Bruz: I could tell with the 1st sip, just as it entered my mouth & before I swallowed, that this was gonna be a long ride. It has a strong garbagey malt flavor. I'm making the 4th Annual 40oz Crew Meeting of the Minds photo gallery while I swill this. Over halfway done & it's flowin' easier (I must just be used to it) and the buzz has started kickin' in (gimme a break, it's 10.5%!)... I peed 4 times before finishing this thing, and by the end my urine was perfectly clear as if I've been drinking water all day. The swill's rancid. For real. Overall, 6/10 swills... a good rating for hookin' me up with a great buzz, but no higher cuz of the bad-good-bad taste experience. Thanks out to ders0, Dr ScratchNuts & Drunk Gunner for these!

3/8/11 troobie: So, here we have Side Pocket High Gravity MALT LIQUOR. You can check out my opinion of the High Gravity ALE version over on its page. I'd like to offer some advice to whomever is choosing the names for these Side Pocket variations: call the 8.5% Side Pocket Malt Liquor, and the 10.5% Side Pocket High Gravity Malt Liquor. Lose the stupid HG Ale vs. HG Malt. I can tell you from the first sip my opinion of this version is going to be different than my opinion of its 8.5% brother. For the record, I found this in Guymon, Oklahoma, in January 2011. Same widemouth bottle, same no-graphics gold colored cap, but a marginally better label. Definitely the most prominent use of the words high gravity I have ever seen on a label. I'm just not a fan of all font labels, you have to add some graphics. As always, I appreciate the recommendation to "serve cold." Actually, this has been in my freezer for 3 hours! I had a feeling it would be impossible to get this one too cold. Crack the cap and I can smell what I was dreading, that wine-like super high gravity grape smell. I'm already having flashbacks of trying to down Camo Silver Ice, easily the worst malt I've ever had. Well, here we go. There is a little of the High Gravity Ale's flavor in there, enough that I can tell the two are related. This is much harsher than the High Gravity Ale version. There is not much smooth in this. There is something in the flavor that keeps me from shuddering with every drink, unlike Camo Silver Ice. I need to get this down before it begins to warm, and that is going to be a chore. I'll go 5.5/10 on this. It is smoother than I expected and actually drinkable, but just barely. The buzz seems a little low for a 10.5%. An HHG would be much better all around as compared to this. Mind the swill as it is quite bad.

2/24/11 cavibird2005: Picked up a case of these to rip a trade w/ AK So figured I'd do a review.

Grillin up some NY Strips and some Garlic bread in the middle of a MN Winter, Needed something to keep me warm figured this SP HG @ 10% would do the trick.

Nice Crack, Zero Hiss. Never a Good Sign. Smells Like stale fruit. 1st swig, it tastes alright!Like a Crazy Stallion. I was a lil apprehensive thinkin it was goin to be foul like a axe head.
I'm at the label know, taste good and goes down easy. The 10% hasn't hit me yet but I'm just now flippin the steaks.

Drank most of the rest of this w/ dinner. I'm at the bottom of the label now. I am pretty lose. That says a lot as I'm 6'1" 260lbs. The swill tastes just as good as the beginning, of course I am drunk at this point. I think I'll bring the other 10 over to my Bro in laws this weekend, as he had his 1st son last night. Should be fun. 10/10 The perfect 40 IMHO

3/6/10 BigJandthe40: This was a hard find for me, I have wanted to add this bottle to my collection for a long time.
1st13st sent this to me for a Victoria, thank you for giving me the chance to try this fucker.
I knew when I saw the 10.1 it wasnt going to be an easy 40 to get down. I craked this when me and my friend Frank were putting up the last of my shelves and let me tell you this shit tastes like ass.
its a Super HG and reminded me of Pit Bull. I tried to drink it fast to get it done before it became warm and taster even more like metal, I killled this asap and got good and dunk

I give this a 8 out 10 for being so hard to find
8 out of 10 for such a good buzz
7 out of 10 for being a cool label
8 out of 10 for hang over in the morning

thank god I had some coors ogs to wash it down with

8/14/09 d07c0m: Thanks to ders0 are in order.

Shit cracked like a thing that cracks.

Tastes cold and smooth right out the box.

Very booze-y and wine-y flavours

A lot like Four-O

I like it.

Buzzed off my ass from this thing.

10.5 is a lot different from 10.1 for some reason lol

Rip Side Pockets, this shit is good.

