The Double-Digit Tinny: A Review

Now as I'm sure you're aware, I'm no stranger to culinary adventure. If there's something new around that seizes my attention, I'll probably have a crack: Carpe Diem and all that bollocks.

It was in this spirit of intrepid gastronomy that I made my latest regrettable endeavour. Perusing the supermarket aisles in search of a Saturday night beverage to see in the new EPL season, I came across a new item which stopped me in my tracks.

What the deuce?

It didn't seem to have a name, the can merely emblozened with a cryptic "8.6". Noticing that it was less than 100 Baht and sporting an import sticker, I went in for closer inspection. At first I wasn't quite sure what exactly I was looking at, but once I'd taken a closer look I knew I had to make this purchase:

HOW MUCH?!

That's right, friends: 10.5%. For a beer. I'd never had anything above 7% before, but here was a double-digit tinny before me. Motivated by a potent mixture of curiosity, recklessness, and wilful self-annihilation, I put the little fella straight into the basket.

As I got it home, I began to have doubts. Had I bitten off more than I could chew here? Sizing up my opponent, I surveyed the can. The first red flag: no bumpf. Usually, a beer will have some self-serving prose about its delicate balance of wild hops and untamed barley or some pastoral description of the beer's creation amongst the rolling hills of BlahBlah. This tin simply said: "SPECIAL STRONG BEER". How's that for tasting notes?

A further, more quantitative warning was to be found further round the can:

Don't drink if pregnant? Not unless you want to give birth to Ozzy Osbourne

5.3 UNITS, i.e. this single can of beer contained more alcohol than five shots of whisky. Biting the bullet, I popped the top in trepidation and took the fateful first swig:

"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds"

Without wishing to state the blindingly obvious: it was strong. Really strong. I mean, fair play to the manufacturer: they had an MO and the accomplished it emphatically. Discussions of flavour don't really apply to a beverage of this magnitude, but if pressed I'd say it was something akin to a supermarket lager laced with vodka. The sort you might make at an underage house party to get paralytically intoxicated as quickly as possible before instantly regretting it. In my naïveté, I had hoped to pair the drink with a meal, but it was so overpowering I felt I had to focus on finishing the can before I could even think about enjoying my food.

The beverage, like a can of chemical brain surgery, was becoming my Everest: whilst I was no longer enjoying it, I had to surmount it because it was there. The drink continued interminably, an unstoppable behemoth destroying tastebuds, memories, and basic motor functions alike.

"Come back here, you bastard!"

In a rare moment of clarity, I realised that the trouble with making a beer this strong is that the vehicle couldn't convey the payload. This beverage was akin to equipping a live Tomahawk missile onto an Airfix model, or installing a lorry engine under the bonnet of a Morris Minor. Sure; on a lorry, a lorry engine is sensible. It works for the function it is designed. On an inappropriate frame, it's so heavy and strong that it's in danger of tearing the whole vehicle apart. Lager was never meant to convey this cargo; it's meant to be a pleasant, satisfying drink for routine consumption. This beer/ethanol flavoured liquid was a disorientating slap to the temple.

A Morris Minor is many things: powerful, it is not.

Nevertheless, sensing that I was near the end (figuratively and literally) and still had the necessary mobility to place the liquid into my face, I ploughed on. Day turned to night. The world began steadily rotating around me like the hotel corridor in Inception. In one horrifying instant, I thought I understood the point of the Donald Trump campaign. 

We DO need to America great again, I think

With one final slurp, I finished the accursed can and crushed the bastard straight into the recycling.

Score: 2/10
Tasting notes: Goes well with reckless self-endangerment and petroleum
Available at: Rimping Supermarket (until inevitably withdrawn due to lawsuits)