I came across this weird drink in Park City Utah, while on a snowboarding trip. Among all the other regular beer choices, there was this bizarre combination of clamato and Bud (plus a Bud Light version). For anyone who doesn't know, clamato=clam+tomato, clamato is a pretty weird drink in and of itself: tomato juice mixed with clam broth and spices.

See what it looks like after the jump!

I expected this clamato beer to be red, like a bloody mary, but it's actually pink and fizzy. It smells like a strange combination of beer, pizza, and fruit punch - not exaclty the most appetizing scent. How can I describe the flavor? The first thing it made me think of was Doritos, or some kind of chips & salsa. It doesn't seem like it should be a drink. It's thick and a little salty. This is definitely one of the weirdest beer mixes I have ever tried, I was really surprised to see it in the store in the first place, and the taste lived up to my every expectation. I honestly can't say I enjoy it, but I've heard from other people that it is good in the morning, and great for hangovers. I'm not sure how much of it I can actually drink, let alone finish off a 24 oz. can of the stuff.

I didn't know it at the time, but Chelada turns out to be a modern rendition of Michelada, a popular Mexican drink made with beer, tomato juice, lime juice, and spices. I recommend trying it in a nice Mexican restaurant rather than going with Chelada.

This stuff smells just like lychee candy.  Since it came in a can I wanted to see what it looked like. Poured out in a glass, this lychee flavored beer is whitish-clear similar to the lychee fruit itself and very bubbly. Judging from the color alone, I would probably be more likely to call this a wine cooler than a beer. It does say 荔枝啤 "lychee beer" on the bottle, but it could just be a translation issue.

Actually, I can't find anywhere on the label that would indicate how much alcohol it has. This leads me to question whether it's a beer or even alcoholic at all, despite being labeled as such and put in the beer section of the grocery store.

It tastes just like it smells. If you've tried any kind of lychee candy or lychee jelly it pretty much tastes like that. There's not a hint of beer flavor, and it's very very sweet. It's a little artificial-tasting, but not nearly as bad as the 1 yuan blackcurrant soda.

This particular brand of lychee beer is called Lan Bei Lychee Taste. I got it in a grocery store in Beijing, china.

This opaque white beer stood out clearly as the weirdest beer among the other normal beers at the cafe in my hotel in Beijing.  The label in Chinese says  奶啤酒 (nai pi jiu), literally translated as "milk beer." It smells like sweet cream, and tastes a lot like the frosting I had on my last birthday cake. It tastes a bit like cream soda, but not quite as sweet. The best way I can hunk to describe it is whipped cream mixed with flat sprite. It's not bitter at all and if I didn't know, I probably wouldn't guess that it was beer at all. On that note though, it isn't a very strong beer, weighing in at only 3.5% when most flavored beers are more like 4.5%. According to the bottle it comes from Inner Mongolia, a part of china that also I home to an interesting style of milk tea. Thankfully, they taste nothing alike.

This is the first time I've seen or heard of milk beer, but it seems like a version called Bilk was developed in Japan two years ago to use up the excess milk supply in a small town. I decided to do more research about the milkbeer that I found:

This milk beer is made by a company called Health (汉奥斯), which says that this is the "First milk beer in China." It claims to be rich in nutrients like amino acids, calcium, vitamins, and trace elements.  It has no preservatives,  and seems to be healthy. I know beer and milk are both healthy, so why not combine them? I've heard of a lot of people mixing beer and milk, but it didn't seem like it turned out well.

According to Health's website, there is a long history of milk alcohol and milk wine in China, especially with the northern minorities. In the Western Han and Yuan Dynasties, supposedly it was pretty common for the people to mix milk and alcohol and have that as their main drink. Also according to the website, the company won an award for "Outstanding innovative Chinese beer." They produce 6 varieties of milk beer and milk alcohol.

ps.

Windows XP users: Can't see the Chinese characters? It's easy, just follow up to step 4 here: How to Install East Asian Languages

Anyone else seeing boxes instead of characters? Contact me in the comments. and I will help you out.

Bottle of Nikola Kvas

Russian Kvas is really a strange drink, at least from a categorization standpoint. Looking at the bottle, it looks like any other soda or soft drink (aside from the Russian writing). It is carbonated, but that's because it's fermented like beer.

Translated from the Cyrillic квас, known in English as kvass, kvas, or sometimes bread drink, kvas is made of rye bread and fermented to make a slightly alcoholic beverage. The alcohol content is so low that it's considered safe for children to drink.

I tried Nikola Kvas for the first time at my Russian friend's house. He described the brown drink as "beer soda." Obviously I had to try it. While it does have a beer-ish taste, it's tangy and tastes a bit like hard apple cider. It's definitely not sweet like most soft drinks, and took a couple sips to get used to. Kvas is not really the greatest drink for refreshment, since it's a little heavy. It's great for drinking with a hearty meal though like meat and potatoes or just for the taste.

Nikola is a Russian kvass company, whos name sounds like "not-cola" in Russian. It's one of Russia's national drinks, and there has been a great revival of Kvas drinking there, as a push back against the big foreign soda makers. The Russian kvas recipe is traditionally made from fermented wheat, rye, or barley with fruit sometimes added for flavor.

I took a look at the Nikola kvas drink ingredients, and it seemed to be a blend of all three grains, using apple as a base. That would explain the hard cider taste. This is clearly a commercial production though, made in similar ways to other soft drinks. I'm curious to try a home-made kvas to see how they differ in taste.