Posted on July 30, 2025 by billn
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You know, I’m getting older. My eyes aren’t that good anymore. Instead of just needing reading glasses now I need them for everything. My back hurts more and more. Last month I sneezed the wrong way and wound up pulling three ribs. I go out less and enjoy spending more of my free time on the couch.
In fact, it takes much more to convince me to get off the couch these days. Go out for dinner, eh too noisy. Go out for drinks? As long as there isn’t a band playing.
But what if the drinks are bad? Like bad bad. And you get to rip them apart. And you get to do it with other beer geeks? Yes, for that I will get off the couch. For judgement’s sake I will stretch out my back and put on my outside transition lenes. Drinks and friends may not get me moving so quickly, however when we get to stare down our noses at the mediocre hard work of others I can make an exception. For the swill-off I will rise.
Before we get started, we have some formalities to get through. The theme of the evening was “Stove pipe cans”. Any beer in a can over 18oz was allowed to enter; the swillier, the better. Scoring was done by the Wizard’s never-fail finger system (1 finger=horrible 5 fingers =sublime). If you make a comment, you better be prepared to live with that comment as you run the risk of being immortalized in one of my write ups! I will list the beers as we had them to give you the chronological flow of the evening. I’ll also give you the beer’s score, average and if it placed in the top three.
That’s about all I have to say for a lead in; It’s time to start the show. Let’s get this thing over with so I can go home and watch my stories on TCM. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the 2025 Wizard’s Annual Swill Off!
- Stella Artrois- 25 oz. (Where’s the music??? Usually, we have some theme appropriate tunes. Is there no music for tall boys?) Before the first beer was even opened Brian W and Joey started by fighting about seating arrangements and which way the beers should be shared. Also, Walter got right up from his seat and left the room. Maybe to use the bathroom, maybe to go to the chapel and pray. Will he be back? Besides these shenanigans there were also comments about the beer! “I thought stella was better than this” “STELLA!” “Spicey” “Very Wet.” “Oh yeah!” As far as swill goes Stella did not do that bad. “Not horrible.” After a few minutes Walter came back from wherever he went and we were able to vote on this beer. Stella posted some decent numbers on the night with 31 pts 2.82 average. Good enough for a third place showing.
- Labatt’s Blue 24 oz- (Finally Eli remembered the music. Classic rock started playing through the function room of Worcester First Baptist Church). Now we started heading further down the rabbit hole. Heads started shaking as people poured out their samples. The true swill begins now. “Pristine, it says so on the can.” “All these beers are from America???” Brian frantically starts looking for an import. Patience, Brian. There wasn’t much being said about Labatt’s blue. People seemed to be aware of what they were drinking. The only comment of note I remember is “Not great.” No, no it wasn’t. 26 pts. 2.36 average.
- Foster’s 25.4oz Now brewed in America! While not a great beer seeing that friendly, big blue oil can just made us all a little bit happier. “The oil can!” “With fructose, not high fructose. That’s the good kind.” Eric delighted us with a story of his youth of when he used to drink Foster’s and eat oysters. “Good times! I’ll give this beer one finger more, for the memories.” “Union made!” “That gets another finger!” Besides getting the same score as Labatt’s, Foster’s just seemed to warm our hearts a little more. 26 pts 2.36 average.
At this time someone pulled out a smoke machine for some reason. I’m not sure why. Ultimately it didn’t produce any smoke which I was fine with. This is the swill off, not an orgy.
- Foster’s Premium 25.4 oz- While this beer may have been the premium counterpart to the Foster’s above it was not held in the same regard. We’re a group that obviously came from blue-can families and that’s the way we like it. “Look at that color”. “This tastes better.” “The oxidized caramel color adds to the flavor.” It was at this time that my least favorite swill off transgression started to happen. “You vote 2, I’ll vote 3.” That my fellow Wizards is COLLUSION!!! By now you all should know I haven’t tolerated collusion at these events since 2016. To those who did this you know who you are and you brought same unto yourselves. After I calmed down I was able to hear a few more comments “Greg’s favorite beer.” “Foster’s Dunkel” “Bring back the original.” “This is like new coke.” The green oil can may be premium to some, but it wasn’t to us. 23 pts 2.09 average.
At this time we had more conflict at the table. Joey accused Eric for what he considered irregular voting practices ““Your score is wrong!!!!” There’s only one Wizard qualified to make that call, and it’s not Joey (It’s me. I’m that Wizard 😊).
- Samuel Adams American light 24 oz- If we ever do a swill off for the lightest colored beer we can find than this beer will destroy the competition. When the brewers at SA were told to make a light beer, they understood the assignment. “This is like one srm.” “Like Michelob ultra.” “There’s nothing to not like.” “Easy drinking.” “Not good.” “Thin, something is awkward.” “Green Apples.” “You can taste the Boston harbor.” “This is un-American!” When it was time to vote there was not much love to be found for this one. 12 pts 1.1 average.
