I Feel Dirty

You read the title correctly, I feel dirty. I’m a guy who appreciates craft brews for their flavor and creativity. I can appreciate products from the macro breweries like Bud/Miller because of their history, their price, and how good they taste after a long day of hard work. Even when the batch doesn’t turn out all that well I still love drinking my own homebrew because of the effort I put into it.

So why do I feel dirty? I tried the Costco “Kirkland Signature” beer. That’s right, Costco beer. Not only did I try it, I kind of liked it. It was a situation akin to sitting down in a foreign restaurant and having some completely indistinguishable dish put in front of you. The kind that you look at and ask your waiter, “Is this meat?” You close your eyes, try to avoid breathing in through your nose and you take a bite. Then, marvelously, it isn’t half bad.

For the surprisingly low price of $18 (and a Costco membership) you too can get yourself a 24-pack of Kirkland Signature beer. The package includes four six-packs, a German lager, a pale ale, a hefeweizen, and an amber ale. All of the beer comes from the San Francisco brewery Gordon Beirsch.

Like I was saying, when you go into it expecting the beer to be terrible, it isn’t too bad. Just don’t come into this expecting too much. The hefeweizen is easily the best of the group, with the amber coming in second. Their amber ale tastes like Fat Tire if it were brewed by Schlitz. There is something to it, but it’s highly evident that it could be much better if they put some more time/effort into it.

The German lager was mediocre, but passable. The bottom of the barrel was easily their pale ale. It didn’t have a flavor that was very desirable in the least. It was a little bit like they got mixed up and instead of adding hops; they tossed in a few handfuls of grass clippings.

So here is how I would rate those beers on a scale of 1-10 with one being two month stale “Beer 30” and a ten being the hefeweizen fresh from the tap at the Erdinger Brewery outside of Munich.

Hefe: 6
Amber: 5
Lager: 4
Pale Ale: 2.5

I think all of those are pretty fair ratings, but you’re more than welcome to disagree if you too are curious enough to purchase Costco beer.