Not all connoisseurs of craft beer are made of money. We don't all have a Scrooge McDuck-like room full of hops that we can roll around in while wearing beards made of high-end barley. But there is a way to enjoy the taste and quality of your favorite specialty brews without breaking the bank!
Strap in because we're about to take a brewery tour…of your goddamn kitchen.
To start, all you'll need is a case of that awful shit you force down your gullet every week thanks to your lack of a disposable income.
Shandy
For the sweet teeth out there, this delectable beer-ish concoction is the Arnold Palmer of alcoholic beverages. Typically made up of equal parts ale and lemonade, a shandy is what happens when a brewer almost runs out of beer and says, "Fuck it! Cut it with some juice!"
Simply add a packet of your favorite low-calorie powdered drink mix right into the can and let those little sugar crystals do all the work! Stir for a few seconds and VOILA! You can now enjoy a beer that tastes a little like dehydrated peach.
And sugar. OK, it's mostly sugar. You definitely shouldn't have added the whole packet because, holy shit, is that a lot of frothy sugar you've got there. Fuck, that's like a Pixie Stick someone accidentally set near an open can of Bud Light, isn't it? Clearly less is more.
Wheat Ale
You probably have a whole host of wheat things sitting around your house. Seriously, everything is made of wheat. Don't believe me? Just ask somebody with a wheat allergy. Clear fifty minutes off your schedule and listen to all the shit they can't eat. It's fucking ridiculous.
Now, somewhere in the middle of that rambling pity party there was certainly a cracker or chip or something that you have in your cupboard right now. Crush that shit up and add a fine dusting right overtop your beer. Don't worry, it's supposed to be gritty. That's how you know it's real wheat ale!
Brown Ale
You say you like Newcastle? First, I don't believe you. Second, here's a recipe so you can "enjoy" the beer without paying for the brand name:
Take that can of beer you've got in your hand and pour some into your mouth. (Great job!) Now grab a handful of nuts. No, not those nuts. How drunk are you? Take a cluster of peanuts—or peanut clusters if you think you're really that fancy—and put those into your mouth. (Again, excellent work! I'm beginning to suspect you've done this before!) Now take another drink of beer. And repeat.
Yeah, it's really that fucking easy.
Porter
Follow the same steps as you did with the Brown Ale (without all that nut confusion nonsense) but this time switch it up with an occasional mouthful of that off-brand chocolate bar you stole from your roommate. (Hershey and Herschel are practically cousins, after all.)
Okay, so this doesn't quite taste like a porter. Not a good one anyhow. It tastes more like you made a haphazard candy bar to snack on while you try to choke down rancid beer. But isn't that better than just trying to choke down rancid beer?
You bet your sweet ass it is.
Lager
Are you fucking kidding me? Just go buy a lager. I know you're not made of money but if you can't afford a six-pack of generic lager how do you even have access to a computer right now? Did you steal it? If you can manage to steal a laptop I find it hard to believe you can't also go steal some lager.
Coffee Stout
Smash open some whole coffee beans and pour the broken pieces into the bottom of a can of something. If you don't have whole coffee beans, that sounds about right. I don't know what I was thinking. But you could also toss in some instant grounds (or some ants you found in the corner of that Starbucks, as there's virtually no difference).
Now let them stew there at the bottom of the can for bit. Make 'em really think about the life decisions they've made up to this point that landed them in this mess. They could have gone to Columbia like their older brother, but of course they went to the party school in Hawaii. Nobody respects a Hawaiian roast. And who picks Toasted Almond as a fucking major? You can't do anything with that. You'll probably end up at Walmart with all the other "specialty" coffee flavors like Jamaican Me Crazy. That's your life now. Hanging out at Walmart with the Jamaican Me Crazies of the world.
Anyway, your beer is ready once the beans have completed their existential crisis. Mmmmm, you can almost taste the sadness!
IPA
There are probably some hopheads out there wondering exactly how I plan on recreating the complex and pronounced flavor profile of the almighty pale ale. It's simple, really.
Take the dullest razor you can find (which is all of your razors because those things cost three times as much as the shitty beer you bought). Now, stick your tongue out and start going apeshit on that thing. Really slice and dice your way through the top layer, scraping away every worthless tastebud you can find. Make sure you get the ones all the way in the back that taste bitterness. You don't need them anymore! You're a hardcore IPA drinker now!
Stings so good, doesn't it?