The Skunk List: 4. Indian River Shoal Draft Pale Ale

Brewery: Florida Beer Company, Melbourne, Florida

Style: American Pale Ale

ABV: 3.7%

Rating: .5 stars

The first clue is the 3.7% ABV. That's pitifully low. Bud Light, by comparison, is 4.2%. This, my friends, is too close to gas station 3.2 beer for my comfort.

I vividly remember the night I first tasted this beer. We were lucky enough to have company, so 1) I could here various descriptions of this awful brew and 2) I didn't have to drink it all myself. From the journal: "Tastes like sewage. Of the non-lite, non-ice, non-mega brewery beers I've ever had, this is the worst. I hesitate to give it half a star." I kept the label to remember the horror.

I received two different beers from the Florida Beer Company (shady, right?) from my beer-of-the-month club, and have never seen any of their offerings in a local liquor store. Clearly for good reason. It should be brought into question how a "microbrew beer of the month club" would even steer itself toward this brewery. At last count, this beer had been rated 18 times on ratebeer.com and is nowhere to be found on beeradvocate.com. Very fishy.