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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"Excuse me, I think ye gave me the wrong mug. I ordered a beer, an' this seems ta be [[Trope Namer|a tankard o' moose urine.]]"''|'''Durkon Thundershield''', ''[[
There are generally two kinds of bars in fictionland: those where they serve beer that is the nectar of the gods, and those where the product going into the user's mouth tastes about the same as the stuff that comes out of it later that night. This trope is the latter. Often the mark of a [[Bad Guy Bar]].
Do not expect this to keep the patrons from swilling the stuff anyway, or from [[Bar Brawl|handing you your hindquarters]] if you ever discuss this trope in the bar.
Unfortunately, [[Truth in Television]].
Not to be confused with drinking [[I Ate What?|actual urine, moose or otherwise]]. Compare and contrast [[Gargle Blaster]], where a drink is rendered undrinkable by the alcohol content rather than taste.
{{examples|Examples }}▼
== Anime & Manga ==▼
* ''[[Black Lagoon (Anime)|Black Lagoon]]'' has this in the first episode with Revy calling Rock's beer piss (which leads to a Bacardi drinking contest).▼
▲* ''[[
== Comic Books ==
* This gem from ''[[Jonah Hex]]'' #53 (original series) -- and at no point during this monologue does Jonah stop drinking:
{{quote|
* In the first bar scene from ''[[Akira (Manga)|Akira]]'', the bartender yells at Yamagata, who has come to pick up his friend and leader Kaneda, to buy something for once, since "this ain't a hangout for damned street-gangs!" Yamagata's response: "Yeah, right! And drink ''your'' dog piss?"▼
==
▲* In the first bar scene from ''[[
* As part of the [[Training Montage]] in ''[[Beerfest]]'', the protagonists decide to try desensitizing their taste buds with actual animal urine.
* In the movie ''[[Desperado]]'', the small corner bar in a little Mexican town has notoriously bad beer, likened to piss. Chances are the bartender and his associates have deliberately made the beer as bad as possible, to keep casual customers
{{quote|
'''Bartender:''' Yeah, we know!
'''Tavo:''' 'Cause we piss in it!
'''Bartender:''' And that's not all... }}
== Gamebooks ==▼
* This is the case with some of the beers found in the taverns of the world of ''[[Lone Wolf]]''.▼
** In ''The Jungle of Horrors'', if you take the river barge path, Paido spitting out "Ferina Nog" and calling it "bilge juice" almost starts a bar brawl. Of course, it's still much safer than drinking [[Gargle Blaster|Bor Brew ale]].▼
** In the first book of the New Order series, some ale is described as having "a peculiar smell that makes you think of greasy animal hides."▼
== Literature ==
* A common issue in bars on the [[
** ''[[
{{quote|
** The landlord of the Fiddler's Riddle in ''[[
** Likewise the customers of the Mended Drum are of the opinion you don't buy the beer there, you rent it for a couple of hours.
** In ''[[
** In ''[[
** In ''[[
* ''[[The Death Gate Cycle|The Serpent Mage]]'' features this in a [[Bad Guy Bar]].
* ''[[
* Apparently the beer served in slum taverns in the city of Haven in the ''[[Heralds of Valdemar]]'' novels fits this
* ''[[
* In [[Diana Wynne Jones]]' ''[[Castle in
* Taken to its logical conclusion in ''[[The Book With No Name]]'', where the liquor Sanchez serves occasionally ''is'' urine.
* In the prologue to ''Fillets of Plaice'', Gerald Durrell comments to his brother Lawrence that the last retsina he'd picked up had tasted like a urine sample from a mule, and probably was.
* In ''[[Bimbos of the Death Sun]]
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Star Trek:
{{quote|
** Which was an epic-level [[Continuity Nod|call-back]] to a TOS episode; Scotty was involved in a drinking competition with an alien whose group was studying the (mostly) human crew one emotion/experience per participant. After going through every bottle of booze in his quarters (and likely the mess hall too), Scotty finds something he honestly can't identify and describes it exactly the same way Data later would.
* In a ''[[The Two Ronnies]]'' sketch in which Ronnie Barker plays the President of the Institute of Scottish Tourism ("In other words, I'm PIST"), he warns tourists that identifying yourself as English in Scottish bars will usually result in being served with a disgusting concoction made from distilled ptarmigan (Which begins with a p, and so would you if you were being distilled), which is unfortunately identical to the Scottish malt whiskey he has in this glass here... ''(drinks, spits=)'' ...which is even more revolting.
