Laker Honey

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 8

Being a student, especially a student in engineering at the University of Waterloo, cash can be tight. Sure, there are work terms during which an income is made, and that income is usually spent on the high tuition we pay per semester. Plus, consideration goes into the cost of living away from home, food, and textbooks. It is not cheap to be a student in university in this day and age. Although cash is tight, being an engineer, with the motto, “Work hard, Play hard”, an equal amount of time needs to go into stress relief activities, such as going to the bar to watch hockey, football or whatever sport is on TV. This can be an expensive experience. A pint at a bar on average is about four to five dollars. A pitcher is about ten to sixteen depending on when and where you are having the beer. Being smart, intelligent and problem solving engineers, solving the financial situation was easy. Pre-drink. It is much cheaper, and it will probably save you a bundle at the bar. Now, to make this a cheap experience, someone is not going to go out and buy premium domestic beer from the beer store. Why would they? They can probably get that same draft beer from whatever is on tap at the bar. They would usually buy cheap beer. One, the beer is cheap, and two, it does not taste bad. Some really good buck-a-beer buys are Lakeport Honey Lager and Laker Lager. Initially, people think the beer will taste bad because it is so cheap, but in comparing Honey Lager brands, say Lakeport to Sleemans, they taste the same with little variation. The next point, what is your purpose for drinking? If you are the type of person who likes to go out and drink a casual beer on a social outing, then sure, buy expensive beer. It is worth it for your taste buds to be drowned in a good brew, but if you are an engineer at the University of Waterloo, the purpose for drinking is to get drunk. You can get drunk to either forget what you have learned after finals or graduating, drown your stress or to alleviate the pain of you failing a midterm with lots of beer. You do not want to make this experience an expensive one. It is a waste of good beer, and that is considered alcohol abuse. There is a reason why more and more brewers of beer are trying to go for the buck-a-beer deal at the beer store. There is money to be made in it. It is marketable to people who need to drink with low incomes, such as engineers. Cheap beer is good, and it gets the job done at a much lower price.

Aroma: 5 | Appearance: 3 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 3

This new one pours a golden-amber colour with a white head that does not stay long. The lacing left is small, but a coating tops the brew. Good, over-average carbonation. The nose is sweet with honey and corn. Sticky and lingering mouthfeel. The taste of apples is there, with some slight bitterness and a smooth finish. Not much honey, nor sweetness in the flavours. Corn is not really there either. Not a horrible brew, but the lingering aftertaste is not really an incentive to have this one again.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 2 | Mouthfeel: 2 | Flavor: 3 | Overall: 3

This new offering from Laker has a weird burnt honey smell and burnt honey taste. It's certainly not like any of the other honey's I've had. There is also that over-abundance of water you get w/ Laker. It's almost like they took their red beer recipe and just added honey. The average rating for the appearance is based on the appearance of other Laker beers, as opposed to beer in general. In other words it has that typical Laker look, which is apropo as this is a typical Laker brew. All-in-all, not bad swill; pretty much what I was expecting, and what you would expect from Laker. I would not drink again unless it was free.