Arrogant Bastard

The intimidation starts even before the bottle has even been opened.  Quoting the essay on the back of the bottle, it warns, “This is an aggressive beer. You probably won’t like it.”  It then proceeds to berate both the reader and “fizzy yellow beer” throughout the paragraph.  Sarcasm aside, for more than half the drinking age adults in the country, the bottle is probably right.  This is an aggressive beer from a company known for aggressive beers. 

Arrogant Bastard was an extreme beer before the term existed.  The style “American Strong Ale” is just a catch-all for high-alcohol beers that refuse to fit into another style, but this beer is essentially a strong barleywine.  An English barleywine is typically malt driven, being more sweet than bitter.  An American barleywine, like many things American, is more bitter than sweet.  This is certainly closer to the latter.  It has a healthy dose of malt but a more than generous amount of hop bitterness that easily takes center stage.  Even after the beer has left your mouth, the residual bitterness lasts as a reminder of the pleasurable pummeling your palate endured. 

For anyone that manages to make it through the entire bottle alive, there is always Double Bastard left to conquer.  The first lines of the tome on that bottle read, “This is one lacerative muther [sic] of a beer.  It is unequivocally certain that your feeble palate is grossly inadequate and thus undeserving of this liquid glory…”


Beer: Arrogant Bastard
Color: Brilliant Red
Body: Full-bodied
Type: American Strong Ale
Foam: Thick and dense, custard colored
Brewer: Stone Brewing Co, Escondido, CA
Size: 22oz
Alcohol: 7.2 percent
Price: $5.99
Rating: 83
The Rating System: Out of 100 possible stars. Coors Light is arbitrarily assigned "0," and we're not telling you what "100" is, because we don't want to reveal our beer prejudices. 

Thanks to Robert Sietsema for the review formatting.