* While he was arguably being unfair due to a poor mood, ''[[Inspector Morse]]'' surprised his partner by going teetotaler in Australia, which he later explained as, "They don't spell Australian beer with four 'X'es out of ignorance, you know."
* In the ''[[
* On one episode of ''[[Good News Week]]'', Paul describes Fosters as tasting like "watered-down horse piss". Leads to a [[Tastes Like Feet]] moment.
== Tabletop Games ==
=== Board Games ===
* Bretonnian ale brewing in ''[[Warhammer
* ''[[
{{quote|
* ''[[
▲=== Gamebooks ===
▲* This is the case with some of the beers found in the taverns of the world of ''[[Lone Wolf]]''.
▲** In ''The Jungle of Horrors'', if you take the river barge path, Paido spitting out "Ferina Nog" and calling it "bilge juice" almost starts a bar brawl. Of course, it's still much safer than drinking [[Gargle Blaster|Bor Brew ale]].
▲** In the first book of the New Order series, some ale is described as having "a peculiar smell that makes you think of greasy animal hides."
== Video Games ==
* ''[[
* ''[[
** A seasonal event involves telling the ill-tempered Dark Iron brewmaster Coren Direbrew that his product "isn't fit for pigs". {{spoiler|This [[Subverted Trope|turns out to be base slander]], but you're really just trying to pick a fight.}}
** One drink is called "Fungus Squeezings", and most players adamantly refuse to drink it, except for that one dose of it [[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* Another one from Sierra, in ''[[
* An early quest in ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* Grog in the ''[[Monkey Island (
* The objectives in the [[Ascended Fanfic|officially-recognized]] ''[[
* ''[[Freelancer]]'' has Liberty Ale. Rumor has it the stuff is made from H-fuel byproducts.
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[
* In ''[[Dominic Deegan]]'' Stonewater thinks of [https://web.archive.org/web/20170902122317/http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2006-02-07 human beer] this way. Halflings also think Dwarf beer tastes like "piss water" (Dwarves find Halfling beer "snobby").
* ''[[The
* In one arc of ''[[
* Kenny of ''[[The Kenny Chronicles]]'' is of the opinion that ''all'' beer tastes [http://www.kennychronicles.com/2010/10/25/todays-comic-contains-a-gross-out/ worse than piss] (and he would know).
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[
** Peter Griffin once said that the beer of a British pub tasted like "tobacco chewer's spit".
** In the [[Charlie and
{{quote|
* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
== Real Life ==
* Episode #396 "[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/396/1-party-school #1 Party School]" of ''[[This American Life]]'', focusing on [[Exactly What It Says
** Which explains the success of Rolling Rock which, for $1.50 a bottle at happy hours, was a good beer. After the price hike to $3.50 a bottle it turned into horse piss.
** For the record, the (mostly) complete list of Cheap Beers American College Students Drink 'Cos They're Cheap:
Line 119 ⟶ 107:
*** Blatz (Midwest only; a.k.a. "Slightly Better Batches of PBR")
*** National Bohemian (Mid-Atlantic only, particularly MD, a.k.a. Natty Boh')
* For British tropers, Carling or
** In Scotland, Tennant's has this dubious honour instead.
** Note to any Australians reading this: The Fosters we drink here is brewed under license and apparently tastes much, much worse than the Australian one. It's still better than the British equivalent of Castlemaine, which used to be brewed next to the site of an old coal-gas plant so badly contaminated by toxic waste that it took ''decades'' to clean up... at which point they moved production elsewhere, presumably because the beer just wasn't the same any more.
Line 129 ⟶ 117:
** Put another way, [[Monty Python|American beer is like making love in a canoe.]] {{spoiler|It's fucking close to water.}}
** An attitude shared by many Canadians as well, as in this playful jibe from ''[[The Red Green Show]]'':
{{quote|
'''Red:''' OK, this is something we drink.
'''Gord:''' Beer?
'''Red:''' No, no, this has no taste.
