Beer Review: You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out! (Eight and Sand Beer Co)
That Time Again
Ahhh…. its Christmas time again. That time of year where we put on TBS and just let it loop ‘A Christmas Story’ on repeat for 24 hours straight. Where even babies fresh from the womb can spout every line from the movie. Talk of ‘frag-il-e” and “the soft glow of electric sex” or singing the song at the end of the movie that now comes off as pretty insensitive, or sticking your tongue to a cold metal pole, or the myriad of other quotes and lines from the movie…. the most common and obvious one of course being:
“You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!” (Or some variant of it therein.)
It was exactly a year ago today I did another Christmas themed beer (gee, go figure, on Christmas Eve) – and it was also ‘A Christmas Story’ themed beer. Beer Review: The Soft Glow of Electric Sex (RAR Brewing). Maybe this will become a yearly tradition; doing an ‘A Christmas Story’ themed beer each year.
I know there’s no shortage of beers themed on ‘A Christmas Story’, so it won’t be a problem. (I could probably do a 25 days of Christmas leading up to Christmas day with just beer reviews based on this movie alone. If I was able to get beers from all across the country – or world.)
Intellectual Property Shenanigans
Something I’ve been wanting to write up, but as a very large article, for quite some time now is ‘intellectual property’ in the craft beer industry. I feel like its a very big topic that really needs to get explored (and yes, I know many have explored it in the beer writing world, but I haven’t, and I would like to).
I know I use a lot of intellectual property related beers for my beer reviews, partly because their more fun to write, partly because their easier to make a bigger article around them, partly because its easier to get them noticed and recognized and gets people to click the articles – in a similar fashion to why the beers are named what they are – to drum up attention and notice.
If there’s two beers – everything seems identical between them when reading the description (same hops, same malts, same ABV, same IBU, same brewery), but one is a Star Wars, or Simpsons, or Futurama, or Seinfeld, or whatever reference, and the other is a more generic sounding name “The Cold Lantern IPA”; I’m going with the “The Lower Human Horn” IPA. Just out of sheer recognition, namesake, and name value. Its an old school tactic, one that’s been done since advertising began.
And I’ll admit to being burnt a few times in the past over this. With clear cases of beers that were probably bad or ‘less than good’ and so they were given a pop culture or nerd culture reference or name just to sell or to move kegs or to attract some kind of attention.
So this is certainly something that will need addressed. Especially in the way some breweries are so proud of their Cease and Desists and treat it almost like awards to flaunt around. Its an interesting flex. “Here’s a piece of paper that nearly cost us a ton of money all because we drew a likelihood of Homer or Bart Simpsons nearly spot on to the T of the character on TV… ha ha ha…. had to change a bunch of labels and change the beer names on these….”. Seems like a lowest denominator type flex, but to each their own, or as the cool kids say nowadays ‘whatevz’.
Beer Review
Beer: You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!
Brewery: Eight and Sand Beer Co.
Style: Lager – Red
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: None
Untappd Description: This brand new red lager greets you with light caramel, honeycomb candy and citrus followed by a hint of pepper at the finish.
Eight and Sand Beer Company is a brewery out of Woodbury New Jersey. According to Untappd they are a micro brewery with 172 unique beers and a total of 56,105 ratings. They have a global average rating of 3.77 (as of 12.24.21) and their Untappd Description reads: We’re two buddies from South Jersey that are fully devoted to quality craft beer brewed with patience, brewed with care, and brewed with our local community in mind. The phrase “Eight and Sand,” was used to wish train crews a quick and safe journey and we felt it a fitting name for our brewery!
This is a fruitier smelling lager. You can certainly tell its a lager based on nose alone, but there is definitely a lot more going on with it. You get a strong good whiff of grapefruit, rind, and a honeyed sweetness, emboldened with some caramel notes.
Appearance is a pretty dark red see through, translucent, uncloudy beer. Not unlike some amber ales, this is right down that vein, just with a much more frothy head to it. It left fantastic lacing on the glass as it went down, and it was a wonderful frothy head with nice interspersed bubbles.
