Yearly Archives: 2012

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Congratulations: You Muled. Why Should the Rest of Us Give a Shit?

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Another installment in my continuing study of pics that beer nerds love to post brings us to this topic: Showing Off Hauls of Muled Beer.

I am not talking about taking a pic of a bunch of unopened beers you received, that is a different topic altogether. What I am discussing is when you mule a ton of bottles of someone and post a picture of a bunch of bottles that belong to other people, some shit like this:

:Hay guize, I has a car and other people put my name on list. Look at my temporary possessions.”

My favorite part of these pics is usually the humblebrag caption which is usually hyperbolic and misleading:

“32 bottles of Black Tooz to the Dome, NO BIG DEAL”
“Oh nothing to see here JUST 5 CASES OF BEATIFICATION #regularfriday”
“45 bottles of Bourbon County Vanilla, I am not circumsized.”

Shit like that. The first thing that occurs is 1) haters proceed to hate, as they are wont to do. The first wave of this is people citing your picture as to how easy the beer was to get. Then phase two is a series of people thinking that bottles of Citra are just spilling off the shelves by the case and that Black Note is some shitty shelfturd (it sat on a shelf for 3 days, FUCK THAT.)

The funniest part of this is that the majority of the bottles in the pic aren’t even usually the property of the person posting it, but that fact is always carefully omitted with some oblique gerund phrase like “running the game like a baws!”

I vote that all subsequent pics should have a caption of total deprecation like “I picked up other people’s things for them, hopefully this will benefit me in some way.” Straight HUBRIS UP IN THE CUT.

If I have done this in the past, then my prior pictures were all ironic and therefore I am exempt from this shitty criticism, no tagbacks.

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Fat Head’s Head Hunter IPA, Man There is a Pun Here…Somewhere….

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Another single IPA has crept up into the Top 100, so in my most judicious whack a mole procedure, I automatically have to review this and that annoying ass Bodhi IPA from Columbus. One beer at a time. I posted an ISO for this and 3 people straight up offered to send this to me to review, other people offered to send me no joke like 12 bottles for completely reasonable trades. Nice people, those Ohioans. Ohio has much more than just vapid girls that they send to LA to become FIDM students, THEY HAVE AMAZING BEER. Edmund Fitzgerald, Jackie O’s, all kinds of treats. Anyway, let’s see how the midwest fares when it tries its hand at refreshing IPAs. (spoiler: this is a refreshing IPA, jimmies remain unrustled.)

Oh damn, classing up those IPAs on the reg with some stemware. It is like a Trans Am with a navigation system.

Fat Heads Brewery & Saloon
Ohio, United States
American IPA | 7.50% ABV

A: This is dead on for style and presents a dull yellow meets brassy orange glow with foamy carbonation with nice pasteurized bubbles to ensure consistency and that predictable old refreshing character. The lacing is present until the watery sheeting washes it clean. This just looks refresing, like when you fall face down into the marble tub after drinking hard in Vegas, you might be abusing it but it still feels so good.

With so many IPAs out there, it is easy to pick out the irritating ones. This is not one of those.

S: This is not exactly a hop bomb when you open it, but it isn’t exactly tame either. If we are using Alpine Nelson as a single IPA that goes HAM and let’s call Bell’s Two Hearted as a more subtle and deliciously refreshing take on the genre, this is somewhere in between the two. It gives you a light citrus with one fist and then delivers hard with a nice resinous pinch from the other hand. This is truly a nice transamerican representation of the single IPA in execution. Some people drink Bell’s Oracle and think that is the pinnale of hops, others swear by Bad Boy and cut deep and hard into their arms to prove it. This is like a very genuine mediator, crossing party lines (OH SHIT TOPICAL HOP HUMOR).

T: This is a careful bellhop that gently escorts you and carries all of your hop baggage for you. You get a light sweetness at the outset and then a nice blast of orange zest and light aserose is there to support the splishy splashy malts. It is like a Jdate encounter where you aren’t sure if you are going to get violated, but the coffee is good. The finish is consistent and washes away briskly imparting a light honey and sweet lemon note. I hate reviewing beers like this because they are exceptionally well done for what they are seeking, namely refreshment and moderation in execution. It makes my job a shitload harder when I can’t just rage on Mikkeller for 1000 words and call it a day.

Sure this beer may not be beautiful, or perfect, but it makes you feel good. Isn’t that enough?

M: This washes away with a crisp and watery finish that invites the next sip with some light drying from the hop oils but strays far from a tropical fruit or citrus assault. It also doesn’t leave you gasping with heavy handed pine usage. I am a bit surprised that the Imperial version of this is so lowly rated, but I guess if moderation is your selling point and you shave a rainbow swastica in your pubes, you just lost your fanbase.

D: This is exceptionally drinkable and reminds me in a lot of ways of Blind Pig in the way that the entire affair is memorable in how subtle and forgettable it was. Maybe the selling virtue of some beers is how they simply don’t alter anything except your consciousness in a completely benign way. I don’t need to be tossing my couch into the pool when I have to take kids to school at 8 a.m. There’s a time and a place for everything.

When my bottle was empty, I realized that I only had one of these and kicked an asian child in the face. supes tipicals.