Can't wait to try the other version in the WM.

10.5/10

7/13/09 91firebird: Had this the other day thanks to my man ders0. The crack was unbelieveably loud but I had a hard time getting the cap to detatch from the ring. I had this in the freezer for about 45 minutes when I cracked it so It was nice and frosty. This bad boy comes in at 10.5% ABV so its not for newbie malt wankstas who drink Bud Light on the reg. This 40 has that strong alcohol taste that most HG 40's have but this one is a little on the rough side. Somewhere between a Steel Reserve and a St Ides. I don't fuck with the 211 because I hate the taste, Ides on the other hand is one of the best malts out there so this 40 is a little bittersweet for me. I powered thru this in about 45 minutes and had a very nice buzz when it was all said and done. The swill was rough but thats to be expected. Overall I gotta give this a solid 8/10 swills. The label is so awesome and is definately one thats pretty hard to come by. As far as taste goes, it's about what I expected. Its a rugged ass 40 thats meant to get you fucked up pretty quick. People don't buy this shit because it tastes good, they buy it because it can produce a wicked ass buzz for about 1.50 lol

7/8/09 beam21: Thanks to ders for this horrible opportunity that I have decided to undertake this evening... I swear this fucking thing was in the freezer for 5-6 hours and shows no hints whatsoever of freezing--not a great sign. First taste is super abrasive but after that I got used to it quick. Honestly it's quite different from what I expected, it's not at all like I remember Axe Head which is the kinda thing I was prepared for. Bruz put it very well in saying it has a "strong garbagey malt flavor", I guess the closest comparison I could make is it's like a green Camo on steroids. It burns a little too going down like the Camo HG. I'm not drinking this any faster than a snail's pace. That is probably short-sighted of me, but I'm a bit intimidated--I'm only down to the top of the label and it's already clear the Side Pocket is not screwing around. This one's a clear bottle and I think it'd be a little less menacing if it was in a brown, the color of it is horrendous and quite possibly the worst I've ever seen in any brew. Shit's bad news.

K it's been a while but I'm currently at the bottom of the label. It's a lot warmer and it's worse but it's not intolerable. My purchase of JCVD while drinking it is evidence that the buzz is working. The last rip was awful as I'm sure the rest of the swill will be. It's not nearly as bad tasting as I imagined, but it's tough for sure. In my limited experience with the 10%+ class of malts, this is better than Evil Eye, Axe Head, and way better than Camo Black Ice and the god awful 10% Rock Head. In its class it is dominated only by the Bleue Dry 10.1. This is far from my "style" of 40 but this bruiser has rightfully earned its 7.5/10 kidney stones. Among the 10%'s it is high end. The taste is a C but relative to its class it's a B+. Buzz is a little less than expected and real goofy so that is an A in general and a B+ among the 10+ stylezz. Yum yum yum

8/12/08 ders0: This is another one of those HG hard hitters. I was going to drink this saturday night and threw it in the freezer in preparation and then ended up forgetting about it for 24 hours till sunday night. At this point it was frozen solid and it's a 10.5 so its gotta be pretty fucking cold. I didnt realize it was frozen either due to the brown bottle and I was already drunk of multiple milwaukee special reserve. Cracked the fucker and it exploded everywhere out of that little ring of holes around the top of the cap which I didn't even know was possible until that point. So after the fucker stop exploding everywhere I took a few swigs of the beer slushie and could tell it had the same sort of sweet boozey HG flavor like an evil eye or an axe head. I've grown accustomed to this taste after drinking about 5 of the axe heads out of that case after my trade with detroit40ouncer went sour. I let it thaw out for a few hours and swilled it while it was still ice cold and sort of slushy. It was alright for a high HG, very similar to the EE. The label is pretty stupid though.

Dr ScratchNuts: As far as beer goes the color is actually pretty rich, unlike normal sidepocket which has a sort of iridescence like gasoline (seriously). It's not overly carbonated and pours with a decent head. Not like it's a quality beer but I think the head looks good because the shit is so thick. The only other 10.5 % I've had is Camo Black Ice and I think this shit is marginally better. I can drink this stuff without cringing warm or cold, although warm is not preferred. Smoother than I would expect and at $1.69 it's the cheapest 40 at the liquor store. 8/10 swills because it's drinkable and has a high buzz to $$ ratio. You'll feel warmth in your gut right away.