Genesee Cream Ale

AFFORDABILITY: There is no doubting the cost-efficiency of Genesee Cream Ale. You can get a 30-pack, even in Virginia, for just over ten bucks. I bought this 30-pack, delusional in my memories of it, thinking about a party at my boy Michael’s house where he had some fancy-assed microkeg, and me and the only two other dudes still hanging by the fire were drinking from a warm 30-pack of Genesee because we didn’t feel like walking to the keg across the field. Another funny story involving Genesee and Michael, who is one of those high-end dread dudes who only smokes good weed and only drinks good beer, is one day I was filling up our drinking water jugs from this roadside spring, and he drove by, so he pulled over and kicked it. Back road, nowhere to most people, and another truck stops on the pull-off. It’s this dude J.T. who grew up with my folks and lives nearby and is always good for paranoid conspiracy diatribes mixed with country humor. We’re sitting there bullshitting and J.T.’s all like, “Man, I got the best beer you can get in the back of the truck. Y’all want one?” I’m not one to turn down beer on the side of the road, and Michael reluctantly accepted as well. J.T. goes to the truck bed and comes back with three cans of Genesee. That shit was funny, because Michael felt obligated to drink it, but I know he was like, “Fuck this cheap shit.” I think J.T. bragged on that day on the affordability of the 30-pack as well. 5 out of 5.
DESTROYABILITY: Genesee will get you drunk in abundance, but it’s hard to drink in abundance. It goes right up there with Milwaukee’s Best and Ice beers as things that only college kids and lifelong alcoholics will drink regularly. For regular humans, the consumption amount needed for drunkenness combined with the swill taste can be hard to stomach. 3 out of 5.
LABEL AESTHETIC: Big cursive softball jerseys saying “Cream Ale” is pretty swank, and the green, gold and silver with red highlights is fairly pimp. I also enjoy how the can brags it is an “Award Winning Classic – Flavor of a fine ale and the smoothness of a premium lager.” There is nothing fine or premium about a 30-pack of Genesee, and the only way you’d ever consider it smooth is you, like me, liked to pretend when rappers are always rapping about drinking Hennessey, they’re actually saying Genesee. 3 out of 5.
CORPORATE MASTER: It claims to be its own deal, the Genesee Brewing Company from Rochester, New York, but to be distributed all the way down here, they’re probably tapped into some bullshit. Still, it seems to be its own entity, and with a name like Genesee, I can only assume that organized crime is involved somehow. 4 out of 5.
OVERALL AMBIANCE: Genesee is one of those beers that’s fun to pretend is good, but it fucking sucks. Tastes terrible, has the after-taste of headaches, and fulfills that promise the next day when you force yourself to drink enough to actually get drunk. Memories can’t outweigh that. 1 out of 5.
OVERALL RATING: 3 & 1/5 STARS!