Again the war between Eric and Joey renewed hostilities. This time Eric struck out at Joey “No way is this two. Yourrrrr score is wrong.” Eric, refer to my above comments on which wizards can make such claims. (It’s me. I just like saying that 😊).
- Miller High Life- 24 oz- This. This right here is why we have this category. It’s for beers like MHL that tall boys were made. Don’t try to convince me otherwise with facts, my gut feelings will win out. Let’s hear it for the OG. Pour this responsibly boys. “The champagne of beer.” Someone started serving brownies “5/5!” Brownies and MHL, this felt just like after-school care in the early 80’s. “This tastes like brownies.” at this point the room totally devolved into chaos for a bit and hearing any individual comments was hard to do. The only other comment I heard was “Better than the Sams” 25 pts 2.27 average.
- Sapporo 22 oz- “Year of the snake!!!” If we were scoring just on strength of can Sapporo would’ve taken first place for sure. This one got some real can love from the crowd. “This can feels heavier.” “It’s in the rolling process.” “I like the can.” “That will add a finger.” If only people liked the beer as much as the can. “Take more, don’t leave us a lot.” “Sweet.” “Smells funky.” “Not bad, not good though.” “Sapporo cans can be used as weapons” 25 pts 2.27 average.
- Modello Especial 24.2 oz- I’d have to go back and look at the historical records, but I feel like we’ve seen Modello Especial at this event a lot recently. I feel beer snobs like us look at Modello Especial the same way rich people look at their third-favorite child. You don’t actively dislike it, but you’d rather be spending your time with something else. “Look at that foam.” “Decent.” “South of the border flavor.” Not much talk was made beyond this. There was some concern for the other beers warming. Steps were taken to cool the beers so we could enjoy them the way the beer gods intended. “Should’ve been a little better.” Sorry Modello Especial, your just not your brothers. 26 pts- 2.36 average.
- Heineken 24 oz- There was a time in my youth when Heineken was looked at as a desirable beer. Of course, back we put lead in paint and our gasoline. “This is dry skunked, not real skunked.” “You can’t chemically stop skunking” “You can with modified hops.” “They now use treated clear glass to stop the skunking and it’s all mental.” I personally just think that homey skunked flavor is what those chaps at Heineken enjoy. Right before we scored this offering Brian told us of his disdain for Bob Dylan songs. 23 pts. 2.09 average.
- Natty Daddy 25 oz- I’m not sure who brought this, but they fully embraced what tonight is for. Now we are talking swill! The moment this can was opened we all grew mullets and started cheating on our wives with their sisters. “You will finish that can! That’s the rules.” “Daddy, Daddy!!” That’s right. Simp for the swill. “Help! Is this from Gansett?” “Can I give it a zero?” “200% of your daily intake of fiacian” Natty Daddy also gave us the quote of the night. “The name should get a finger.” 23 pts. 2.09 average.
- Natty Ice 25 oz- Oh yeah, now we are really mucking our way through the swill. When this sweet baby was cracked half of our cars turned into IROCs. ”The big one!” Eli told us a charming story about the cultural history of the IROC. “It’s over 3.2 abv for sure.” “You can taste the Ice.” “I tasted the Ice” 26 pts 2.36 average.
- Perni Wicked Weed 19.2oz- Finally we started to lift ourselves out of the muck. Not much was said about this one as we all contemplated the things we did in Nat Daddy land. “ I smell hops” I feel Perni Wicked Weed was here just for can size only 32pts 2.91 average. Good enough for second place on the night.
- Boom Sauce 19.2 oz Our last true entry of the evening. Boom sauce fared quite well for itself. “Boom!” “Canned on 05/06.” “This is drinkable at least.” “Not bad.” Even Greg licked his lips in satisfaction. “This batch is muted.” Despite being muted Boom Sauce came up strong 35pts 3.18 average. Good for first place on the evening!
- Dogfish Head 90 min IPA 19.2 oz- Ok so a couple things are going on here. This was a very late entry, and not technically swill. Not much was said as it was nearly time to go. We did vote on it however. Dogfish Head did very well with the raw voting numbers. 39 pts for 3.55 average. However, I did have some adjustments to this one. First it was a very late entry. Like 5 minutes before we finished late. And I felt that there was some conspiracy to sneak this beer into the lineup. For me you can’t have conspiracy without collusion! For this I deducted 20 pts for being late, and another 20 pts for collusion for a score of -1 for and average of -0.10. God, I love power.
By the time the swill off had concluded our allotted time had pretty much run out. At that point we all had to make like a tree and get the hell out of there. So we cleaned, packed up our gear and headed out into the night. Some of us went home, some went to Ralph’s Diner, some went on to sell black market PBW. As we walked to our IROCs we spoke no more of the swill we had just encountered. There was nothing left to say. We all knew what we experienced, and we were all closer for it. Fare well my friends. My couch now calls me and I must answer.
-Pat