Oh SHIT, Magic the Gathering jokes at the outset? Where do we even go from there? So I was in a local liquor store and I saw this dusty janky bottle with an unreadable label in the cooler and I couldn’t believe that they 1) had distribution of this beer and 2) they had the tiny penis format of it which meant it is a 2009 or earlier. The guy had no idea what it was and said it was here since “[he] started in 2009” and the price tag was illegible. He sold it to me for $4.25. Shit was so cache.

Fish Tale Brewing Leviathan, 10% american Barleywine

I guess this shit is appropriate

A: The appearances goes to an English place really quickly and doesn’t mess around with a whole hoppy beautiful amber hue, fuck that, this beer just reaches straight for the shotgun and starts offing malt zombies. For the age, the beer has a mild amount of carbonation, but I am not trying to be a hater, some beers are born flatter than others, just as God intended. Flashes of light penetrate and show deep ruby hues but for the most part it is so amber that you wonder how your life got to this point, drinking old ass barleywine and typing on a laptop instead of doing something constructive like learning Armenian.

S: I think that age has strangely helped the bouquet and enhanced the overall sweetness. The hops are long gone, those days have passed and all the hop families have moved out, leaving only the malty discarded remains. But sticky otter malt tagging is beautiful and the toffee, tobacco, butterscotch and gooey marshmallow are welcome here, despite gentrification.

T: The taste is timid, like a beagle that took one too many pisses inside and has been kenneled savagely. This beer has been kenneled for over 3 years so, give it some time. It imparts an initial malty watery paw that has a bit of hops and slowly emerges with a raisin and plum character but gets shy and lets water dominate again, until it finally emerges from the Petco crate and you see that this barleywine is house trained with a beautiful integration present. God damn I wish they had more bottles of this gem. They said there were 3 on premises but it was an archived inventory so god knows where the rest of these beasts are hiding, I would check the crawlspace.

M: The mouthfeel is thin and the barley is a beaten, abused character that as a result makes sweet love to your mouth. That wasn’t an inmate joke but if you’re going to go there, I wont stop you. The beer is just so damn gentle and pleasant. I usually and the guy who wants to take a beer heads up and get socked up, but this one takes you by the hand and shows you the lanyard and hemp bracelet that it made for you and you can forgive the muted candy notes, the light dates and splishy splashy malt character. It is a shy child but entirely domesticated.

D: This is a such a gentle kitten, so domesticated from the years in the bottle that it makes sweet palate love to anyone who will give it a minute of time. The 10% abv might as well be Coors light platinum given how indetectible it hides within the water profile and just chills out, prison bitch #1. As it warms, those abused ass hops start to speak up in therapy and impart some high alpha acid residue that isn’t off putting, but it is good to see them coming out at all. Applause resounds for their breakthrough. Bottle prison is some serious shit. According to the commercial ddescription: “Leviathan rises out of Pale, Carastan, and Chocolate malts with monstrous additions of Chinook hops for bitterness and Cascade hops for flavor and aroma. This vintage ale finishes quite dry after a long maturation period. As it comes of age in the keg, subtle flavors of sherry, pear, and roasted nuts will develop.” They aren’t fucking kidding.

Narrative: Levi Nathan’s eHarmony profile was getting no fucking love. Sure he was the heaviest bro on the water polo team but he deserved a hot Charlotte Rousse type of chick because his personality was so clutch. His dad was all like “Hey LEVI! GET A FUCKING JOB!” but Levi wasn’t hearing that shit, while shooting no looker goals he was like “Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope?” It was pretty evident you couldn’t wrangle this bad ass. Sure Levi had a matted series of bleached blonde locks and scaly tan, chemically destroyed skin, but fuck that, he was asking Madison Jergens to winter formal. He lumbered up to her all clumpy and collected and gurgled to her, ” Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.” But then that hater ass broad was super not DTF, winter formal or otherwise. Other dudes were clowning the shit out of him from the Trireme that they constructed and Levi told those haters, “Who dares open the doors of his mouth, ringed about with his fearsome teeth?” Then they knew he was super serial, and stopped fucking with Levi. When he got upset, people’s lives were ruined in an almost allegorical manner.