Arrogant Bastard Ale by Arrogant Consortia

For most of this blog I intend to focus on Australia’s craft breweries and beers.  But I will occasionally throw in an overseas brew.  And seeing as how it was July 4 last week, I thought it might be an appropriate time to share one of my favourite American beers, Arrogant Bastard Ale.

This beer was actually the first craft beer I really got into and I still absolutely love it today.  I freely admit that I was first attracted to the beer by the name, the logo, and the rant printed on the can daring me to try it and suggesting I would be too lame to enjoy it (still one of my all-time favourite can designs).  It was originally a Stone Brewing beer (do yourself a favour and grab any of their beers you see as well) but has since been spun off into its own separate brewing company.

But beyond all the admittedly cool aesthetics and branding, this beer is really something unique.  To the point that I struggle to even classify it.  At the risk of badly misusing fancy beer adjectives, I think the closest I could come to describing it would be a hoppy old-world ale.  One of my favourite things about it is that I’ve really not found another beer like it.  It has the hoppiness that I love in a beer, but it also has a really strong body that, as you may have noticed, I struggle to find the right words for.

Arrogant Bastard Ale is not the easiest of beers to track down, but if you can find a can (or even better a longneck) of it at your favourite craft bottle shop, absolutely pick one up.  It’s a big beer and there’s a chance you might not like it.  But I reckon your odds of loving as much as I do are better than what the label implies.