen competition, the Milk Diving competition and The Day of Wheat festival. See, this beer is so boring that the most interesting thing in this rant is the fictional hometown of one of the Golden Girls. I have to rate it 1.5 Bundy Faces.

Classic 110

Another entry from Harboes. Disappointing compared to Bear Beer. Pours out very dark and with a bigger head than a guy with hydrocephalus. It has a malty aftertaste that borders on skunky. The initial taste isn’t very good and the can isn’t anything special either. I have professed a love of understated designs in the past but there’s absolutely nothing that makes this can stand out. It’s dark green and says Classic 110 on it and that’s about it. I can only give it 1 Bundy Face in good conscience.

San Miguel Light

I was excited to finally find a light beer in Hong Kong but to say that it did not live up to expectations is a severe understatement. This beer was skunkier than Pepe LePew after getting sprayed by another skunk. As far as the aftertaste, if you ever put one of your action figures in your mouth as a kid and remember the taste, that’s what San Mig tastes like; cheap plastic. The can sucks as well. They couldn’t even be bothered to write the whole name of the beer on the can (I know Bud Light does this but they can get away with it as they're a fairly iconic brand) and it has ugly diagonal stripes on the can. The crest is supposed to be a lion but looks like some sort of walrus instead. The picture on the can is of a bottle of San Mig Light. How stupid is that? About the only cool thing on the can is that on the side, it says, “The only beer that nourishes true friendship.” Pretty good slogan although it’s a complete lie. If someone offered me a San Mig Light, I’d be more likely to punch them in the face than shake their hand. I’d rather drink the milk from a mother mole. This beer gets 0 Bundy Faces and likes it. As a matter of fact, I'm going to give this one a Smoking Peg.

Is Predators one of the greatest movie of all time? Yes

Where in the hell did this movie come from? I was watching TV last week and saw a preview for Predators, a movie dripping with awesome, that I had never heard of and was due out this week. How in the fuck did I miss this? My first thought was: it's probably low budget. But I quickly learned that it starred Adrien Brody and Laurence Fishburne, so it's at least got a decent sized budget. My next and final guess was that it must be awful. Also wrong, because after watching it yesterday I learned that it's fucking awesome. In addition to Brody and Fishburne it stars Eric Foreman from That's 70's Show, some hot Brazilian chick, Boyd Crowder from Justified and Danny Trejo. That's an A+ cast, considering that the movie is set on another planet, and there are zero other humans (actually there is a nameless Chinese guy, African guy and Russian guy, but you can guess what happens to them).

My blood got pumping during the opening credits actually, when I saw that the film was produced by Robert Rodriguez and Trouble Maker studios, the studio that has brought us such legendary films as From Dusk to Dawn, The Faculty, Sin City and Machete. There was actually a Machete Preview before the movie, and holy shit that looks awesome as well. The general premise of Predators is that the predators kidnap soldiers, hit men, mercenaries and psychos from earth, transport them to some alien planet and hunt them for sport. Just typing that made me tear up. So a bunch of loner whack jobs must team up against predators, their creepy alien dogs and booby traps set by other now dead humans in order to stay alive. That's it. No big "twists", love themed subplots or boring dialog. A day after watching Predators, I still can't think of one thing about it that isn't awesome.