Monthly Archives: August 2012

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De Struise Five Squared, 130 euro bottle + 25% abv = Gucci Mane

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Well let’s give a little background to those who missed the boat on this elusive, massive beast of a beer. De Struise took their Quad X and ice distilled it several times until it was 25% alcohol by volume. They made 240 of these, I understand that 216 of them were released to the public at the Alvinne Beer Festival to benefit a brewery expansion. This bottle was 130 euros and still had to be shipped from Belgium so, here we are. It finally ended its journey up in Kernville with Kyle and Eric from Kern River Brewing. What a life it led.

I usually hate on small pours from other janky beer blogs, at 25% abv, my 8oz pour was plenty.

De Struise Brouwers
Belgium
Belgian Strong Pale Ale | 25.00% ABV

A: First I have to say this bottle took the wax game to a whole new level. There were about 5-6 layers of what can only be described as Crayola wax. After that wax shattered everywhere and made a huge mess I got the cap off to find a CORK as well. The old Cantillon/Fantome Belgian trick keeping things gully. So the onlookers at Kern River thought I was a huge prick for bringing this elaborate beer to a Citra release, but I got it open. It was actually carbed pretty nicely for the body with gentle microbubbles and this huge sheeting of alcohol that looked like clear solvent that left relentless clear curtains on the glass. The beer was ruby to amber in hue with a lightly hazy aspect to it. Very pretty, all in all.

Ice distilled? 25%? 200 American dollars? Let’s do this shit. I doesn’t afraid of anything.

S: The smell at low temperatures was turbinado sugars and some dark fruits but as it opened up it exuded this delicious boozy tiramisu, toasted marshmellow, caramel, butterscotch, and sweet brandy aspect to it. The whole affair felt like if Scrooge McDuck had a sweets cellar that you got to rifle through. Super decadent and over the top. The type of thing a 4th grader enjoys just before being tossed in an Econoline van.

T: While cold, this beer is pretty tame with some light toffee and aspects of red grape and plums, but when this beer neared room temperature the throttle was torn open and this went NoS foggers pretty quickly. There is a huge aspect of red grape, butterscotch, molasses, caramel, and figs. This is an incredibly complex beer that just lingers and provides a boozy warmth on the finish. All present were amazed that it was 25% alcohol, so if you were an eccentric millionaire, you could play some hilarious pranks on your friends with a few bottles of this.

This beer is strange, unforgettable, and you sure as shit will have a hell of a story to tell if you live through the experience.

M: This is the heaviest, stickiest, most coating I have ever experienced. This is not like Hunaphu’s where you go “wow that’s chewy” and swallow, I mean your teeth are coated in this sticky decadence. They don’t know what to do. It’s like melted caramel that lingers on and on with a boozy warmth. It is incredible and the perfect beer to share for when you finish Skyrim, kiss your first real girl, you know, epic moments.

D: This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but how drinkable do you think that an intensely heavy, 25% abv beer is? You aren’t exactly ordering a pint of this and tossing darts. This is more of the type of beer you watch while watching Millionaire Matchmaker so you can just black out everything you are taking in. I guess you CAN drink a lot of this, if you have the time. This is delicious and could be savored like a delicious brandy or fine bourbon, but most people aren’t drinking 16oz of neat bourbon and playing shuffleboard, at least not outside of Kentucky. I am not here to tell you how to live your life.

Hey bro, try this Belgian Pale Ale, it is 25% abv. Wait wat-

Narrative: Karl Venderberg lumbered slowly through the cafeteria wiping the sweat from his brow, despite the fact that it was a cool 47 degrees outside. “Hey Karl! You big Belgian teddybear!” Kandyss Lamont called to him and gave him a loving hug, attempting to get her arms over the sheets of alabaster folds that were his shoulders. “Herghhh KERNDESSS, I got, you this….flow….flowerrrr” he exhaled roughly and produced a crumpled lilac from his wet pocket. “OH I SAY KARL, you are the sweetest person with a thyroid problem that I HAVE EVER MET!” She kissed the uneven terrain of his skin and he smelled the Dr. Pepper lipgloss and immediately craved a Mr. Pibb. “I do not fucking get it” Chase Marks, local waterpolo all-pro, semi-regional champion quipped, “look at him, he is fat as fuck. I do not buy this Thyroid Problem, look he is eating a sandwich with brownies as bread and dipping it in tartar sauce. WHAT! Come on, now he is giving Kaelynn a mix CD he made?!” Karl wheezed and looked at Kaelynn’s impeccable bilateral bicuspids and azure blue eyes. He was the sweetest, most morbidly obese, most decadent student at Struise High School, and the ladies flocked to him. The thyroid problem was bullshit, but he got mad messages written in dust on his sick ride by the the stacked dimes at SHS.

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Coors Brewing Blue Moon Belgian White, Because Your Stepdad Isn’t Watching the Kardashians Sober

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You knew it would come to this. We have been slaying wales and enjoying our time in the sun, but now the time for around fucking has long since elapsed: it is time to confront the Blue Corn Moon. I am going to show you assholes how to paint with all colors of the wind in today’s review:

Apologies to Shaun Hill for the misuse of the glassware, we are slaying wales today.

Coors Brewing Company
Colorado, United States
Witbier | 5.40% ABV

A: This has a hazy orange aspect to it and frothy cloud of mediocrity that dances playfully so as to say, “don’t worry, having a second kid isn’t the end of the world.” A panacea for pedestrian problems. The lacing is insubstantial but it looks the part of a summer beer, something you can drink when you are 14 years old and you can’t really fuck the world up that badly yet.

If you wanna be the best damn beer served at a Prince concert, BE THAT SHIT.

