Utterly undrinkable: Ed's Cave Creek Chili Beer

To give you the nuts and bolts on this beer would just demean us all. Really, some American domestic beers like any Milwaukee's Best product are pretty bad, but this is craft beer, and I give it credit by calling it awful.

Two sips and I was done; the bartender agreed. Understand, unless I'm cooked and done drinking, it's rare for me to leave a beer unfinished. I can come close with a 12-oz. stomach pain inducer like Sierra Nevada Bigfoot. But for the beer in a clear bottle (the biggest brewing no-no imaginable -- light destroys beer, which is why 99 percent of brewers use green or brown glass, ye sages of Arizona), my mouth was already on fire. The giant pepper floating in the bottle kills any beer taste whatsoever.

According to their Web site, Cave Creek's creator started shoving chili peppers in his beer after he caught too many yuppies shoving limes in it. My best guess is without the pepper, it might taste close to a Mexican lager like Corona or Pacifico - palatable, if not quite spectacular, beers. But I can only guess, since I can't actually taste the beer.

The only point for which they deserve credit is truth in advertising: it's a beer with a giant pepper in it.

But this is worst, the absolute worst. I'd rather have drink skunked Milwaukee's Best Ice for the rest of my life than to imbibe this affront to brewing again.

I no longer fear Hell, because I already know the only beer they'll have on tap for all eternity.