Narrative: “Ok, just breathe, they don’t know, smile, nod.” Bruce Lowenstein reassured himself with much trepidation. “Well as you can see, we have the market cornered with the tropical, well, not cornered but ::AHEM:: the sours, they contain the most, uh salt on the outside and, some have said ‘hey, Bruce, where are the new flavors’” This may be recorded as the worst Skittles board meeting to date. At the heart of it all was a single lie. Bruce filed his resume over 9 years ago with the Wrigley Corporation and now he was faced down by 12 dour-faced Japanese investors. “So, the salt, is exactly the need that markets, well specifically the Japanese market, as a uh, compliment to most raw fish dishes.” The rancor of his latent racist comments made them wonder as to his qualifications for serving as Head Chief of Marketing. However, his sweet demeanor made him hard to dislike. His Ritz yellow hair and crisp smile appealed to the Yamazaki investors. “AND THAT IS WHY ACAI AND WASABI SKITTLES WILL SELL!” Somewhere, a resume from 1999 was tucked in a drawer with “Speaking Skills” incongruously listed under “Hobbies.” That Bruce sure was a reassuring son of a bitch, he could help you keep you calm and enthused regardless of how hectic your current situation may be.

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Struise Double Black Stout, 26% abv for those times when Single Blacking Out Isn’t Enough

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As my loyal readers may be aware, this site started with a compulsive desire to talk mad shit on every beer in every top 100 list, I think we are still on course. Aside from that, this beer would pop up at like 99 ever so often and I would have to whack a mole that shit constantly. Ever had Bligh’s Barleywine? I have, because it was in the top 100 for like 43 minutes. It is an amazing barleywine, I just want you to see the fucking troubles I encounter for your amusement. Anyway, this bottle was 70-100 euros and is a direct/less expensive analog to FIVE SQUARED albeit the stout version. So we ice distill the amazing Black Albert down to 26% and then drink it at Alesmith strictly for the lulz. Let’s get it.

Double Blacking out so hard on that 26% monster.

De Struise Brouwers
Belgium
American Double / Imperial Stout | 26.00% ABV

A: For a beer with a staggeringly high abv, this actually was nicely carbed, but the crazy heat and inky thick vicosity strangle the bubbles out of this potation. The sheen is just that, double black. If Huna is an 8 on the darkness scale, this is an absolute black hole, absorbing all photons without mercy. The sheeting is the only thing keeping the staining malts at bay. You bust a sick swirl and watch the khaki darkness coat and then the huge alcohol sheeting comes down wet and clear, putting that pussy in a sarcophagus.

New beer users always obsess over ABV over actual taste, it is the fucking 9GAG of the beer world. Go drink 120 Min and eat my ass, this is big boy beer shit.

S: This goes HAM on all aspects, it goes apeshit with chocolate, deep hot bourbon, cocoa, intense roasted malts, light char, and a nice vanilla and coconut to the backend. I don’t know how they did this. Seriously. After suffering through Tactical Nuclear Penguin, I expected a nightmare from this, but it is incredibly drinkable and reminds me of an…imperial…Black Tuesday. Think about that shit for a moment. I am talking about a “single” format that is 19% abv. This is a full 7% above that. Game recognize game.

T: This will light up your chest like E.T. There is a deep bourbon at the outset with smoky malts to balance it and a deep chocolate finish. After the swallow the real fun begins, since most of this beer is in the residual power that you are going 12 rounds with. While it is in your mouth, it is too viscous and complex to discern elements, but after the swallow you get the emotions in waves, like being dumped on prom. You get a deep caramel and oak from the barrel, the roast lingers for a bit, there’s coconut and vanilla, finally a full 10 seconds later, you lick your teefers and get a butterscotch aspect. Then you look at your glass and realize you have another fucking 13 ounces to deal with.

I roll hard on 240 bottle releases, drop 100 euros on bottles, have them shipped from Belgium; thugging so hard.

M: I shouldn’t have to tell you what this coats like. This has a deeper coating than Trojan Twisted Sensations. You get this deep viscosity in the mouthfeel and upon swallowing you think that the experience is over since the heat from the bourbon and abv seems to burn off the residual sugars in your mouth, then the mendicant vagrants climb out from the cracks, sweet and chocolatey in the dystopian future that is your gumline.

D: I would be remiss to say that this is drinkable, per se. Sure, unless you are Shogokawada, you probably can’t merk a bottle to yourself. No hating on Shogo, I PROBABLY COULD, but then again look at my site, I have some demons going on beyond the ambit of most people lining up Netflix queues. So it would break down like this: you could drink half of this and enjoy it, I could drink a full bottle of this and then write a review like this, Shogokawda could drink a full bottle and then decide that it is time to get to work. And the hierarchy is maintained. Unless you are on a straight Brett Favre level, or on my Aaron Rodgers tip, pool your money like poor bastards and brag about this shit on the Matt Leinart scene, smiley as fuck.

At a certain point you just flex your beer lats, and go bat wing on all the haters. If you read this site, you already powerlevelled so hard.

Narrative: The cabinet of the Killer Instinct creaked with his intense power, sweating at the brow while ironically using Glacius. Sure he was 43 years old. Yes, he had a culdesac. Hell, Janus Milkerson even reeked of 4 Roses bourbon on the regular but no one would deny his ability to chain sick combos. To face him was to cast 2 quarters into the river of Styx, a hopeless endeavor. He was the darkest most hate filled individual in the entire arcade. Most children patronizing the location were doing just that, patronizing the location. To come to a place and spend hard currency on physical machines to imbibe the slow leak of outdated graphics was a strange foreign enterprise. “AH, and from when THINE CAME, thou shalt be returned!” Janus echoed, spitting upon the joystick, scaring the 5th grade opponent. He was the darkest, most hateful participant in the building, but he was strangely calm and poised in his madness. After playing a game with him, children would stand in cool reverence and wonder whether excellence was possible and whether the fleeting reality of shortsighted hedonism was a valid outlet, before exchanging their tickets for spider rings and jolly ranchers.