Monthly Archives: August 2012

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Hair of the Dog, Bourbon Fred from the Wood, I Think I Am Getting a Clue, Oh Wait It is Bourbon Wood.

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Hair of the Dog releases can get out of hand. The last time Adam from the Wood was released, everyone on the trading boards lost their shit and the traders who were sitting on entire cases could not be compelled to let bottles go. Well, some time has passed, wounds have healed, and livers have regenerated. This is the often overlooked analog to Adam from the Wood, Bourbon Fred. Apparently the first release had some carb issues and it affected the ratings but I can safely say that this 2012 release is incredible and it appears that the ratings are spiking harder than a 6 man tournament. Let’s get after it:

If you see Fred up in the club, hit him with a bourbon high five.

Hair of the Dog Brewing Company / Brewery and Tasting Room
Oregon, United States
American Strong Ale | 12.00% ABV

A: This isn’t the most beautiful beer that I have ever poured, but sometimes it is inside what counts. To my amazement, this beer was actually carbonated, unlike so many other Kuhnhenn and HotD offerings. Matt was flat, Adam has been tepid, but this just bursts with excessive lacing and frothy tiny bubbles. It was like every time that I had been burned by prior offerings was amended with this jam.

At 12% abv, this will hit you out of nowhere.

S: This is as barrel as it gets, you get coconut, macaroon, vanilla, sweet heat and nice sweet pancakes smell cum de IHOP. Whenever I see trifling ass beer blogs complain about heat on a BA beer, it is like someone complaining about an escort being “too forward.” That is what you paid for, peep game. This is ready to roll and at 12% abv, things could get way more twisted.

T: This is pretty easy to summarize, the castle door drops down and some gentle maple and Werther’s original flavors enter and then HOLY SHIT BOURBON IS RIDING AN ELEPHANT. There is a harem of servants casting vanilla and sweet oak chips to the clamoring masses. The bourbon is so far forward that it is in the engine compartment. No punchlines, no riddles, I am talking white squares with a stamp in the middle.

This beer rocks crazy vanilla, but is smooth as hell. Word to your mother.

M: This has an incredible dryness but also a sticky malt that pulls from both ends like a sorority tug of war. You are up in your glass communicating with the bourbon like Michael and KITT, perfectly integrated. This leaves residual sugars lingering and nice sheeting of alcohol to think about. The 12’s up in your mouth leave that palate shaking like it got Parkinson’s Disease, but it is so damn fulfilling.

D: If you are accustomed to merking Buffalo Trace to the skull, this might be your session beer. For most people, this is too big, too sweet, too complex, and too heated to session up on, however, the 12oz single is a solid banger. If this was in a bomber you’d be forgetting to pick your kids from school, taking apart the VCR and shit.

I just want moar.

Narrative: It was hard for Malcolm Rogers to relate to the guys. They always rooted for the Big 10, what with him and his fencing hobby, he felt a bit outside the ranks. However, there was one thing that Malcolm could consistently offer that would bring even the most stalwart of opposition to its knees: “DID SOMEONE SAY TOTINOS PIZZA ROLLS?” It did not matter the class, creed, or character of his guests; once those preservative laden rolls hit the table, things were off of the hook, hinges and heezy concurrently. No one really thought much about Malcom’s job, or his background. While others traded people on their fantasy teams, he would swirl 18 year bourbon in a bucket and ruminate on habbedashery. He was too classy and refined for his own good. He made horrible fantasy draft picks based on name alone, and his antechamber smacked of Anthropologie; but they tolerated him. His sweet decadent pizza rolls wafted through the KB Home, securing his eschelon amongst the bretheren.

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Maui Brewing Onion Mild, A BEER THAT WILL MAKE YOU CRY

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Today I am phoning it in with an old ass review. No one reads this site on the weekends anyway and frankly, you aren’t worth it. This beer is from Maui Brewing Company and, as far as I know, it doesn’t make it off the islands. I went to Maui and tried this strange anomaly while I was there. This is brewed with white Maui onions and, you can imagine what this tear jerker tastes like:

I lost the picture of the beer, enjoy a picture of some onions.

Maui onion mild 4.8% abv

A: Deep brown like an Altbier, but much thinner in character. The lacing is moderate with huge carbonation. If you didn’t know what was going on, you might think this was an amber ale, BUT YOU WOULD BE FUCKING WRONG.

I went to Maui and drank crazy ass beers, u mad bro.

S: This has caramel onions throughout, steak and toasted maltiness, it feels like a Mortons Steakhouse like an epic malted Gose with huge stickiness. If you were a 7th grader, your parents would smell this on you a mile away. One of a kind finish and smell. I ordered a Growler for myself just to relive the experience on the mainland. Epic scent.

T: It starts simply enough with a mild sweetness similar to a brown al- OH MY GOD YOU HAVE JUST ENTERED ONION PURGATORY. There is no escape, everything you touch and taste will be onion until your cells die off. The taste of this beer is similar to a Bloomin Onion from Outback Steakhouse, yes that outback, and pureed into liquid form. You get the roasted herbal dryness from the onions, with an odd burnt sweetness. Again, this is just relentless in scope and form.

