Bali Hai Premium Lager

Surely in the heat, even a bad lager would --

Argh oh god Jesus no. Oddly even the ingredients are listed as water, malt yeast, and hops in that order - wouldn't surprise me if there were less hops than yeast if that's what it means.

Buy something else seriously, beer or not, hell even this thing was a better beer:

Coffee cola's where it's at. Anything to forget the terror. 0.5

Panther Ginseng Stout

Now here's a name that fires up the imagination.

What self-respecting man (or indeed lady) among us doesn't want to fire up on stout and ginseng at once, those undisputed twin towers of pantherdom?

This has the characters for 人参 on the label which means 'carrot' in Japanese. We'll take their word for it being 'ginseng'. Flavour wise you probably wouldn't pick it, although there is a slightly mineral sort of edge in there amongst the light coffee roast flavours that could be a mark of its influence.

There's not a lot more to say about this. Far from ripping us a proverbial new one, it goes down without so much as a mew. 2.5

Bali Hai El Diablo Strong Brew

BALI EDITION! ACTIVATE!

First up, the timely arrival of the dark lord himself, in 500ml can format no less. Can't say I was expecting too much here but it pours a reasonably solid body and decent (though shortlived) head to boot.

The aroma of this beer is not its strong point, bringing across sour bitter lager notes and not a great deal else. Tastewise though there's evident malt with a slight accompanying fruitiness almost like a less than average golden ale, and this pushes it just above the standard lager. It's very plain in the scheme of things but sails down pretty happily.

My main issue with it is the label - nothing about this beer deserves the label 'strong brew'. It's 5% flat for crying out loud.

All in all, not that great but at least a bit more character than your average lager. Not sure about the sessionability, but if you're stuck in Bali and totally off the Bintang it's certainly worth a punch. 4.0