This is a pretty tasty beer from beginning to end. Thoroughly enjoyable all throughout with nothing bad or horrible about it. A fruitier, juicier lager, you get lots of different notes. And much better than plain or typical lagers that are ‘lesser quality’. I do overall feel this was just lacking a little ‘something’ to make it better. Perhaps it was because I expected more out of it due to the pop culture reference on it and knowing that it needs to be ‘real good’ to justify itself and its usage of the reference and intellectual property and to dispel my idea that sometimes beers are named after things to push and sell them, I dunno. There is a lot to like about this beer though. It has a very good flavor profile, and it has a lot going on with it that I do like. And I was a bit hesitant and worried about the ‘grapefruit’ mentioning, as I am not a fan of grapefruit. There is a good amount of honeyed candy, with some fruity notes and citrus elements behind it, I also get a lot of sweetened caramel and that really adds to the flavor. I don’t taste any pepper despite what the Untappd description reads as. There’s enough going on to keep you busy as you drink it, and at 6.5% its not a super light lager but its also not a booze fest either. Despite all the flavors and everything, it felt a little on the watery / thin side, surprisingly for its appearance and for the more full flavors, I was actually a bit curious how this was, especially given its appearance looking so full and rich – with that big frothy head to boot. All in all its a good beer, its nothing super crazy to write home about, but it is tasty, original too, with interesting flavors, just a bit on the watery side, and just not fully grabbing me – worth a try, but not worth a four pack.
My Untappd Rating: ***.75
Global Untappd Rating: 3.65 (as of 12.24.21)
Pop Culture / Nerd Culture Beer Reviews
Like I said earlier, we have covered our fair share of popular culture and nerd culture references and themed beers here on the blog. Certain breweries do a lot of them so you’ll see their names pop up more often. If you enjoy these themed beer reviews, check out our extensive list here:
Star Wars:
- Beer Review: The Pandalorian (Tattered Flag)
- Beer Review: Wookie Monster (Fourscore Beer Co)
- Beer Review: Out of Order: Blue Milk (RAR Brewing)
- Revenge of the Fifth / Cinco de Mayo
- May the Fourth Be With You
- Beer Review: This is Nut the Fluff You’re Looking For (Fourscore Beer Co)
- Beer Review: This is the Way (Broken Goblet Brewing)
- Beer Review: This is the Whey (Bolero Snort Brewery)
- Beer Review: Java the Stout (Jackie O’s Brewery)
- Beer Review: The Mangolorian (Brewery Fire)
Rick and Morty:
Space Balls:
Game of Thrones:
The Simpsons:
- Beer Review: I Voted for Kodos (Second Sin Brewing Company)
- Beer Review: I Voted for Kang (Second Sin Brewing Company)
Back to the Future:
Scrooged:
A Christmas Story:
- Beer Review: The Soft Electric Glow of Sex (RAR Brewing)
- Beer Review: You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out! (Eight and Sand Beer Co)
Pro Wrestling:
- Beer Review: Broken Skull – Stone Cold Steve Austin’s IPA (El Segundo Brewing Company)
- Beer Review: Macho Man (Couch Brewery)
Matrix:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
Seinfeld:
- Beer Review: Jon Voight’s Car (RAR Brewing)
- Beer Review: Airing of Grievances (Black Flag Brewing Company)
Other:
- Beer Review: Super Villain (Urban Village Brewing Company)
- Beer Review: Pixels (Seminar Brewing)
- Beer Review: Villeinage (Elder Pine Brewing and Blending)
Thanks For Reading
This was a bit of a late post, but it was a long day. And sorry for not throwing in a ton of references or GIFs and really doing the whole thing up into a big extravaganza. Woke up early this morning to do last second cleaning and preparing for my girls to come over, then ran and donated blood (which took forever due to a lady passing out, and what normally takes 25-35 minutes ended up taking an hour and 15 minutes), and then we celebrated Christmas a day early due to my having to work tomorrow. Celebrated with my girls at my house, then went over to my parents and celebrated with them and my sister and brother in law and son. Then had to run to my ex-wife’s church to take my youngest so she could sing in the choir for their Christmas Eve service. So its been a long day. But it was nice to finally get home, relax, unwind, watch A Christmas Story (yearly tradition obviously), have a few beers (I followed this beer up with Z. Morris by Black Flag – just to keep pop culture references going).
Merry Christmas to everyone tomorrow. Feliz Navidad.
I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday and are able to enjoy it with their family and friends. Be kind to each other out there, be safe, Omicron is still looking out there, but enjoy your time with your family. Just take precautions. Hopefully this will be the last Christmas where its all a worry and by Christmas 2022 we are back to having everything to normal (…then again, I said that this last Christmas too) – (but lets hope and have some optimism).
We’re winding down the year here on the blog and gearing up for a huge 2022 here at The Beer Thrillers. I’ll cover it more in our end of the year recap and our look forward to 2022 posts, but theres lots of big things on the horizon here. (Podcasts, videos, home brewing – guides, videos, etc; streaming, etc.). So definitely subscribe, like, comment, and follow us, to be on top of it all.
Cheers and Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus, and Happy New Year!
-B. Kline
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