As you guys may know, Maine Beer Company has exceeded its allotment of fucking around and seems to have none to spare as of late. Zoe, Peeper, and Lunch rocked faces and now we take this new offering out for a spin. A weak vanilla stout to see if it has the legs to honor its environmental cause.

Maine Beer Company, Mean Old Tom Stout, 6.5% abv

A: this has a distinct single stout look to it, a stripped down badass Lotus Elise sort of panache that makes you long for more horsepower, but secretly you’re confident you wont need it. It’s black, but not overpowering, like Don Cheadle, oh shit toeing the line with that simile. Nice white foam that generously cascades from the bottle conditioning. Also they donate 1% of all proceeds to a series of noble charities so I feel kinda like a dick sitting here and drinking this and not doing more but, donaters gonna donate.

S: The smell has a mild Peet’s coffee feel to it, but with a nice sticky vanilla aftersweetness to it. This could teach Urca’s vanilla trainwreck a thing or two about balance. It is gentle and reminds me of the old days, when Stouts were mild and gentle and not 15% anal rampagers and you didn’t have to eat an entire loaf of hawaiian rolls to prepare to taste them. Thems the days.

T: This beer is a gentle coffee pixie with a nice light touch of vanilla. The entire execution is in line with the whole Maine Beer Company profile wherein the beer is amazing but its like the hot girl in overalls with the ponytail. You know its amazing and beautiful, you’ve just been conditioned improperly. You feel me?

M: It is thin and watery but not in a bad way. This is likely exactly how this beer should taste and I respect it for it. I can drink several and that’s an amazing quality. I think drinking a bunch of huge imperial stouts has made me a sad panda and now I have to pick up the piece. Jeez louise.

D: This is a normal stout, non imperial, non barrel aged and, whenever I have one of these beers these days it is like someone played a trick on me. I dont know where the rest of the beer went and, as a result of my own gluttony, this is incredible and I killed it fast, like it straight up owed me money. You know how it goes, drink a normal stout once, shame on me, etc.

Narrative: Tom knew there was more than just this sticky old vanilla bean refinery. He has dreams, aspirations. He didn’t just want to be that asshole uncle to his bratty brother’s kids. But hey, that’s how they saw poor Tom. He thought Oracle stock was a solid gift for an 11 year old girl’s birthday party. That was just the composition of his character. The children disliked his creaky old apartment with the plastic wrapped furniture, but, those children have to learn the value of thrift. It arguably wasn’t his place to strike children that were not his own, but they had to learn not to overcook Pizza Pockets and it surely would not be at the expense of his new microwave. Maribel hated coupon cutting while Tom babysat them but, as they deftly learned, every day was certainly not Disneyland, despite expectations of same. The crimson asscheeks of relatives distanced them from Mean Old Tom, but, someday, a strange woman with incredibly low self esteem would put up with his behavior and help him assemble a model train town worthy of great distinction.