S: The smell is kinda like that girl who you always cheated off of in Algebra, standard, but forgetable. It has some light biscuit qualities, pale malt, a light orange zest, and a lil bit of coriander on the backend but I am talking like 1 molar unit. This is all irrelevant though because you will probably be drinking this out of a plastic cup with half an orange dunked in it anyway, looking out over the shitty waterpark, wondering how your life ended up this way.

T: This has a mediocre biscuit and conrbread quality with an emphasis on hackneyed wheat execution. In the realm of witbeers, this would be somewhere inbetween a Chevy Aveo and a Daewoo Lanos. It will get you to your middle management job at Golden Corral, but no one is going to be turning their heads in stern reverence of your chunk of orange sitting on the rim of your 22oz glass. It tastes like it smells with a watery wheat profile, some orange notes that seem almost synthetically added there via the beer equivalent of photoshop.

Dude you have a Blue Moon, what?

M: This is watery with some mild foamy expansive corn and biscuit maltiness. You get the traditional pale aspects and some light drying from the orange. Describing this is like using an electron microscope on a loaf of bread because extrapolating the nuances from something this simple seems to belabor the point. You have probably had this beer a million times before at Applebees, why the fuck am I even reviewing this?

D: This is exceptionally drinkable and it will be the taste you remember when you are booked for public intoxication. The type of people who drink this don’t read my site and the type of people who brew this go home from their factory jobs and watch Storage Wars, but, it IS drinkable. Water is also drinkable on a long hike, but it doesn’t have biscuits and orange rind floating around in it. This beer will get the job done at a Sugarland concert if the venerable Shocktop isn’t available. At a certain point I just look at the prospect of getting a mild buzz from this and think of the 150 calories wasted in the transaction.

After 9 of these at a Pony convention, you will never drink (this beer) again.

Narrative: Life at the Sunkist packing line wasn’t how Jacob Killigan saw his life culminating. He was in charge of 31 people and his regional director said that his efficiency yields were exemplary. He even had various certificates printed from a bubblejet printer lining the walls of his modest cubicle evidencing how qualified his fruit harvesting efforts were. Still, he would come home at night to his Birmingham home and look at the Billy Bass on the wall and pop open a Red Stripe and wonder how it all came to this. In high school he played noseguard and people loved his S10. Oh how those slackjawed Alabamian women, so ripe with indiscretions swooned when he hit the bags. THE BAGS. He exhaled and tossed the cap across the room into his Kansas City Chiefs trashcan and turned the TV on. He took a deep sip and felt an existential crisis on an uneducated level, there had to be more out there than re-runs of Celebrity Apprentice, but what? He would toe the cusp of greatness at the Sunkist factory, until he meets a biscuit mouthed Denny’s waitress who has just started a jewelry business on Pintrest. True love.

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TWO TRILL REVIEWS FOR THE PRICE ($0.00) OF ONE: Grand Teton Pursuit of Hoppiness & Bruery Berazzled

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Grand Teton pursuit of hoppiness imperial red 8.1 abv

A: This beer is amber with reddish blood orange hues in the center, medium lacing, and a solid amount of middle carbonation.

S: The smell gives off sour notes from the hops almost akin to a bitter cherry, it doesn’t seem herbal it’s like a tart raspberry/citrus note to it.

T There is a mild tart front with a big hoppy herbal backend like biting into a black cherry with a herbal center, and WE HAVE ALL BEEN THROUGH THAT. The fruit notes lead you back to their dorm room but then you see the blacklight posters and hear the Cypress Hill mp3s playing and you know, the herbal is the underlying aspect.

M the mouthfeel is a bit thin for the style but still good overall. It gives it solid versatility in hot weather, very drinkable and it comes off like a solid into beer for people who have an aversion to all out double ipa’s but would tolerate something a bit sweeter. Poseidon pulls some tricks and a trojan horse maneuver leverages your tongue to take big glups of what turns out to be a bitter beer.

D: This is tough to just because this is where the balance is a bit subjective; because if the hops and mild tartness is cloying you likely won’t be on board for many of these. However if you enjoy the borderline lambic meets ipa feel is something you are into, you’ll be reaching for more. This doesn’t come off like most imperial reds, it has an interesting character to it and it should be allowed to reach into the prize chest. Oh, spider ring, yeah the prize chest is pretty much all spider rings.

Show up at the store, find this interesting offering.

Bruery Berazzled Sour

A: It is amber with light pink hues at the edges. It appears tame enough, similar to Madame Rose or the like, but with this crackly disposition that is like a sassy ruby housemaid that quips at the head of the household with juicy aplomb.

S:: There is a raspberry tartness with an incredibly drying wine profile. The nostrils recoil at these scorched earth scents. The lactic and acidic vinegar is a solid foreshadowing of the acid bath your taste buds are going to be subjected to.

T: Holy hell. This is an incredibly tart sour that presents an incredible acrimonious punch. If you thought that the Framboise de Amarosa was over the top, this feels like it was made in a lab. The bitter tartness is incredible and it makes me flinch and the drying is relentless. I feel like I am being hazed into the Gueuze Delta Wild house.

M: The mouthfeel is very thin and tingly all over. Again it is at its core just super drying and angry. The funk mixes with the heat and tastes almost like reduced sour skittles. The tannins and Brett give it a strange incredibly acidic character that is tough to get down initially, but as it warms it becomes more fruit forward and pleasant.

D: Again it is all spikes and sharp skins all over. It is an understatement to say that this is tough to put down for the novice beer drinker. I love most every Bruery endeavor but this seems to be bordering on a punitive mad science project enacted by the bicamerial legislation of the house of Sour Ropes and Lemonhead Senate. I can’t support this kind of chicanery beyond an example of pure madness.

It is an interesting spin on a nonstandard offering.