A Word About the Queen

You'd be surprised how much of one's free time can be spent in the sweltering heat dreaming of the beads of condensation dripping down a PBR can (o.k., maybe Jackson Hole workers might not be surprised). At 115 degrees, the bars could be serving chilled donkey urine and it wouldn't be that bad. As the case is, its not that far off. There is only one home grown beer in Mali, Castel. This is the flagship of the Malian brewing industry. That is to say it is the entire Malian brewing industry. It will not be winning the Golden Boot at your neighborhood beer festival, needless to say.

Why fumble through a search for the right words in an attempt to describe the taste when the "Beer Manifesto" website has already summed it up so succinctly? Their review, in its entirety:

"The national beer, brewed in Bamako by Bramali, is Castel, a dark straw lager with grassy nose, porridgey, corn-like aroma, and some rotten cabbage that manages to remain unobtrusive."

Finally, someone has captured the essence of this nectar. Let's take a look at that beauty:


Looks tempting, does it not?

She is known as the "Queen of Beers," although the glory of her reign is greatly diminished, if it was ever glorious at all. The Queen is a fickle mistress who does not suffer a glutton lightly. She has been known to exact her revenge on her subjects the next day in the most offensive gastrointestinal fashion. Sometimes just two or three bottles can have a move grave effect than an entire night of downing pitchers at your local bowling alley!



Her ad campaign is absolutely fantastic. It appears that the idea is to send Castel table coverings to all the bars and hope that they use them instead of the competitor's (Flag beer) table coverings. The writings on these tables are what's great. Our favorite is "nothing succeeds like success." There is no way to refute the truth in this statement. Denying her logic is impossible, condordance the only option. Brilliant!

At any other time Castel would not be worthy of marinating your brats in. This, however, his is no ordinary time. It speaks volumes that one can hear a chorus of angels break into "Hallelujah" opening a bottle of one of the world's worst beers. It says that one lives in West Africa...
possibly as a Peace Corps volunteer.