There's something to be said about cheap beer. No, you're not going to get any tasting epiphanies out of it. You're not going to spend your time slowly sipping away to deconstruct any flavor profiles either. But sometimes, when you get home from work or back from the gym, you just want something that's simple, clean, cheap, and easy to drink.
With that in mind, I present to you Rainier Lager, the best cheap beer I've ever had.
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Yes, it's a Seattle beer, but if you head to your local BevMo on the right day of the week, you might be able to find a six-pack of 16 oz. tall boys for a measly $6. Up in the North Left, it's drunk ubiquitously. No dive bar is a dive without tall boys of Rainier. Going to a show? Half the cans are going to be Vitamin R.
And it's easy to understand why that's so: Rainier is everything you want in a cheap beer. It's easy to drink, with no astringency to stop it from flowing down your throat. It's clean, without the funky finish you find in PBR or Rolling Rock. It's actually more flavorful than the big three, thanks to a nice mellow kick from the Yakima hops used in brewing (Note: Yakima hops are sourced from Washington, but Yakima also produces most of the hops in the United States, so don't think you're getting anything particularly special.)
The fact that it's so hard to find down here is even a little bit of a travesty. It's brewed in California by PBR for goodness sake. But at least that means it'll be cheap wherever you can find it.
And hey, you know what? At least that means if you drink it down here, you'll even look a little hip.
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