Top 10 College Beers

College is a special time in one’s life.

It’s a time for educational enlightenment, personal exploration and social enrichment.

It’s also one damn fine party, where the beer flows freely and the acts are punishable by school-wide embarrassment or - in the age of Facebook - worldwide notoriety.

Beer ultimately played a large role in whatever missteps and faux-courageous acts of party heroism in which you may have engaged. Whether you were dancing like no-one was watching (except that everyone was), passing your tongue around like an hors d’oeuvres platter or diving into a kiddie pool from your third floor bedroom, these were the beers that made it all possible.

Top 10 Best College Beers of All Time

10. Yuengling Light

Brewed in the heart of Pennsyltucky, this watered down, hoppy light beer was the gold standard in Gamma House gourmet. The perfect brew for tailgating in front of Beaver Stadium or giving 150 nameless coeds an unexpected treat, sipping on a ‘Ling means you’re living the good life, and is enough to make you forget you paid an $8 cover to drink a beer and a half before the inevitable cherry-tops rolled up.

9. Steel Reserve

Steel Reserve is a staple of ghetto-fied campuses across the nation. We remember making the trek, backpacks on our back, down into the rundown part of town whistling Elvis’s classic. At the end of our magnificent four block journey was a 22 oz. $1.59 longneck of this national treasure. Every recycle bin at every house we’d ever stayed at was filled to the brim with these glass artifacts, and they generally ended up spilling into the bathroom, also.

8. Coors Light

Coors Light was the beer for the ladies. If you wanted to host a party that your mates could get down with, but were too lazy (or broke) to spring for Jungle Juice, and you sure didn’t want to be caught dead with a Smirnoff Ice, Coors Light was the brew for you. Tasting just like a brutal mix of water, bread and granny smith apples (though mostly water), Coors Light went down easy. You know, just like the ladies at the house used to.

7. Busch Light

Inside information: Did you know when a batch of Bud Light goes wrong at the A-B brew house, it magically transforms itself into Busch? Busch Light is the epitome of nasty. Yet, for the price, the keg was tough to beat. Busch Light made beer pong scandalous, and flip cup sloppy. Also, is it possible to “head for the mountains” when you’re referring to St. Louis? Isn’t that a bit of a commute? Don’t give me that Ozark nonsense, either. Those are to mountains what El Salvador is to countries.

6. Old Milwaukee

Gentlemen, start your shotguns and your go-karts. Old Mil is an evening of disaster waiting to be unearthed. Have you ever wished you could punch your best friend in the face, vomit on his shoes, sleep with his girlfriend and wake up the next day and not remember a thing? We have the perfect beer for you. So bewilderingly popular at college campuses across the part of the U.S. that should secede to Canada, it is a mainstay of blackout parties everywhere.

5. Keystone

This just in: Keystone gives you a hangover before it gets you drunk. Our labs have performed this stunt on numerous occasions. We get through three beers and our heads begin to spin like we just spent four hours on the Tilt-a-Whirl. Then, another four beers in, you find yourself with a pleasant buzz and the headache goes away. Two beers later, you’re hugging your bedpost for stability while your roommates draw purple stars and “For a good time, call …” on any available appendage.

4. Pabst Blue Ribbon

Twenty-five cent drafts. Our unending memory of PBR is the quarter draft at a bar at which we used to rock out. PBR was the beer for hobos before it became the official hipster brew. It’s retro, it’s sleek and the girls who listen to indie rock love it! This does not mask the fact that this beer will absolutely crunk your face while you aren’t paying attention. A pitcher will make you happy, another will make you think that private school chick from English class totally wants you and a third will leave you limp and lifeless while you slur your way to ecstasy.

3. Natural Light

The official beer of beer pong. Natural Light is such a frat house phenomenon that it should simply build new mansions for the greeks. Imagine, Delta Iota Kappa Rush Mixer presented by Natural Light. Natural Light was the beer you scraped your laundry quarters together for, it was the beer that went best with 3 a.m. pizza and it was the best 30-pack around. If you were too broke to head to the bars and forced to drink with friends at home, this beer always made a guest appearance.

2. OE

What is it with rich girls and their 40s? When we went to college, the lovely Long Island Lolitas could be found properly on their front porch, texting on their iPhones dolled up in Juicy sweatpants while drinking Olde Freaking English wrapped up in a paper bag. To which we ask … why? Is there a secret yearning to toss aside privilege and see how the other half lives? Is this a manifestation of the unconscious desire for “street cred?” Pop open an OE, spark up a blunt and crank dat Lil’ Wayne. It’s time for an off the heezy bleezy fo sheezy.

1. The Beast

The holy grail in college was a 30-pack of the BEAST. It’s such an obtrusive, blow-back-your-hair bitter brew that you can’t even mention its mere name without ALL CAPS. A disgustingly awful beer responsible for more walks of shame, arrests, toilet hugging, house fights, base jumping and coyote ugly moments than can possibly be calculated, BEAST is the ultimate college beer. No doubt, it was the first beer you drank in the dorms, the first keg stand you did and the first beer you drank that ended in an evening you’d regret for the rest of your life … if you could remember any part of the evening at all.