Maui is all about sun, beer, and falling face down. Smelling like onions while doing that is just pushing things too far.

M: The mouthfeel is slim and watery until the evil genie of onion hatred is uncorked and unveils its evil designs on your social life. You could drink this all day long with its light coating and ABV, but the onion is a stern overlord requiring you to, specifically, spawn more overlords.

D: This is a tough call because I want to say that its delicious taste and light character belongs on a boat etc. but I have a legitimately hard time recommending this to someone in a huge quantity. I had 3 pints of it and I still sweat onion enzymes. I feel like a walking pool of magnesium. If your life can tolerate the smell and vices associated with onion addiction, I.e. you work at El Pollo Loco or Rubios, then by all means, endulge.

I smuggled this back into the mainland in my suitcase. Fuck da TSA.

Narrative: Warren only cried at weddings. And airplane movies. And swapmeets. In theory Warren cried a lot. In practice, this was involuntary. You see, poor Warren was born with defective tear glands. His negligent mother consumed onions day in and out with little Warren, as a fledgling seed in the womb. As a result, Warren would cry at the most commonplace occurrences. Some would see it is a defect, but you should see the look on his supervisor’s face when Warren would ebullient express tears of joy at the sight of fresh bagels in the break room. “Here I was just….looking at these OSHA posters and then, Alan goes and does all THIS!” He sobs gesturing towards the meager spread of picked over pastries. “This is all JUST TOO MUCH!”

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Cascade Strawberry, Just Kiss Me Through the Phone Strawberry Style

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Oh Cascade, you can be so helpful, or such a difficult minx. Sure, you offer most of your amazing sours online for purchase and that is as awesome as it comes. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER RELEASES? Then I have to actually go and FIND a PERSON to go get them for me. This is one such beer. What will I do when Figaro drops? What will I do then? Anyway, this brewery has a pretty stellar record for knocking out incredible sours like oh I don’t know:

Remember this club banger? Me either.

Anyway, so we have done cherries, we have done apricots, now let’s taste that sweet sticky strawberry. Things are getting sexy up on this page.

Don’t eat the green part of this beer, it makes you pregnant.

Cascade Brewing / Raccoon Lodge & Brewpub
Oregon, United States
American Wild Ale | ABV 7.39%

A: This has a nice radiant glow of deep amber and orange with a slight pinkish hue like rose`, Trey Songs be pouring up cups in the club. There’s minimal lacing and the carbonation is there but doesn’t show off. It posts in the corner just whittling a little wispy white profile.

Age probably won’t change this beer. It will still be strawberries and acidity 15 years from now.

S: This has an incredible berry profile with fresh skins, nice strawberry juiciness, kinda has a stripper scent to it, you know that pink dust that you can never get off of your clothes, I mean, not me, but I have heard. Smells like Bath and Body works meets a Farmer’s Market. The whole endeavor feels exceedingly gentle like a tableshower. You just Googled that shit.

T: This follows the traditional lactic Cascade formula and, while it usually works, this mutes the fruits and makes this come off as a kind of a generic tartness that could be really anything. I love the finish and the dryness but the whole strawberry aspect of this takes a backseat to the abusive acidic boyfriend that tells her what to wear and who she can have in her phone. This isn’t the best Cascade that I have had, but it is still a pretty dank offering. This tastes strangely similar to Sans Pagaie, so you Bruery lovers, just pop that and use your imagination. Feel me.

This is sour.

M: This has a nice prickly acidity that stings and delivers along the gumline but doesn’t take things to the Weyerbacher Riserva levels. It is balanced and pleasant to enjoy. I could see myself reading Parade magazine and drinking this, in about 50 years when my life has become meaningless. There’s a nice chardonnay quality and I am sure you could get a Delta Gamma pretty drilled off of this, but that’s not a feat to record in the annals. No typo.

D: This is exceptionally drinkable and doesn’t give me the lambic guts. I enjoy just sitting back, listening to Diplo, mashing on some berries and wasting the night away. Your mileage may vary, you could show this to your friends and they think your dick is small, bent, and dark. Who knows. Final verdict: other Cascades are more accessible, and probably better, but this is still a BERRY GOOD BEER.

Sometimes I think my readers aren’t even strawberrying.

Narrative: Most exotic dancers don’t plan things as far in advance as Jezebel. Well, for starters, her legal name was “Jezebel” and that should show her parents’ limited knowledge of the Old Testament. She was All State in Hurdles and got 5’s on 6 different Advanced Placement tests, this was all a part of her grand design. “But why for you are to be in dancing and not in the college making?” her scarcely bilingual Ukranian co-worker once importuned. “Well you see, the State is broke, the Federal Government wants to offer me high interest loans, and desperate Cuban men pay hard cash immediately that is untaxed and does not need to be amortized,” Jezebel explained. “Oh, I am to like dancing but also would like to be making bakery,” Svetlana insightfully added. Some would look with an ill repute and disdain upon Jezebel’s Keynesian economic theory, but she studied during the day while her clientele were nursing their hangovers and danced at night for cold hard currency that she put in a Roth IRA to drive down her capital gains. Smelling like strawberry lip gloss all the time was not easy, but she was a refined exotic, yet entirely approachable in sum and substance.