'''Gord:''' American beer? }}
** Partly justified, due to the effects of the Prohibition Era.
*** And due to the fact that most beers that foreigners would be introduced to are more commonly drunk out of cans. Most mass market beers taste better out of a bottle or as a draft even Budweiser. By serving it draft or from a glass bottle, a cleaner, fresher taste is achieved, as the metals in beer cans adulterate and alter the flavor. This gives the beer that bland, stale sourness one tends to associate with such mass marketed American beers).
*** To expand a bit on the above: most breweries went out of business during Prohibition, as you would expect. Those that survived did so by brewing beer, removing the alcohol, then selling the resulting product. To keep costs down, they made these beverages with adjuncts, mainly corn and rice(these are cheaper than barley). When Prohibition was repealed, the recipes for near-beer became the recipes for real beer, adjuncts and all. Since they were cheaper to brew than a normal beer, the breweries using the adjunct recipes came to dominate the American beer scene.
*** More Prohibition and booze-related [[Sarcasm Mode|fun]]; the Philadelphia version of moonshine was called by several lovingly-bestowed nicknames: Soda Pop Moon, Panther Piss, and Coffin Varnish. The last was especially apt as the stuff was made by taking bottled soda and injecting it with ''wood alcohol''. [[Incredibly Lame Pun|People drank it to get stiff and boy, did they ever]].
** And partly of course due to Germany being something of a beer Mecca.
** To be honest the average quality of American Beer has improved compared to what it was a couple of decades ago, largely due to taking a long look at foreign brewing and stiff competition from imports.
{{quote|
Because it doesn't have to change the color!
And why does the body digest American beer faster than German beer?
It doesn't have to change the taste! }}
* Americans for their part have similar reaction to the idea of beer not being chilled. Probably because just about every mass-market American beer is a lager. Lagers are always served cold, the world over (if there is any infrastructure to allow it). Ales, Porters, and Stouts; there there is some debate (you definitely don't chill them as much as lagers though).
** When President Obama met Prime Minister David Cameron for a casual beer (in front of eighty million cameras) each brought a favourite beer from their own home country. Despite Cameron's protests that the flavour of the (very cultured) [http://www.wychwood.co.uk Hobgoblin Beer] from the Wychwood Brewery in his constituency of Oxfordshire that he brought for Obama to try would be ruined by chilling it to ice cold, Obama absolutely insisted on putting it in the fridge. You would think Obama would trust him, or at least, the guidelines on the bottle, enough to try a beer as intended. Apparently not. See a picture of the event
** Sometimes its a storage thing. Beers are sometimes served at "room temperature" outside of America, but because of the way they're stored (sometimes in specially designed cool rooms, even), a British "room temperature" beer is a good ten degrees cooler than an American one, meaning that, confusion over wording aside, a room temperature beer there isn't the warm, nasty, skunked-out swig of sadness it is here in the US.
*** A British top-fermented beer is supposed to be served at cellar temperature, which for a proper cellar keeping the beer at its best will be too cool for the drinker to be comfortable in the bar. The beer shouldn't be at ambient temperature and should feel cool, but certainly not ice-cold.
** The US has large swathes of territory where it regularly gets well into the triple digits Fahrenheit (over 40*C), often with swelteringly high humidity alongside it. In that sort of environment, enjoying beer for its flavor often takes a backseat to the desperate need for something cold and refreshing.
* Finnish beer "Lapin kulta" (Lappland's gold) has many names, but is mainly known as "poron kusi" (reindeer piss). Americans visiting here apparently like
* There's a local brand of "Bear Whiz Beer" in upstate Minnesota, the logo for which is a [[Funny Animal]] bear peeing in a lake.
** Based off the [[Firesign Theatre]] sketch, of course.
Line 155 ⟶ 143:
** Same with the beer in the baltic states, wich manages to be [[Up to Eleven|even worse by a wide margin.]]
** ''Premium'' Russian beers, on the other hand, are quite good, but they inevitably follow the came vicious circle:
{{quote|
2. Creates and sells a good beer
3. Makes a crapload of money
4. Realizes that there's even more to make if only the beer was cheaper
5. Creates a cheaper beer
6. Joins the throngs of horse-piss makers
7. [[Memetic Mutation|???????]]
8. PROFIT!!! }}
* To many people who don't like beer, ''all'' beer smells vaguely urine-ish. Either that or like paint thinner. This is because alcohol in low concentrations smells (and tastes) a fair amount like urea. The color certainly doesn't lend it any favors.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Hard-Drinking Tropes]]
[[Category:Food Tropes]]
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