Pranqster, North Coast Brewing Company

Taste is subjective, kind of.  If one person likes hops and another doesn't, they will have divergent takes on an IPA.  If you ask a jazz cat and a phishhead to identify the most important American musician of the 20th century, you won't get one answer.  But there is a limit to taste's subjectivity.  If you're not really a beer person, you can probably still taste the difference between a $5 six pack and a $12 four.  Even someone who hates the idea of a sport centered around inflicting blows to your opponent has to concede the brilliance of Ali's rope-a-dope strategy or acknowledge the ambidextrous efficiency of Sugar Ray.  So when a beer consistently receives good reviews from multiple sources, I generally assume that I'll appreciate it no matter what the style is.

Enter North Coast Brewing Company's Pranqster.  I was quite thoroughly surprised by my experience with this Belgian cousin of Old Rasputin.  Maybe it was the presentation.

That sounded a bit harsh, it does look good.

An area where taste truly is subjective is preconception.  About five years ago, neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin found that what we expect influences what we taste.  Belgian beers I had tried in the past were slightly darker, cloudier and had fine heads.  So when I looked at a very clear brew with foam consisting of big bubbles, I was a bit apprehensive.  Its lack of chalice or tulip glass probably didn't help either (even though my experience with both of those is rather limited).  The rest of my observations fit in pretty well with that initial reaction to the visual.  The aroma contained the standard Belgian notes with a deemphasis on the fruits while the yeastiness had the right "shape" but didn't follow through, as if it were the shell of a great nose.  The taste was as clean as the beer was clear.  It did an absolutely spectacular job hiding its 7.6% ABV but also seemed to be hiding its flavor somewhere.  The mouthfeel reminded me of Sprite (or what I imagine Sprite feeling like since beer is the only carbonated beverage I drink regularly any more).  I came away with an impression of a lowest common denominator (LCD) beer best consumed in multiples.

But wait.  What's that?  The Bros gave it a score of 100?  The review is from 13 years ago, but the descriptors he uses are pretty similar to what I tasted.  Also, BeerAdvocate is by no means alone.  The web hosts a plethora of good reviews for this beer.  Could it be that my expectations were misplaced?  If the explanation of Pranqster's name this blogger provides is true, maybe I completely missed the point, like getting angry at an author for grammatical errors in quotations from Sojourner Truth.  I guess I'll just have to try it again.  Oh darn!