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Free State Old Backus Barleywine, Rolling With an MC Hammer Sized Entourage

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Alright, taking it back to the Free State on this one to show the midwest some love. On that subject, Midwest people always get toxic shock syndrome when I call Colorado “the midwest” apparently Oklahoma is not either, and Kansas must be DQ’ed by association? Can someone clear this ambiguous swath up for me? Is Montana the mid-west? Iowa? Anyway, fuck it, we are mashing out on barrel aged barleywines in today’s review, GROWLER ONLY NO BOTTLES (GONB) so you know this is colder than the fridge and the freezer, snatching up your bottles at my leisure

Look at that milky messy malty bomb. I got all the syrup.

Free State Brewing Co.
Kansas, United States
American Barleywine | 10.50% ABV

You read that right, I merked an entire 2 liter growler of this while playing Black Ops. That shit was Blackout Ops after 6 glasses.

Anyway, here’s the deal with this amazing barleywine:

Bronze Medal Winner, 1997 World Beer Championships – Barleywines.

Old Backus contains just over 2,000 pounds of malt and 55 pounds of hops. The original gravity is 25.6 P/1092 which contributes to an alcohol content of 10.5% by volume. This is a tremendously complex beer that should be savoured slowly and in moderation. It will continue to change with age as it is served unfiltered.

This barleywine is named after Richard Backus, an old friend to the Brewery.

This beer is older than your janky ass girlfriend, peep game.

A: Look. at. that. mess. God damn I have never seen such a murky, turbid barleywine. It seriously looks like the dregs from a homebrew fermentation tank BUT IN AN AMAZING WAY. There’s a nice amount of flotsam and jetsam that looks strangely decadent and alluring, like when Augustus Gloomp falls into the chocolate river. You know it is dirty, but you like it like that.

Hey so we are going to make a huge 10.5% abv barleywine oh yeah, and you can only drink it in 2 Liter format. Wait wat-

S: This smells flat out amazing. This runs with King Henry in terms of olfactory profile and just tosses hot shurikens of toffee, candied apples, brown sugar, butterscotch, Werther’s Originals, and sweet kisses from Nana. You judged me earlier for killing 2 liters of a 10.5% beer but YOU DONT KNOW WHAT I WENT THROUGH. This beer is official as hell, when you bite this beer, it bites back.

T: The hot 90 minute beats just keep rolling out with an amazing sticky caramel meets graham cracker soaked in chocolate milk aspect. That sounds pretty core, but trust me, when it is in liquid form, IT IS A READING FROM THE BOOK OF DANKERONOMY. The dankest book of the Old Testament.

When the Fedex guy came, I was all ears for the doorbell, knowing that my weekend was about to be destroyed by 2 liters of sticky heaven. Also, a growler came. Ba dum tish.

M: This is chewy and has a nice coating that breaks up malty buds and watches Groundhog Day with you. You get a huge candy presence and a decadent It is thick and roughs up your palate just enough so you know you need to come up with that money. I still think about this beer, is it Winter yet? I hope I still have hookups in Kansas. I crushed this growler like Bruce Banner.

D: See my previous statement and complete lack of restraint. We are talking about a fucking huge barleywine and I drilled the equivalent of 3 bombers while getting lit up by 12 year olds on Xbox live. While they have to rub one out to Mila Kunis, I get to mash on huge amazing barleywines. The world order is restored. I want to tell you not to get this beer so that there is more for me the next time it is on draft, but many of you are mouthbreathers without Fedex accounts so I will say this: this sits in my top 5 top barleywines. Think about that shit.

Killing a growler of this will erase all signs of bother.

Narrative: Old Jim Backus listened to Iron Maiden and operated a C&C Corrugated Iron Punchpress for a living. For 12 hours a day he would drill steel and eat Hungryman dinners for lunch. We are talking about over a pound of food, as indicated on the packaging. James Backus once had a supervisor who disapproved of him dipping and smoking at the same time on the worksite, 3 days later, that supervisor joined the Coast Guard. No one could figure out why. Jim never said much but he always ate a huge Abba Zabba with his lunch and far be it for his co-workers to question Jim’s actions. He was a hardass but somehow, people knew that he was sweet to the core. One of his hobbies was going to scrapyards and finding items to spot weld into playground equipment for disadvantaged children. Sure they often cut themselves on the jagged aluminum edges, but Jim wouldn’t have any pussy children horsing around on his iron sculptures of punitive diversion. Old Backus was a bad ass, just dont ask for a piece of his Abba Zabba.